Today, we learned how to make LB agar plates, which will be essential for growing bacteria. The plates were made with the antibiotics of ampicillin and kanamycin added in order to have selective growth when plasmids are inserted. Since plasmids typically carry an antibiotic resistance gene in addition to the desired gene, it is possible to select for only the bacteria with the plasmid to grow. To sterilize the agar, it was autoclaved and we learned how to autoclave both agar and LB broth. The plates will be stored in a cold room set at 4°C and more plates will be made throughout the summer as needed and as the plates dry out. In the future, we also plan on making plates with dual-antibiotics like ampicillin and kanamycin combined or ampicillin and chloramphenicol. These antibiotics were chosen because they are standards used by the Parts Registry. With the Registry parts, they are typically sent with these three or a tetracycline resistance gene inserted into the plasmids. We also continued to read scientific journals pertaining to the topics that were decided on yesterday. We will continue to research on them for the next week or so in order to find what kind of projects are feasible to complete within a 4 month time frame. We also want to find a project that is original and is not overdone in the scientific community. Another project proposition has been added as well.

• Making bacteria that can release a compound breaking down bitumen
• Making a product that can break down oils from long chain hydrocarbons into shortened ones from 8-15 carbons long.