Work experience: an exciting week at MMM!

Over the last week I have had the pleasure of doing work experience here at MMM Labs, this has provided me with an incredible opportunity and skills that will benefit me greatly in the future such as pipetting and plating techniques. Over the course of the week, I have had the chance to talk to multiple members of the team and have had 1 on 1 conversations about their careers and certain topics such as bioinformatics, phylogenetic trees, environmental sampling from sinks and many more. These talks were informative and detailed however, everyone on the team still ensured that I was able to understand what was being explained, providing a supportive working environment. As well as this I gained hands on experience by learning and applying plating techniques in order to grow 8 different environmental samples collected from around the labs onto agar that allows microorganisms to grow, we used 2 types of agar: chromogenic agar (ChromAgar) and Columbia blood agar (CBA). Testing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) also required the correct plating technique, and I found that the bacteria S. Aureus was more susceptible to the antibiotic Penicillin.

I was also able to do some Gram Staining in the microbiology labs to understand the type of bacteria that was present, as cell wall thickness changes treatment plans. I found that of the 2 environmental samples I took with me only 1 out of 6 of the bacteria tested was gram negative, meaning the bacteria cells peptidoglycan wall was thinner so the purple dye could be washed away leaving only the red dye compared to the other 5 samples that were therefore Gram positive as they had turned purple due to the dye being stuck between the thick layers. These colours that dyed the bacterial cells were only visible through a microscope.

Another key skill I learnt, was how to complete a DNA Extraction so that it can be sequenced to understand the genetic code within. Eloise taught me how to correctly use a pipette and showed me different machines such as the vortex, MP Biomedicals FastPrep 24 5G machine, a centrifuge and a magnetic rack (which was used to pellet the beads, by pulling them to the side).

My final lab activity was running a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with Tree, where we were looking to find if the gene aac(3)-Via was present in bacteria X and Y. I was able to complete the 3 steps of denaturation, annealing and extension using the NextGenPCR thermal cycler, providing me with DNA that had been copied. This could then be dyed and loaded into a well on the agarose gel, which was then submerged at 90V for approximately 30 minutes. Using the transilluminator I was able to see if the gene we were testing for was apart of the tested DNA. We found that the gene aac(3)-Via was present for bacteria X but not within bacteria Y.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my week here at MMM labs as I have met so many lovely people and it has helped me understand what microbiology entails. I am intrigued about what continuing microbiology as a course and eventually career would look like.