Chapter 39-- Honours Project(Part 1)

Have been working on my honours project at Centro of Biopolis from morning around 9 to evening 5-6pm since the beginning of June and I feel that it is about time to share in my blog what my project is actually all about for those of you who might be interested. Basically, my project involved using biochemistry and molecular biology techniques such as plasmid purification, restriction enzymes digestion, gel electrophoresis, transfection and western blotting to try to increase the quantities of the antibody HerceptinTM in the treatment of breast cancer. It is however quite ironic that despite trying to steer clear of projects involving molecular biology which is not my strength at all, I still ultimately ended up dealing with a project that needs lots of molecular biology knowledge.
Anyway, finally managed to get a small break this week due to one of the reagent which is needed for me to proceed being used up and therefore have to wait for the new stock to arrive before I can continue. This however provide me with an opportunity for me to reflect upon and review what I have done since the beginning and man I must say that I am actually quite impressed with my progression as I am almost half way through my project after spending just 1 month plus on it. Of course, the more difficult and time consuming parts of the project will only began when I started on my transfection because there is when I may need to keep trying in order to obtain favourable results. Nevertheless, it is still quite heartening to know that I am proceeding quite smoothly till now. Actually, the reason why I chose to do honours is of course to give myself a chance to experience and gauge if I am suited for research works so that I will not regret getting a research related job when I graduated. I believe that if I am poised to enter pharmaceutical companies in future, one should be armed with good lab techniques and therefore I would like to make use of my honours project to learn as much lab techniques as possible. Hopefully, the skills and techniques learned will benefit me if I did enter the field of research.
Well, will update on my project progression periodically till this “baby” of mine is born next march. Do look out for the next update!

Regards,
Yongster

Still many more good years ahead...