A truly wonderful summer experience

This summer research experience funded by Center for student innovation had been wonderful and is truly one to keep. Working with various students and lecturers from different department has enable new social network of skills and information sharing to me. One thing for sure, my ASL signing skill has improved a lot and so are my laboratory skills. Thank you all for supporting and encouraging me.

Week 8

This week had been the most busiest week due to the water sampling and phenol analysis. Everyday starting from last week Wednesday i sampled water from various duckweed cultures treatments. These water sample were then analyzed on Monday and Thursday for phenol concentration. All the duckweed full treatment cultures were put to stop based on treatment. Natural organic matter cultures final sampling and biomass was done on Friday, Tannic acid cultures on Saturday and Phenol was done today (Sunday). Water sample collected on these day will also be analyzed for phenol concentration. This is done to observe the changes of phenol concentration in the presence of duckweed. If the phenol concentration decreases, this will mean that duckweed has the potential to purify water from phenol.

Wetland sampling

Wetland is an area where the land is wet at certain period of the year and dry at another. It is also being characterized with the vegetation around the land. Here at RIT, there are several wetlands surrounding the campus, these include both natural and constructed wetlands. As a collaboration project between both the imaging science and environmental science, the Imaging Science teams and the Environmental Science teams did a SpecTIR wetland survey at 55 sites across 2 natural and 2 constructed wetland around RIT. This survey started at 7.30 am this morning and ended at exactly 7.30pm. The wetland survey field work was finished at 4.45pm but then we continued with some sorting out and in lab spectral measurement.

It was an amazing experience and the hard work was worth it.

Week 7 - The full treatment experiment set up

After several meetings and discussions with my mentors, i set up the last experiment which is the full treatment experiment for analyzing Tannic acid, phenol and Natural organic matter effects on duckweed growth and how duckweed affect the amount/concentration of these dissolved organic matter in the water. The experiment was set up on three different days according to treatments and these experiments will run for 10days total.

These are the pictures taken from the growth chamber.

Wednesday Photo session and wetland site set up

Today the aquatic ecology research group members went out to set up permanent sampling sites at a wetland in RIT. We worked from 8am to 10 am moving concrete and lumber to the site to build a steady plot for sampling. Later in the afternoon i had a photo session with Qian and my mentors. I also replenished the Microcystis aeruginosa culture medium and did some acid wash (cleaning the glassware). Tomorrow i will be working at the lab over at the NTID building. Megan and I will be working on the folin analysis for my water samples.

Autoclave machine leaking

The autoclave machine i have been using to make the growth media for my plant cultures was leaking and need to be fixed before i could use it again. So today, i used a smaller autoclave machine that i borrowed from Dr Buckley. It was smaller so less growth media could be autoclaved at once. I'm hoping that the autoclaved machine would be fixed soon or it would be very troublesome.

Random Pictures from the incubator

Figure1: Aquatic plant stock cultures

Figure2: Selenastrum culture

Figure3: Duckweed stockcultures

Figure4: High concentration of Microcystis aeruginosa

Figure5: Cladophora cultures

Duckweed week (Week5)

Results from the pilot experiments series showed that duckweed seems to be able to grow in cultures containing Tannic acid and it also decreased the Tannic acid concentration. Based on this finding, i have been focusing on duckweed cultures the whole week. I also collected new duckweed samples from one of the RIT wetland. Below are the duckweed sample collected (including sample from other sites):

Duckweed 1 from Conesus Lake

Duckweed 2 from RIT wetland sites 2

Duckweed 3 from RIT wetland sites 1
Duckweed 4 from Irondequoit Bay

Species used in week 4-Microcystis aeruginosa

Macro-image of Microcystis aeruginosa

taken from:

http://www.utoledo.edu/as/lec/images/images2/microcystis.jpg

Image viewed under the microscope

Taken from:

http://plantphys.info/organismal/lechtml/images/Microcystis_aeruginosa_2386_2.jpg

Week 4 The week of Microcystis aeruginosa :)

Monday

• Last day/day 5 of duckweed culture phenol experiment.
• Stock-cultures containing Microcystis aeruginosa was checked for contamination and cell counts for use in the next preliminary experiment.

Tuesday

• Microcystis aeruginosa species was tested with media containing tannic acid or phenol. Experiment was set up for both treatment and this preliminary experiment will be ran for 6 days (Day 0 to Day 5)

Wednesday

• Stock-cultures of Selenastrum, Microcystis and duckweed were monitored by changing the growth medium used in the flasks.
• Due to contamination(or possible invasion of other algae species) in the duckweed flask containing "Chu's Medium" (a media used as nutrient for supporting duckweed growth), the duckweeds were dipped in diluted bleach (sodium hypochloride) for few seconds and rinsed with nanopure water to killed all pathogens/other algaes.

Thursday

• Microcystis aeruginosa water samples ( from the preliminary experiment set up on Tuesday) were taken out for phenol analysis. There were 12 flasks of Microcystis aeruginosa.
• Cladophora species stock-cultures were set up in Selenastrum growth medium and Chu's medium.

Friday

• A total of 2 batches of Selenastrum growth media was made and kept in the fridge for next week experiment.
• The duckweed stock-subcultures were replenish with new media and transferred to new flasks. The duckweed need to be transferred into new flask because the original flask might contained high salt concentration and this will disturb the growth of duckweed.

Saturday

• Cell count was done on the Microcystis aeruginosa cultures from flask containing tannic acid and phenol. ( A total of 12 samples were counted)

In short week 4, was the week of Microcystis aeruginosa because mostly i have been monitoring the Microcystis aeruginosa stock-cultures and also performing daily cell count (from Tuesday- Sunday) for the Microcystis aeruginosa tannic acid/ phenol pilot experiment.

This is a link of what Microcystis aeruginosa (blue green algae - a type of cyanobacteria) is

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/bay/hab/microcystis.html

Updates June 23-27

As I mentioned in my presentation weeks ago, i'm using 4 different algae species for studying Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) effects on aquatic plants. Last 3 weeks, i ran pilot experiments on 2 species (duckweed and Selenastrum). On June 24 and June 25, phenol/tannic acid analysis was done on all the water samples collected from my pilot experiments (duckweed and Selenastrum). It was a very long process, it took me two days to ran 51 samples. It was worth it because the results outcomes were interesting. Surprisingly, Tannic Acid have greater effects on aquatic plant than mono phenol which was suppose to be more hazardous.

I also ran another pilot experiment on duckweed using phenol from June 23 to June 28. These water samples has not been analyzed.

This week i'm looking forward to work on my two other species which are Microcystis aeruginosa and Cladophora.

"Some Innovation Thoughts" by Michael Summer

Michael Summer from Cody Gates Venture gave a talk entitle "Some Innovation Thoughts". He mentioned about his background, the company overview and etc. But these points were the one that attract me most.

Innovation Musings:

• Passion
  
• Language of innovation
• Process
• Team
• Solve important problems
• Play in traffic
• Fail early, fail often'
• Prototype
• Live in the world of innovation

Thats all for now :)

Chu's Medium

Chu's medium was made in the lab today. This medium will be used in the Cladophora culture to supply nutrients needed for its growth. The Chu's medium recipe was taken from the University of Texas "UTEX Culture collection of algae" webpage:

http://www.sbs.utexas.edu/utex/mediaDetail.aspx?mediaID=31

The medium contains macro-nutrient and micro-nutrient needed for the growth of xenic culture of Cladophora and Coronastrum and Nostoc.

Definition of some terms used above:

Xenic culture definition: "a culture of parasites grown in association with an unknown microbiota" (medilexicon dictionary website)

Microbiota: "the microscopic flora and fauna of a region" (Meriam Webster online dictionary)

Day 2 of Selenastrum and Duckweed culture tannic acid pilot experiment

(Sunday 6/19/10)

Cell counts were done for the Selenastrum-tannic acid pilot experiment. Observation was also done on the duckweed-tannic acid culture. The duckweed seems to decay in some flasks. Then water samples from each flask (from both Selenastrum and tannic acid) were taken and stored in the freezer for phenol content analysis.

6/18 - 6/19 Lab work

Friday

Pilot experiments for studying the effect of Tannic acid towards duckweed and Selenastrum were done. Microcystis aeruginosa culture growth rate was monitored through cell count.

Saturday

In order to study the effect of tannic acid towards Selenastrum, cell count were done at 3pm (24hours after the experiment set up). Then at 5pm, cell count for microcystis cultures were done. All cell seems to grow healthily.

A good start for Microcystis aeruginosa culture

Microcystis aeruginosa (aslo known as the blue green algae) culture growth media (liquid that feed the microorganisms) was able to be made today. Thanks to my mentor help and advise from Dr Jeff Lodge, we were able to prepare the soil liquid required for the making of the culture growth media.

Pilot experiment for this species will be done after the culture shows healthy growth in the new media.

Wednesday - Selenastrum culture monitoring

Microorganism growth in culture flask can be contaminated with other species or microorganism that are capable of growing in the same growth media. Thus, in order to maintain the quality of my experiment outcome, I did cell count (counting the amount of cells present in each ml of culture media/ in each flask) and looked thoroughly over the culture in each flask for any possible contamination under the microscope. Some alien species seem to appear in 2-3 flasks. These flasks will be check again tomorrow and will be discarded if the contamination appear to be bacteria or other pathogens.

Later in the evening I finished writing my next pilot experiment protocol which is a protocol designed to study the effect of tannic acid towards duckweed. This pilot experiment will be set up by the end of this week.

Week2 Monday and Tuesday, unhappy lab days :(

Monday

There was a changing of plan, i was going to do some phenol analysis, but the phenol analysis procedure or machine setting was not ready for analysis yet. So the phenol analysis for water sample collected from 10 Creek sites around Conesus lake will be done next week hopefully. I did the cell count on all 6 flasks of Selenastrum culture. The number of cells per ml in each flasks were increasing day by day. I also did some minor lab work.

Tuesday

Today was a disastrous day, i couldn't get into the plant culture room because the lock on the door was broken. Frustrated with the broken door, i moved on to the second item in my to do list - "making soil stock solution for my microcystis culture". Unfortunately i was unable to perform the task because the procedure required me to perform a steaming technique with pasteurization that i'm not familiar with. I tried to consult some of the lab technician and lab assistant but they also didn't know how.

Tomorrow, i will try to seek advice from others regarding this matter. The only accomplishment of the day was, i managed to create the second protocol for my pilot experiment 2. I send the file to my mentor who is currently out of town and gotten feedback from her. Earlier in the morning, i made the Vitamin b12 stock culture media and did some milipore filtration to sterile the media. Then later in the evening, i went to the wet lab (where all the living invertebrates and aquatic plant is stored) to sort out the duckweed sample from other unknown aquatic plant and set up two bucket of duckweed with air bubbler.

Week one ( 6/7-6/13)

Week one update (lab activity)

Monday

• Monitoring aquatic plant culture (by making new growth media and changing all the culture media, monitoring the light density in the incubator)
• Pilot experiment planning (Making protocol to study the effect of phenol on Selenastrum culture)--> making your own protocol is quite a challenge! =P

Tuesday

• Pilot experiment started (Selenastrum cultures were grown in flask that contained growth media and phenol solution)

Wednesday

• "Field trip day"-Dr Pagano, Dr Tyler, Megan (She works with Dr Pagano at the NTID department lab) and me, went to creek sites around Conesus lake (all 10 sites were visited to collect water sample for analysis). The weather was bad because it rained all day and we were all wet. It was my first time meeting Megan, and we will be working together this summer for analysis work on water sample.
• We also collected some duckweed (aquatic plant) sample from one of the site.
• Water sample were filtered using milipore filter and stored in the freezer.
• Later that evening at 6pm, i did the cell count on all pilot experiment flasks to monitor Selenastrum growth rate.

Thursday

• Microcystis (blue green algae) culture was set up and placed in the incubator.
• Chu's micronutrient stock solution was made (stock solution for Cladophora (aquatic plant) growth media)
• In order to maintain a healthy stock of aquatic plant culture, all the media for the aquatic plant culture were replenished with new growth media. yeah! now all the aquatic plant cell is happy :).
• Cell count performed on all pilot experiment flasks and water sample were taken out and store in the freezer for future phenol analysis.

Friday

• More Selenastrum growth media was made.
• I also made the Bold 3N medium stock solution for Microcystis culture.
• Then all of us (the freshwater student researchers) had a meeting that afternoon with Dr Tyler to plan our work for the coming 2 weeks.

Saturday

• Since the duckweed culture at the Conesus Lake Creek site were taken from a wetland, i had to change the water and sort out some unwanted sample taken.
• Cell counts were done exactly at 6pm to monitor the growth of the Selenastrum culture (pilot experiment)

Sunday

• Cell count performed on all pilot experiment flasks and water sample were taken out and store in the freezer for future phenol analysis.

Overview of the research

Title : Climate-change enhanced dissolved organic carbon and phenols in natural water and drinking water: sources, effects, and solutions.

Mentor:Dr Christy Tyler & Dr. Todd Pagano

Student: Siti Aishah Abdul Rahman (Aishah)

Collaboration of: College of Science (Aquatic Ecology lab) and NTID department

Figure 1: Sources that cause the increase of Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and the effects of DOC on the environment and human health.

The goal of our interdisciplinary study are to analyze (1) source, (2) effects, and (3) possible solutions to the problem of increasing DOC concentration. Our research team consists of student researchers from NTID and the College of Science under the direction of Drs Pagano and Tyler. My summer project will focus on goals (2) and (3) in relation to aquatic plants. Specifically, i will scrutinize whether aquatic plants are inhibited by or take up and neutralize hazardous DOC compounds such as phenol. This important study will demonstrate whether ecosystems will be harmed by or by way of the plants can create resistance toward hazardous DOC compounds. This resistance ability could make these plants a possible pre-treatment component for drinking water treatment systems.