Antibodies!

Today is our last week in lab, my oh my how the time flew! Today we did antibody testing, which was really cool! 

First we labeled our well. There were 3 positive wells, 3 negative, 3 sample #22 and 3 sample #37. 

 We then proceeded to do the experiment. We first put the purified antigen into each of the wells, and then waited 5 minutes for it to bind to the wells. Then we washed the wells by using a buffer. We then put the positive control in to the three "+" wells, put the negative control into the three "-" wells, put sample "22" into the wells labeled 22, and the sample "37" into the well labeled 37. We then waited 5 minutes. 

We then proceeded to wash the wells again with the buffer. After that we added the secondary antibody to all 12 wells, then waited 5 minutes. We washed the wells two times with the buffer, and then proceeded to add the enzyme substrate to all 12 wells. Our results indicated that the positive and the sample #22 turned blue! This means the secondary antibody is attached to an enzyme (HRP) that chemically changes the enzyme substrate. 

Here's our results!:

We also prepared another experiment today. This one involved a technique that has to do with immunology. We made little wells in the petri dish containing agar. We added one solution to each well. These solutions were Bovine Albumin, Goat Anti-horse Albumin, Goat Anti-Bovine Albumin, and Goat anti-swine Albumin. We then placed our dish in a room temperature incubator. We'll see our results on thursday!