MITOCHONDRIAL DNA BRIEFING

Jan 05th 2012,

I went to the NY State Museum in Albany to get started on my Internship. Unfortunately due to miscommunication Mr. Adams was not expecting me therefore he did not have anything for me to do in the lab. However I did get the chance to finally meet my second Mentor Ms. Urban, she briefed me on what she panned to do next week-Mitochondrial DNA.

She explained the most basic part of the research, the DNA. She went back a far as to the structure of the Eukaryotic cell to make sure I  understood what exactly I will working with. With the very short briefing I found out that the most of all DNA are from the Mitochondria. Ms. Urban also explained to me that they are conducting the research because they already know that Centuries ago what we now know as different species ( Of Moths in this situation) used to be one thing. The Mitochondrial DNA changed and mutated over the years to produce different species; but because the Mitochondrial DNA changes very slowly over time one can still tell which species are related by sequencing the DNA thus the research.

Ms. Urban also showed me a website that contains all the papers ever written about the research I will working on and many others "Genbank.com" she said. She showed me results they got from the research they had done in the past, and what to look for to know whether or not the experiment showed any relation or results.

I couldn't stay long at the Museum because Mr. Adams had to leave early since he was not expecting me. I left an hour earlier than I usually do, but as usual with new very interesting information that makes me even more excited to start collecting the DNA.