I’m an Industrial Biotechnology student at the University of Puerto Rico- Mayagüez Campus (UPRM) and member of the Bio-Minds program. My interests reside mostly, as my major might suggest, in doing science, especially in molecular biology and microbiology, as well as some biochemistry. My plans after completing my undergraduate studies is to pursue graduate studies in either of the areas mentioned above., which is why I am sure that the Bio-Minds program will help me refine and gain some more insight of what is research, how to organize and experiment and develop critical thinking about a project’s approach. I’ve been doing research in the Microbial Biotechnology and Bioprospecting Laboratory at UPRM under the mentorship of Dr. Carlos Ríos-Velázquez. My research project’s main goals are to develop an agar degradation system in a physiologically versatile bacterium. For this, I will use agarolytic bacteria isolated in Puerto Rico, as well as a bacteriophage that has shown to be specific to Rhodobacter sphaeroides, a Gram negative bacterium member of the PNSB. The reason I chose this project was that viruses and bacteria have always caught my attention, and having the opportunity of working with both was just perfect for me, so I went for it. So far, the lab experience has been great. I couldn’t be more happy to work in a lab where we are all like a family and where people are willing to be helpful at all times. I have also learned to work independently, as well as in teams and I attend lab meetings and journal clubs to, as Dr. Ríos might say, “do science”. For this semester, our short term goals are to isolate the bacterial strain capable of agarolytic activity, characterize it and test the transductional capability of the bacteriophage in order for it to transfer the gene into E. coli. The presence of the gene will be detected by means of molecular techniques, such as PCR, Southern blot and/or activity assays.Hope you will like this blog. Welcome and enjoy!

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