Will begin working in a lab for a semester, and the professor wants me to pick what I want to do (read on)...?

Question

I have two articles to read so I can decide on what I want to do. The problem is that, from the articles, I really can't decipher what I can do. I don't really care that much what it is I'm doing in the lab... I know all of what he does there holds an interest with me (that's how I found/contacted him), but this choosing thing is messing with me. I'd love to do fluorescent/protein tagging, but that's all I know for sure. I need more to it that that... So, I'm looking for someone who I can send these two articles to (I have two links), who can help me come up with ideas. If you think you can help and want to, reply and let me know. I'm guessing that someone who's familiar with it can help me the most (his lab deals with ion channels/transporters, cystic fibrosis conductance gene and epithelial Na channels... mostly ion channels and stuff like that). Thanks!.

PS, please only reply if you can help with the question; I do want to come up with something without his input if possible. :)

Answer 1

You can send me the articles, not the links as I don't have access to the journals (costs $) and I can give you an idea.  Mostly you need to decide if you want to purposely change a gene, what gene, and why.  If you're going to change the gene, you need to identify the active sites - which at this point should be known, and try to change it.  You can do a random approach, or a specific approach and then you can study how it changed the action of the protein - slowed it down, enhanced, stopped it and guess why.  You will use gfp or rfp tagging surely, but I warn you those tags can be cumbersome and you need to think about where they go so that they don't interfere with the action of the protein.....  So many variables, the biggest thing is to figure out what about the genes/proteins/action of the cells interests you the most and then pick it apart.

Answer 2

Use flourescent proteins to track redox reactions regulated by a ligand gated ion channel.  You can test molecules as possible agonists or antagonists using various types of assays.  Or you can track the regulation of a specific gene due to environmental pressures (namely the presence of anything you can think of in the extracellular environment).