"We're fresh out of AIDS over here"

Yesterday in lab we did too small experiments before we were done for Thanksgiving break. The first was Immunodetection. There were 3 parts to this experiment that were all done on the same petri dish. Before we started the exercises, we used a pipet to create small holes in the agar. For the first exercise, we put green dye in one hole, red dye in the second, Barium Chloride in the third and Potassium Sulfate in the fourth. For the second exercise, we added Bovine Albumin to the first hole, Goat Anti-horse Albumin to the second, Goat Anti-bovine albumin to the third and Goat Anti-swine Albumin to the fourth. The third exercise was similar to the second in that it used Goat Anti-horse Albumin, Goat Anti-bovine Albumin and Goat Anti-swine Albumin in the same holes but it used Hamburger Extract in the first hole.

The second experiment was an ELISA or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay test that detects antibodies in someone's blood. We labeled a 12-well strip with 3 +'s, 3 -'s, 3 number 1's and 3 number 8's. Then we used a pipet to transfer 50 microliters of the purified antigen to all 12 wells, waited 5 minutes then washed the wells with buffer. Then we used another pipet to transfer 50 microliters of the positive control to the +'s, then 50 microliters of the negative control to the -'s, then 50 microliters of number 1 to the 1's and number 8 to the 8's. We waited 5 minutes then washed the wells with buffer. Then we used a pipet to transfer 50 microliters of secondary antibody to all the wells, waited 5 minutes then washed with buffer. Then we transferred 50 microliters of enzyme substrate to all the wells. We waited 5 minutes and then noted that the +'s turned blue along with the 8's meaning they were positive for the antibodies for HIV.