Micro-Aero .... Small Air ??

Today in lab we learned how to freeze bacteria to keep it to study or make vaccines later on. We needed to use 500 microliters of solution that was made up of 30% glycerol (150 microliters) and 70% broth (350 mircoliters). We put the glycerol in a microcentrifuge or cryovial tube. Then we added the broth culture. The tube was mixed and placed in a cyrostorage box that was placed in the freezer that was -70 degrees Celsius.
Then we did two different experiments to check if our bacteria needs oxygen or carbon dioxide to grow. First we inoculated a thioglycollate broth with our unknown. We already did this accidentally with the bacteria from the dollar bill the week before.

Our dollar bill bacteria is microaerophilic (which means that it likes small amounts of oxygen).

Then we needed to check for the use of growth with carbon dioxide. We got a petri dish and shared it with Theresa and Lisa (to use less plates and take up less space). The plate was split in half and we each streaked our unknown bacteria and put the plate in a GasPak anaerobic system. This tank decreases oxygen and increases carbon dioxide.

After all the groups got their plates together Dr. Pathakamuri showed us how to operate the system and I happened to record it...