Week One

My first attempt at streaking

My first day in the laboratory was spent in the microbiology lab. This is where tests are done to identify bacteria from swabs and other types of samples. I learned that streaking is not just something done by miscreants at rugby games! Streaking is a technique where samples are put onto agar dishes and the concentration of the bacteria is reduced over the dish so that individual colonies can be identified. If you just apply the swab directly onto the agar, so much grows that it is impossible to separate different types of bacteria. To streak, you inoculate (apply) one third of the agar with the original swab. Then you use a sterile metal loop and swipe it through the inoculated agar a few times and then onto the clean agar. You do this 3 times so that you are getting less and less of the original bacteria. It's actually pretty tricky, but I managed to get some good plates which had individual colonies on them.