Proposals

Abstract

Western blotting is one of the most common molecular biology and biochemistry procedures used to detect and analyze a protein of interest in biological samples. Although all undergraduate students who study biological science, including medicine, veterinary science, agriculture, and marine biology, should be familiar with it, the complex and time-consuming nature of the western blot has prevented them from utilizing it to produce data. JESS is an automated, high-throughput, quantitative, capillary-based, next-generation western blot system that is easy to learn and much more efficient for producing data. We propose to install JESS in a laboratory within the University of Washington (UW) South Lake Union (SLU) campus. The proposed location of JESS on the UW SLU campus is not a barrier to student access to the technology. First, the SLU campus can be easily accessed by the shuttle bus system that operates between the main and SLU campus from 6:30 AM to 7:00 PM every weekday. The ride takes approximately 15–20 min. Second, the Institute for Protein Design, which currently houses the one and only JESS at the UW, is a nationally renowned, research-focused institute and, although it is located on the main campus, does not provide students with easy access. One of the students from the lab emailed the IPD inquiring about the use of the equipment but has not received a reply for 7 days and as of the time of writing. In contrast, the SLU campus has traditionally allowed students to actively participate in its research activities.

Access

Once users successfully complete the 1 hour hands-on training in person, they will be given access to the Google calendar through which they can reserve the use of the system. Each session will be 4 hours, with two slots per day: 8:00 AM–12:00 PM and 1:00 PM–5:00 PM.