Brains, Stains, and Pains

So this week was filled with good news and bad news. The bad news is that my western blot was not successful, however I did learn a ton from just completing the process. The good news is that I have completed collecting data for this part of my project and I am confident that I can extract the amyloid proteins should I be lucky enough to find a sample that contains them. I read an interesting article pertaining to these specific proteins being present in the brains of sheep. This is super lucky for me due to the abundance of them in  our lab. I have read many articles related to staining proteins and which stains work best. It seems that; crystal violet, Iodine, and comaisse blue seen to be the most popular. I prepared brain samples on slides and used each stain just to see if one was easier to interpret than the others ( and because I was super curious). I liked the crystal violet best but my samples were too thick. A microtome would make this step so much easier but they are pretty expensive (although a lego version is currently under construction thanks to Matt H and Josh).  I need each sample to be no thicker  than 250 nm. Stains have been ordered, so next week promises much fun!