BIOL368/F11:Class Journal Week 9

Zeb Russo

1. Looking at the structure to function relationship was much more interesting to me than looking at the evolution. Partially I think it was that due to the nature of HIV and its rapid evolution, there was no clear cut path of evolution at least in my opinion, but looking at structure I can see what each part does and where it is.
2. Working with a partner allowed us to divide and conquer instead of having to deal with it all on our own. Worst part is still deciding who does what better and piecing the ppt together.
3. I learned how one needs to almost always redo every test and experiment done to guarantee the results that were obtained.

Zeb Russo 01:16, 1 November 2011 (EDT)

Alex A. Cardenas

1. I thought that studying the structure --> function relationship was more interesting. It was more of a hands on lab/experiment and the varying amino acid sequences along with the different V3 loop conformations was interesting to observe. Although our questions answer was not what we thought it would be, we found out that different V3 amino acid sequences allows for more viral infectivity which was a good result.
2. The best part of working with a partner was coming together and throwing out different ideas about what our experiment question should be. The workload was also cut down and was more manageable. There really wasn't a worst part about working with a partner. This hasn't really changed since the last project, despite the fact that I put down the worst part about working with a partner was that the other person might have known the information he was presenting a little more in depth.

• I have learned that there is always more research you can do, whether that be looking at more paper or simply just running more experiments with online tools.

Alex A. Cardenas 15:33, 1 November 2011 (EDT)

Nicolette S. Harmon

1. I thought studying the structure of HIV was more interesting than HIV evolution. It's not that the evolution project wasn't interesting, I'm just more interested in the aspect of how HIV is functioning in a given time period as opposed to how it's changed over the course of a period of time.
2. The best part about working with a partner is that they have a different perspective on things which comes in handy when you are trying to interpret your results, when you come to a conclusion about your project it's usually well thought out since you have someone to discuss it with. The worst part about working with a partner is trying to get together to meet since you both have different schedules. This hasn't changed since the last project.
3. I have learned that when you get unexpected results it is oftentimes difficult to explain why this is and you have to figure out what your next step in research is going to be or if you're just going to leave it alone and do something else.

Nicolette S. Harmon 19:29, 1 November 2011 (EDT)