Peter Shiner
Fox Chapel Area School District
3732 Saxonburg Blvd
Pittsburgh PA 15238
(412)767-5343(ext. 2065)
Grade 8 - Integrated Science(Chemistry, Genetics, Weather & Climate)
The Fox Chapel Area School District is a progressive suburban school district outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with a student population of 4000 students. Several schools in the Fox Chapel Area School District, including Dorseyville Middle School have received the National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence Award.
I had the opportunity this summer to work in Dr. Brian Cain's laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry. The project I was involved in was "Characterization of the Stalk Region of the F1FO ATP Synthase in E. Coli.". F1FO ATP synthase is imbedded in the cell membrane and is involved in the production of ATP. Dr. Cain is specifically looking at the b subunit of the stalk region, "chopping it shorter" to put it crudely and then using a variety of assays to see how it affects ATP production in vivo. We are genetically engineering the gene(b subunit) responsible for the second stalk region of F1FO. I was involved purely with this beginning phase of engineering the plasmid that would produce a bacteria with the shorter second stalk. To produce this genetically engineered plasmid it was necessary for me to learn a variety of molecular biology techniques. Paul Sorgen, a graduate student in Dr. Cain's lab, walked me through these techniques and explained some of the subtleties involved with each. I learned a great deal this summer including lots of hands on experiences with gel electrophoresis, use of restriction enzymes to cut, fill in and ligate DNA, and cell transformation.