Week 6 - half of semester one.
The feedback for Critical Review was given this week. I am quite happy of what I got but reading two of my colleagues' work who got the top marks, I could've done better if more effort was put in. I could've asked more people to critique my work as the feedback gotten from the class was just good work written on it. The extra time given could have used to research more articles regarding the topic rather than just sticking to the article found the first time. However, it is a good learning. Besides, it is the first article critical review that I have done. Having the same assessment in other modules, this will be a great benefit to improve a lot more. Overall, I enjoyed reading the article which made me think scientifically. I am not fund of reading but this module helped me to love and see the benefit of exploring outside the box. It does not only enhance your knowledge but also different abilities like scientific and research abilities which are the big areas that can help me with my thesis for the next semester and also a great advantage in going to industry.
In the lecture, Inclusion Bodies were discussed which I did not understand well. But it has both advantages and disadvantages. It's good to have it as it has potential purification advantage. The reason why I probably don't understand it much is maybe I couldn't think of the advantage of it in our cell line as I haven't came across it in reading articles. However, to get a clearer idea about it, I did my little research. I found out that the key to efficient use of inclusion bodies is to know how to solubilize and refold the protein in high yield. Also, the advantage of E.coli as a cell line was discovered as it is inexpensive, facile to work with, it has success rate and it is scalable. However, it has also disadvantages. We are still sticking to our cell line which is the vero cell as we found out that we can get it for free. Thus, we can just spend more on a better bioreactor to get a more purified product.
Reading: Vaccine - Vero Cells
Prior to the workshop, an article was read that used the same cell line as the one in mind which is vero cell. There were a lot of things learned like it is better to use batch fermentation and then continuous and that perfusion bioreactor has also a lot of advantages. As a group we thought about this and also making it our own way, there are some things to be worked on to overcome the challenges the past researchers faced. Barry gave us a lot of idea on how to improve our method more and how to overcome some of the challenges which will be further discussed by the group in the next group meeting. Also, the draft of infographic was shown. Being the one mainly focused on doing the draft, I must say it is not easy. There are a lot of things to consider. It should be informative at the same time work limited. On the brighter side, I am enjoying this as it is again new to us which is a big advantage in enhancing our skills. 
In conclusion, looking back from the day when I was thinking of dropping the module, I am very grateful that I stayed. This module has a lot of surprises. It may require a lot of work and pressure but there are a lot of skills that has been improved half way through the semester. Also, there are new things that I thought would be hard and impossible to do but turned out really well. The group meetings held each week improved a lot of my communication skills (voicing out my opinion and how I communicate to the team) and of course team work. The infographic, critical review and weekly reading of articles is helping me in my scientific thinking, research abilities and also enhancing my imagination.
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