David Esteban

David Esteban

Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY

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Published on Nov 04, 2016

DNA Sequence Data is Coming in!

The data is starting to pour in!  We sent our samples of viral DNA for sequencing earlier this fall, and after some waiting our samples have finally been sequenced!  We used a DNA sequencing techno...

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Published on Jun 16, 2016

Time to say goodbye to Maggie!

Maggie has been a central member of the team, from her work getting crowdfunding to her efforts in the lab.  But Maggie has graduated and moved on to a new and exciting position at the National Hum...

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Published on Sep 14, 2015

THE WORK BEGINS!

Summer in the lab has been pretty quiet. Maggie had a summer internship in Paris at the Institut Pasteur studying the mosquitos that carry Dengue virus. Now that the Fall semester has started, wor...

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Published on May 24, 2015

We're Funded!

The campaign is over and it's a success! Thanks to the support of 65 backers, we reached our goal, and we will be able to explore the viral diversity of this fascinating microbial ecosystem, the W...

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Published on May 21, 2015

Time is running out! Help us go viral!

We have reached 80% of our funding goal and are getting close to the deadline!We have Tweeted: https://twitter.com/daesteban1We have Reddited: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36mw0z/i_am_...W...

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Reply to:Charlotte MayCharlotte May
No its not biohazardous. You can put it in the regular trash or scrape it back out and return it to the source.
Reply to:Kathryn JonesKathryn Jones
Hi Kathryn. Good questions. If I chloroform extract before filtration, I'd get mixed cellular and viral DNA. There would be so much cellular DNA that upon sequencing only a very small percentage would be the viral sequences that we want. Filtation will remove the cells leaving only viruses. The...more
Thanks! I recently got a new camera with a macro lens through the college's technology fund. I've been very happy with the detail I can get with it and I can see things that I cant resolve just by eye. It also makes a good record of each column.
My plan is to extract virus from 200g samples, so thats one sample from the top and one from the bottom, per column. We have three columns.
I saw Maggie and the rest of the Barefoot Monkeys perform their fire show on saturday. An amazing show with juggling torches, flaming hula-hoops, and acrobatics!