Currently I'm in my final year last semester in food science and nutrition. My final semester is definitely one of the toughest and the most hectic period ever. I have been staying in lab for 7 days a week for the past month to do research work and I'm still far from completion. Fortunately, I found joy in any situation and now I'm enjoying myself and live in the moment because it's just another life experience.
What am I doing for my research?
My research is about creating tiny beads ranging 2mm containing healthy bacteria aka probiotic "which you can find in yogurt or cheese" and study if they can survive with different materials and conditions. Scientifically term would be 'lactic acid bacteria encapsulated beads'.
Can you explain more?
Basically my main objective is to create beads and have it protecting the bacteria during simulated gastrointestinal and freeze drying. By obtaining high count of bacteria, i could understand which material will help the bacteria survivability. Besides that, high count of bacteria will provide health benefits to the host, which is us.
How do I create them?
Let me put it as simple as possible, I dissolve powdery gum at a certain near boiling point temperature in the water, let it cool down and mix bacteria into it and drop it into an induce-gelation chemical solution with syringe-needle and the gum harden into beads. The shape of the harden gum depends on how you drop it into the chemical.
How does a bead look like?
This is how a bead look like under the microscope and that's what basically for my research. Besides forming probiotic beads, I also look into different parameter such as prebiotic "food for probiotic", cryoprotectant and many more.
Is it tough?
I guess it's nothing tough in terms of science but the time is extremely limited and the work is extremely tedious. Hopefully I can meet all the datelines and complete my study design and graduate!
Any future plans after graduating?
I will be finishing my study around July and graduate on Nov. I plan to search for work in Selangor or KL but I'm gonna see how things go.
I guess I may not be updating this blog as frequent as I used to be. I have to set aside my passion and focus on research. Perhaps I'm going to update twice a month if time permits.
Until then, let's pray for the return of MH370 and pray for the government efficiency in dealing it.
Hayden chan
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