Culturing Yeast for Independent Science Experiments

Thanks to David Jordan at Living Physics for the supervision and materials. All mistakes made are solely mine.

I want to test how much UV is required to kill baker’s yeast. If I blast yeast with UV at a certain dose, I want to be able to predict how many cells die.

The first step was to get a solution of yeast cells at a concentration level that is usable in experiments. I needed to get a concentration that was dilute enough so I could count the individual colonies by eye. To do this, I tried to culture baker’s yeast in agar plates in different concentrations with a serial dilution method.

I describe my attempt in the video below!

I now need to wait a couple of days to see how this shakes out. I’m really grateful to be doing this because I’m also learning how to do a wider range of experiments in my house. Stay tuned!