1. Enzymatic Determination of Creatine Kinase (CK) Activity

2. So… what does that mean?
CK is an enzyme that everyone has in their bodies.
It is mainly located in the heart & skeletal muscles.
Damage to these causes CK to be released into the bloodstream.
Therefore, if you test the blood & find a heightened level of CK, it can be determined that the body has received damage.

3. However…
There is more than one type of CK; therefore, more tests are required.
CK2 comes from the heart while CK3 comes from the muscles.
-More on that from Justin & Kendra.

4. How it’s done
First, you take the CK Reagent (2.4ml; this contains everything needed to react with the CK in the samples).
Then, you add your sample (0.1ml) & mix with the vortex-genie.
Next, you put it into the prepared spectrophotometer & read the absorbance reading provided by the machine at given times.

5. What is a spectrophotometer, & why did we use one?
A spectrophotometer is a device that shines light into a sample & measures how much light was absorbed by the sample.
We used one because the products of the CK & CK Reagent reaction are light absorbent.
Therefore, the samples with more CK will have more products which will absorb more light.

6. What we learned…
How to properly use lab equipment including spectrophotometers, pipettes, pipetters, capillaries, & etc.
What CK is & how it relates to our heart
How to measure CK
How not to get CK Reagent on ourselves