On the Geneticist

Well, boys and girls. Now for an account of what i've been doing at work.

I started in July, and have the official post of Research Assisstant. That means i do the grudge work in the labs. Normally that would've meant things like cleaning test tubes, but i was (am? I hate tenses) lucky. The place i work, the grudge work is what most other people (myself included) would consider cutting edge and sophisticated.

Most of the time i work with bacteria, and their DNA. So far i've cultured bacteria (on both plates and in liquid mediums), and extracted the bacterial DNA (for some reason, when ever i thought of 'DNA extraction', long thin needles came to mind. But its actually nothing like that!). But the MAIN thing i've been doing involves the already extracted DNA.

You see, there are certain parts of the bacteria's DNA whihc are completely unique to that bacteria alone. They can be amplified (as in, from the entire chain of DNA you make many copies of that one unique sequence) using a technique called PCR (polymerase chain reaction). And then the amplified gene (the one unique to that bacteria) can be tested for. This is very useful in identifying a bacterial species.

After running PCR, you can put the DNA sample into this gel, where you do sometnng like chromatography using electricity. Visible bands form on the gel, and from those bands you can tell what the species of the bacteria your playing around with.


So thats what i've been doing so far. Now i'm gonna learn a new thing, to do with protein identification, its called the Western Blot. NOw when i figure out what any of this new stuff means, i'll post it up.


Screw Out.