Anyone who has purified genomic DNA and tried to PCR a gene out of it will probably be familiar with the notion of diluting it a lot to get your gene out. Being undergrads, we were not. Having spent several intense days fruitlessly increasing the concentration of DNA to frantically try and get The Gene (a gene which we needed…four weeks ago) we went on the long pilgrimage to the interweb forums of sage advice.
Naturally, because it’s so obvious, if you want more product (or any, in our case) you reduce the amount of DNA. It didn’t work. We swallowed our pride and got help from Christine. (She always dresses so well, and seems to like purple. Kudos.) She told us you sometimes need about one part per million to get anything out. Homeopathic molecular biology! Crazy. Armed with this knowledge, we strode back into the lab and began the fight. The PCR machine broke.
We’re taking this all in our stride. This is meant to be the ‘Nothing’s done. Nothing works. It keeps going horrifically wrong. OhmygoshIamsuchafailureeveryonewillhatemebecauseIcan’tbiobrick’ stage. It’s cool. We deal with it. Because otherwise, we would go deranged and Freddie would start living on the doorstep of the innovation centre cafe like a peculiar moneyed tramp while Ryan…continued to be Ryan. In any case, Freddie and I had great success with our first construct. Did I mention? It was, like, sixty bases long? Or forty. Maybe more like two. And we still got them to stick together anyway. We’re amazing, we just need PCR machines to stop conspiring against us. The tossers.
Mary B.
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