News From the Frontlines

You have to see the view from here for yourself to really believe it, but this might do it justice if you squint and try to see the hopes and dreams of the next generation floating around in the background. This is where I've posted myself over the last weeks, working on a genetics demonstration for a high school in my area. We live in a semi-rural community, so money is tight, but the kids are bright and the teachers are more than willing to give a man who calls himself a "Biohacker" a chance. Insert this biohacker into the mix, and you get a plan to do a human DNA extraction, run a digestion reaction based on the Alu I and Eco R1 repeat sequences, and do an electrophoresis analysis on the products of said digestion. All on a shoe string budget and the charity of the good folks at New England Biolabs, who are good enough to donate any product they sell to high schools in need.

I've told you all of this before, and given a few technical details as well, but the project is finally coming to fruition, and I feel the need to kick back and tell a yarn for a moment.

Today we received the final tool we were waiting for, a micropipette from quasar instruments (cheap but good pipettes). Also, today we ran the second experiment in three days: a simple graduated cylinder extraction of human cDNA (see pictures on a previous post). Previously, the kids had done a banana DNA extraction to get the basic idea of the protocol, this time we introduced swishing to collect cheek cells and papain as a protease. (sorry bout the lack of in action photos, youngins can't sign over their photo rights) By next week we'll be running the full protocol including centrifuges, micropipettes, restriction enzymes and electrophoresis with methylene blue staining.

For me today wasn't just a performance, it was a day of preparing for DNA war, and my main goal was to figure out what percent concentration of agar (that's right, agar, not agarose -though we use TBE, not McGuyver buffers like other protocols) is right for our electrophoresis analysis. Note of experience: don't put 50 mLs of agar mixture in the microwave for 30 seconds, then another 20... It results a panic when you think you ruined the teacher you're working with's meal cooker, only to discover that a previous biology teacher had already done this to the librarian with burnt yeast and caused him to turn over his microwave to the science department for chemical cooking.


In the end, the 1% agar solution won the war and stole my heart, contrary to literature saying 2% was called for.

I know this is a bit of a strange post for me, and that most of you are wondering where the protocols are at. I'll post a very detailed technical writeup once this demonstration is finished (should be next week at the end of the week), until then be satisfied with this picture memoir. I wanted to post the pictures tonight, but wanted to relax and forget about technical details for a minute.
It's back to the lab again tomorrow... I hope you get to learn how fun it is to say that sometime.



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