Time to test experimentally your work on the computer!

Your primers were successfully ordered and will be delivered soon. As anticipated during the introduction to the laboratory, the primers will be resuspended in ultrapure water (to a concentration of 100µM) and diluted to obtain a working solution (concentration 10µM) using an automated system that makes the pipetting for us, as long as we pass to it the correct instructions.

As you experimented during the first part of this laboratory experience, being able to translate your practice into a list of actions to be carried out, makes you able to tell a computer to do something for you. You can also instruct the computer to drive a machine to carry out the work for you 😉

So only for this time we will let you run you PCRs by you selves.. next time you’ll be able to ask a robot to assembly them for you! Maybe I’m just joking.. but not that much.. find it out yourselves following this link.

Next week we will start with some practice about PCR and we will also produce our useful data to close a few gaps of the genome. Following this link  (Wetlab protocol) you will find a copy of the laboratory protocol. Have a look at it. You will also find a copy on the lab bench, so no need to print it and bring it to the labs.

Instructions are really detailed even though many of you will have run a PCR before. Nevertheless there are a few advantages:

• provide you with enough instructions to be as more autonomous as possible
• use as much technical vocabulary as possible to help improve you english
• induce you to a correct lab practice