practical molecular biology

just before the easter holidays in april, i took a practical molecular biology class.

kathrin, preparing things for gel electrophoresis
 
the result: dna sorted by length (dna-strands of different length move at different speeds)

in a period of 4 days, we did a lot of cool laboratory stuff that i only knew in theory, from books or tv – like replicating dna in vitro, making it visible (using chemicals and ultraviolet light), cutting it with different enzymes, inserting it into bacteria to make even more dna, …
 
everything about it was pretty abstract – we were working with μl (microliters) of substances. that’s the 1000th part of a milliliter! and sometimes, part the objective was to work with tiny pellets we couldn’t even see (“it should be about *there*. make sure you don’t screw it up, or you don’t have anything left to work with!”).
 

[view photos: practical molecular biology]

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