• Question: hi again :) what pieces of equipment do you use in your research?

    Asked by rachelmcguinness to Amy on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Amy MacQueen

      Amy MacQueen answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi rachel!!

      I love your questions (heart heart heart them!!) 🙂
      I use a lot of equipment…let me see yesterday I was using a special radioactivity lab because I was working with radiation, I also used a thing called a centrifuge to spin some tubes at very high G-force and a heat block to heat DNA up to 100oC! I was also growing bacteria in culture flasks in a shaking incubator with antibitotics and using a computer to answer some of the questions you guys have been sending! But I use lots of other stuff too – anything in particular you would like to know about? 🙂

Comments

  • Photo: rachelmcguinness

    rachelmcguinness commented on :

    Thank you Amy 🙂 I love your answers, they are really detailed. Why do you have to heat the DNA so high?

  • Photo: Amy

    Amy commented on :

    Hey Rachel,

    You want the DNA to “denature” – i.e. the strands to pull apart from each other. This only happens at high temperatures (higher than protein denaturing). I was using the DNA as a probe to “catch” other DNA in the experiment …basically I wanted just one strand of the DNA so that it would stick to other ones that matched it – sort of like velcro! 🙂