PCR Equipment

We currently have 4 PCR machines.

"Old School" Currently does not work

Biorad with broken lid, that works. Requires mineral oil on samples

Biorad that works ($1.00 score on ebay!)

openPCR Works, looks great, transition times might be slower than Biorad units.

http://openpcr.org/ repo at https://github.com/jperfetto/OpenPCR

openQPCR

repo at https://github.com/chaibio/chaipcr http://www.chaibio.com/openqpcr

PCR machines are essentially tightly controlled thermal cyclers that allow the performance of an enzymatic reaction that can produce millions or billions of copies of relatively short pieces of DNA in a highly specific manner from tiny starting samples

Acquiring a high number of copies allows a number of downstream application.

PCR is used for MANY applications. The lab currently uses it for:

Amplifying specific regions of the genome of insects, plants and fungi for species identification (DNA fingerprinting) Cloning genes from genomic DNA Modifying plasmids and genes to make them do neat things

Future goals: Phenotype analysis for human samples (Disease risk, interesting traits, etc) Microfluidic detection of viral diseases Fun public outreach labs activities (Solve the crime, Maury-who's the daddy?)