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Recombinant DNA For The Home Hobbyist
Dr. Zowie writes: " Scientific American 's "Amateur Scientist" column
this month tells how to amplify and isolate DNA chains in your kitchen, using the
tried-and-true Polymerase Chain Reaction technique.
Use it
for massively parallel computing experiments; to ID friends, pets, and favorite houseplants; or to help eliminate epidemics. But what'll happen when
enterprising teenagers start playing with plasmids and recombinant
DNA?" I love articles that remind you that one of the ingredients it recommends playing with is a nasty mutagen. Interesting that PCR has become so common that all it takes is a hundred dollars and a dark room!
The article neglects to mention that PCR is covered by several patents. For instance, here's the fine print from an advertisement for Clontech's AdvanTaq DNA polymerase:
"Purchase of Advantage PCR reagents is accompanied by a limited license to use them in the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) process for research in conjunction with with a thermal cycler whose use in the automated performance of the PCR process is covered by the up-front license fee, either by payment to Perkin-Elmer or as purchased, i.e., an authorized thermal cycler."
Roche holds most of the relevant patents on PCR, though they recently lost one of them as a result of a long, ugly lawsuit against Promega. For details, see this page at about.com. Perkin-Elmer holds a bunch of patents on machines for performing the thermal cycling step.
Fiddling with PCR in your own home is arguably an "experimental use" (i.e. you just want to see if it works) and therefore permitted under patent law, but don't make any commercial plans to Make DNA Fast.
Naturally, you want your specifications to be written in XML.
Amusingly, microsoft gave someone a bunch of money to develop a machine that reads and writes DNA. The big problem is the eighteen years the body has to sit in the cloning lab...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
My research partner (read wife) and I have been recombining DNA in for years. We even did it in the kitchen once, however, the bedroom is more suited to our techniques. So far the results look promising, but I'll keep you posted if there are any changes.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
For those of you who might actually be compelled to try this at hope, here's a tip to save a little money. Scientific supply companies will frequently provide free samples for disposable equipment, like pipette tips or eppendorf tubes -- and there are a lot of scientific supply companies out there, so lather, rinse, repeat.
I had a (poorly funded) professor who kept her lab going for weeks with freebies. Sometimes she even managed to weasel out some more expensive items, like a free sample of Taq polymerase.
of a study done my several of my friends and I at our lab up in Boulder, Co.
Basically, it was an experiment in the neural synaptic responses produced by the oral ingestion of Delta-9 TetraHyrdaCanabinol via several metalic media heated on an electronic thermal amplifier.
results: when you smoke weed via the "hot knives" method...you get really fucking danked!!
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
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This reminds me of Boris Vian's song, La java des bombes atomiques , which described some amateur tinkerer making atomic bombs in his garage...
(Quick English translation below for the french-impaired)...
La java des bombes atomiques
My uncle, a famous tinkerer
used to make, as an amateur
some atomic bombs
Without ever learning anything
he was a real genius
when it came to practical works
He locked himself all day long
in his workshop
to make his experiments
And in the evening,
he came back home,
and explained it all to us.
To make an A-bombs,
children, believe me,
it's really a piece of cake.
The detonator question
is solved is a quarter hour
it's the one we put aside.
And for the H-bomb,
it's not much harder,
but one thing bothers me,
is that the bombs I make
only have a action radius
of only three meters fifty.
There's something wrong there,
I'm going back right now.
He worked at it for days
trying, with love,
to improve the yield.
When he ate with us,
he wolfed down his soup
We saw to his appearance
that he fell upon a hard part
but we dared not say anyhing.
Then one evening, during the meal,
here he sighs, and starts shouting:
As I'm getting older,
I see better
that my brain is failing
it ain't a brain anymore
it's like béchamel sauce
It's been months and years
I've tried to increase my bomb's
yield, and I never noticed
that the only thing that matters
it's the place where it falls down.
There's something wrong there,
I'm going back right now.
Knowing that success will be close,
all the great heads of state
came to visit him.
He received them and excused him
that his shop was so small.
But as soon as they were all in,
he locked-them up,
telling them be nice!
And when the bomb went off,
of those people nothing remained.
My uncle, in front of the result,
didn't chicken-out
He played the dummy
In front of the court
Before the jury,
he mumbled
Gentlemen, it's a horrible bad luck
But I swear in front of God
That in my soul and conscience
That by destroying those crooks,
I am convinced of having
Served my countryu.
They were embarrased,
So they sentenced him,
then they pardoned him.
And in reward, the country
elected him head of the government.
--
Here's my mirror
Here are also two ways to destroy Ethidium Bromide chemically. One is uses reagents that are harder to get (but does a better job), while the second uses ordinary bleach (but the destruction is less complete).