Transformation of competent cells

Posted on March 16, 2011 by balintblaszlo

Scientific Background Transformation is the process of introducing foreign DNA (e.g plasmids, BAC) into a bacterium. Bacterial cells into which foreign DNA can be transformed are called competent. Some bacteria are naturally competent (e.g B. subtilis), whereas others such as E. coli are not naturally competent. Non-competent cells can be made competent and then transformed [...]

Filed under: DNA, GFP, molecular biology, plasmid, Resources, Restriction Enzyme, transformation | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Sizes in Biology

Posted on June 30, 2010 by balintblaszlo

Dear colleagues, An excellent tool is available to get a feeling about molecular sizes in Biology. The tool is available here and was developped by “Learn Genetics” program from the University of Utah. You can have a short movie on it below, but please check the original one from here!!!

Filed under: animation, cell, Cool stuff, DNA, molecular biology | Tagged: , , , , , , | Comments Off

Designing a gene or “Gene design”

Posted on June 8, 2010 by balintblaszlo

On this tutorial you can see an easy way to design oligos for gene synthesis, or in other words Gene design. The description is based on the Instructional Videos from the iGEM website! Gene design in less than 10 minutes! Good luck!!! Some usefull tools: 1. Gene design web page 2. Tools at DNA20 3. [...]

Filed under: animation, DNA, Gene design, iGEM, Polymerase Chain Reaction, Resources, Restriction Enzyme | Tagged: , , , , , , | Comments Off

QPCR oligo design

Posted on May 19, 2009 by balintblaszlo

Designing QPCR oligos might seem complicated but there are some rules and softwares that can make it easy. In our lab, majority of data points we generate are probably measured by QPCR, so I think  it is worth to review an algorithm for desiging QPCR assays. So, today I will describe the way I design QPCR oligos. You can have [...]

Filed under: DNA, PCR, Polymerase Chain Reaction | Tagged: , , , , , , | Comments Off

PCR or the Polymerase Chain Reaction

Posted on April 12, 2009 by balintblaszlo

When I first heard about the Polymerase Chain Reaction my first association was with the atomic bomb chain reaction. You know probably from your studies: the labile Uranium if receives a neutron it transformed to a stable Uranium isotope while several new neutrons are released. If these newly release neutrons meet novel labile Uranium atoms [...]

Filed under: animation, DNA, molecular biology, PCR, plasmid, Polymerase, Polymerase Chain Reaction, Replication, Taq | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Restriction Enzyme Resources

Posted on April 6, 2009 by balintblaszlo

Dear Colleagues, Sometimes it is good to have links that cover a topic. This is why I have collected here a bunch of links that might be useful for you in your work. You can have a good description of the methods used in restriction enzyme analysis here: Methodbook.net If you would like to use restriction [...]

Filed under: DNA, plasmid, Resources, Restriction Enzyme, Uncategorized | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Hunting Viruses

Posted on March 30, 2009 by balintblaszlo

If it comes to speak about the future possibilities of molecular biology, it is worth keeping an eye on the medical applications. And if you think about the most peculiar infection agents you should for sure think of viruses also. What is a virus? Of course we all know what a virus might cause to us, [...]

Filed under: cell culture, DNA, molecular biology, RNA, virus | 2 Comments »

Restriction Enzymes

Posted on March 15, 2009 by balintblaszlo

Restriction enzymes are used to cut plasmids. We have tackled the plasmids in the previous lecture. You can have a full description about the restriction enzymes here. As a most basic introduction I would say that restriction enzymes are enzymes of the bacteria representing a kind of immune function of the bacteria. They are present [...]

Filed under: DNA, molecular biology, plasmid, transfection, Water | Tagged: , , , | Comments Off

Green Fluorescent Protein or GFP

Posted on March 7, 2009 by balintblaszlo

Green lights in the dark When someone first shows up in our lab, the prime goal I set up for him or her is to make “green cells” - I mean to introduce a Green Fluorescent Protein into a mammalian cell culture. In order to be able to perform this one has to know some basic molecular [...]

Filed under: animation, cell, DNA, GFP, molecular biology, plasmid, RNA, transfection | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

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