HTGAA Class 1: Lab Basics + Gel Electrophoresis

​​The official How to Grow Almost Anything Class - taught in conjunction with MIT, learn basic laboratory skills and dive deep on synthetic biology.

​​The purpose of this week’s lab is to get you acquainted with Benchling, restriction enzymes, and gel electrophoresis. Even though the outcome of this week’s lab is purely artistic, running gels on DNA is often used to verify that the DNA you have obtained (either purchased, purified, or constructed) is the DNA you want. If the lengths of DNA fragments seen in the gel don't match your predictions, the DNA sequence is probably not what you desired. (As an aside: the only way to know for sure what sequence you have is to get it sequenced. But because sequencing is much more expensive than running a gel, gel electrophoresis is usually used as a preliminary step).