• Question: What is a problem that you solved during your most recent project?

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      Asked by MoneyMayweather (TMT) to John, Laura, Luke, Rob, Ruth on 15 Jun 2016.
      • Photo: John Fossey

        John Fossey answered on 15 Jun 2016:

        How to use a chiral copper catalyst to deliver chiral products.

      • Photo: Laura Finney

        Laura Finney answered on 15 Jun 2016:

        i managed to take a molecule that comes directly from and plant and use it. Usually it comes from the plant and then is changed in some way to get to something useful. But this adds time, effort etc to get there which isn’t good and we always try to reduce this and that’s what I managed to do ! Wooo !? ? ?

      • Photo: Luke Williams

        Luke Williams answered on 16 Jun 2016:

        I haven’t done much experimental work for quite some time.

        One example that comes to mind was during the initial stages of my cloning run. One of the initial key steps is called PCR, polymerase chain reaction, which is where you create small sections of DNA, and use them as starting points on the whole genome of (in my case) a bacteria. The point of this is to amplify or produce lots of one gene, the one I wanted.

        My issue was that none of my PCRs were working, I was using various different pieces of starting material, and none of them worked, not at any temperature.

        So I threw everything and the kitchen sink at the problem. I did a full diagnostic PCR, using two of pretty much every chemical, including the water I was using as part of the PCRs. I also used some DNA from the next lab over, something that they knew worked. I also changed the temperatures of pretty much every stage of the reaction.

        Turned out the PCR mix that we had was just getting a touch old and the enzymes involved didn’t particularly like the method I was using, which was to heat to 98 degrees. By reducing the temperature to 95 degrees and moving to a different method, all the PCRs began working again, and I churned out all that I needed. There was no benefit to using any different chemicals, even my water checked out fine. All good!

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