Question: what sort of experiments do you do? what are they like and what sort of results do you get?

Ozge Ozkaya answered on 15 Jun 2011:

Hello coconut,

I do a lot of different types of experiments. But here are a few: In my current project I was trying to identify new genes from krill. I used a technique called PCR (Polymerase Chain reaction), it is also used in forensics. You extract RNA from your krill then make DNA in a test tube using enzymes. Then you use this DNA to amplify a short fragment. Is this too confusing?

Another thing I do is to make a fruitfly transgenic. Fruitlflies are great genetic models and we work with them in the lab. I put krill genes in the fly (by injecting DNA into the fly egg). Then I measure the fly’s locomotor activity. So you put them in a small glass tube close the end with cotton and you put some food to the other end. You make loads of these and load them into a machine. when the fly crosses the infrared lightbeam in the machine the computer takes a count. You can then see how much a fly moves and make a graph. A normal fly moves a lot at dawn and dusk and sleeps during the day and at night. We want to see what happens to the transgenic fly, if the krill genes can do the same job as the endogenous fly genes….

I hope I not putting you off, it is quite difficult to decribe it without showing you 🙂