Does anyone else here do genetics?

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Hi

Well, if there are fellow geneticists here I think it'd be good to get a thread going where people can trade PCR tips and stuff.

Do you have any particular PCR tips? I would think the simplest course would be to follow the instructions that come with your lab equipment.

Yea, unless you're working with old/degraded specimens

PCR, Polymerase chain reaction

is this expensive to carry out and what equipment is needed

Im interested in genetics, as a healthcare professional - anyone know how to sequence your own genome

thanks

PCR is (relatively) cheap; gene sequencers are fairly pricy. If you only wish to sequence your own genome, there are several commercial enterprises offering such a service for cheaper (and faster) than the lab equipment required to do it yourself. It is still more expensive than any medical benefits you are likely to get from it will be worth, at least at this stage in our understanding of human genetics.

Well it depends, I mean if you just want to sequence say, the bar-coding region MT-CO1 then it doesn't cost too much (Say $5-10 for DNA extraction PCR and sequencing usually comes to about $12.50 a sample). But for an entire genome I think you would need to use a 454 sequencer and pay a small fortune.

If you wanted to get set up yourself you could buy your own thermo-cycler (but I think that'd cost about 50k), run your own PCR and sequencing PCR (using A.B.S. BIGDYE terminator kit) then pay a lab with a sequencer to do it for you.

But yea, as has been said, unless you are planning on going into some serious research into say genetic diseases (even then 454 would be a better bet of isolating the gene region/ alleles you are looking for), you aren't likely to get much benefit.

not yet, but I am currently implementing the bioinformatic algorithms into the language of my choice, so I'll get more out of my biochemistry and genetic modules

I do have a question related to PCR though; is RT - PCR commonly used? it seems like it would be a very useful technique (I assume it can be applied to mRNA), but I've heard very little about it in either studies, or my lectures.

Genetic algorithms or genetic programming is NOT genetics (which is all about RNA and DNA). Rather it is a cartoon of natural selection.

ruveyn

I'm working with phylogenetic algorithms, and ones to determine sequences from micro-arrays using Euler paths, not the algorithms that mimic natural selection (and are supposedly dubious).