A GROUP of King’s Ely’s A Level scientists visited the Biochemistry Teaching Lab at the University of Cambridge on December 3rd to gain some hands-on lab experience.
The students extracted DNA from their own cheek cells to carry out the Polymerase Chain Reaction and Electrophoretic Gels experiments on. The session was hosted by Dr S Ball, who manages the teaching lab.
Head of Biology and Teacher of Physics at King’s Ely Senior, Isobel Smyth, said: “Dr Ball runs all of the Biochemistry Labs for first year medics and vets at Cambridge University, as well as the second year Natural Science Labs.
“This gave the students a real insight into a University Lab practical experience. At the end of the session, all the students took away photos of the results of the Electrophoretic Gels showing whether they had Alu repeats in the TPA gene. This particle sequence was selected as it has no links to any diseases. The students all really enjoyed using the different techniques and working in a new lab environment.”