Students explore DNA manipulation
DNA Manipulation Workshop for VCE Biology
Recently the Year 12 VCE Biology classes journeyed to KIOSC (Knox Innovation Opportunity and Sustainability Centre) to undertake a workshop exploring the tools and techniques that are used to manipulate DNA. As part of the workshop students got to undertake enzyme digestions, gel electrophoresis and bacterial transformations.
The focus of the workshop was to take the human gene for insulin and successfully integrate the gene into a bacterial cell. If successful, the bacteria would produce insulin which could then be extracted for the treatment of diabetes. A fluorescent gene was attached to the insulin gene, so that if the bacteria had integrated into the gene, it could be easily identified as it would show as fluoresce green under UV light.
The workshop gave our students the opportunity to deepen their learning of VCE Biology Unit 3.
