Australia's Science Forum

Hello everyone

does anyone do electrophoresis?
is there an alternative -loking at the price of gear , chemcials and all that - but thought there could be an alternative or a cheaper way of doing this and if there is the people of the Chemtalk community are bound to know.

Hi,
We tried this last year with an old Carolina kit. It was most unsuccessful. Everything was too old. However, I do have to other methods that I would be very happy to fax to you. I haven't tried either of them but they may be worth a look!!

Lorrae

We use the carolina kits which i think come from southern biological. They are getting old but still worked ok. I'll be buying some replacement chemicals for next year though I think. It might be a significant initial set up cost but i think it lasts for quite some time.

Hi dolphin scales - we are currently collecting butter dishes, and batteries for electrophoresis the cheap way. I have a copy of the prac which i was going to attach but my computer is being obnoxious today. I am fairly sure there is a proceduce on the following website _www.brightminds.uq.edu.au - if not give me a whistle and i will send it to you.

good luck.
Kim

thanks Kim - foudn the site and the information - looks easy -lol famous last words . Will gie it a go

Cheers

Hi Dolphinscales (Annette)
Did you have a go at this prac? I tried it but it took over an hour to separate the colours from a mixed food colouring sample. I had to make a couple of modifications. I used small petri dishes so the amount of gel was not quite as deep and used a power pack on 12 volts which may not have been enough??
Would love to hear you went with this one.
Cheers
Jen

Hi Jen - - we haven't attempted the butter dish prac yet, but is on the cards for the near future. What sort of gel did you use - normal agar or agarose?? I have been told normal agar will work but will take alot longer - that is why we purchased the agarose (which is dearer) to speed things up.
I was going to try it with both and see.
Kim.

Hi Kim or anyone else,

Can you tell me where you purchased the agarose? Agarose is supposed to be a far more refined form of agar and hence works a lot faster, but the price is probably horrifying...

The speed also depends a lot on the voltage used.

Robbie

Hey Robbie - you are right about the price - from memory we purchased about 50g from biotek for $100. We have been told to salvage every last crumb of agar after the prac and you can reuse. We keep talking about doing the prac but still it hasn't gone ahead. I bet the agarose will be past its use by date when we finally use it. Murphys Law.

Hi All,
I did this prac with bog-standard agar-agar and it worked an absolute treat. I used the 5 batteries and used M&M's as my colour source. Will get the kids to try it for Science Week demo maybe.
Liz

Hi Kim,
yes I just used the standard agar. It took a long time for any separation of colour and it didn't separate very far. We decided to give it a miss as the kids would just say "that's boring!" and i tend to agree.
Jen

Hi
I improvised ours electrophoresis kit using this site


http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/units/biotech/gel/