Forty two SAR High School AP biology students visited the Dolan DNA Learning Center, in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, where they performed two labs: a restriction analysis and a bacterial transformation.

The restriction analysis lab involved cutting up viral DNA with bacterial enzymes. The students used these two enzymes to cut DNA from a virus called “lambda” and then they separated the fragments using a technique called gel electrophoresis. After the fragments separated on the gels, photographs were taken of the bands of DNA.

In the second experiment the students used small circular strands of DNA called plasmids. Using a technique called transformation, the students inserted the plasmids containing the genes for antibiotic resistances into bacterial cells and those bacteria were then grown on various media. The plates with the bacteria were brought back to school and allowed to grow for two days before the students counted the transformed colonies.

The students were quite successful in performing both experiments. It was great to see students learning to use the instrumentation available at the labs and to learn so much about some of the techniques used in modern biomedical research labs.