The field of electrophoresis is really where I spend most of my time, which is why I am so excited to be publishing a new book, Electrophoresis: The Science of Separation.
Electrophoresis is a technique for separating molecules based on their different chemical properties. The idea behind electrophoresis is that you have a lot of different molecules that are basically identical and you want to separate them, but based on some characteristic that they share. The most common technique is to put different chemicals on different parts of your gel and let them separate based on their molecular weight.
It’s not a new technique.
Electrophoresis was first developed in 1824 by the French scientist Pierre Curie, who used it to separate the molecules of carbon. In 1878 a British scientist, James C. Watson, developed the technique in which the molecules of the gel were placed in electrical contact with each other. In the early 1900’s, electrophoresis was used to separate various proteins and enzymes that were used in medical diagnosis and for drug research.
I think most of us are pretty interested in doing electrophoresis to see if we can catch some of the protein in our blood. But electrophoresis is a pretty simple process. A gel is placed on a plate or tube that is connected to a voltage source. The gel is then run through the plate/tube until the molecules are separated. If we did all that, we would be able to see if we were carrying protein fragments from another person’s blood.
A lot of electrophoresis is done in a lab and requires a lot of equipment. And yes, it does require a lot of power, but if you have the right equipment you can do some really cool stuff to see if you are carrying protein fragments from other people’s blood or not.
Electrophoresis is a good example of the use of electrophoresis for detection of genetic markers. The use of electrophoresis is so common for detection of genetic markers because it is incredibly efficient, easy to use, and quick. It would be difficult to do at home though. For one, the gel itself needs to be separated and then run through a device that can separate the DNA molecules.
To do that you need a gel, a device to separate the molecules, and a person who can do the separation. Unfortunately, the person who can do the separation is usually not there to do it. This is a sad state of affairs for genetic gene research because it means that every time we want to see if we are carrying something from someone else, we have to come back to a lab to do it.
The whole reason we use electrophoresis is because it’s the only way to get a good reading on a gel when it’s thick. The gel itself isn’t too heavy, so we don’t really have to worry about the gel clogging up with all the DNA. And since some people use electrophoresis to separate whole chromosomes, we can do the same thing and see how our chromosomes are separated.
I got an e-mail from a friend recently who had been studying electrophoresis. He told me that he had a friend who had been using the process to find out how he came to be a human. After years of careful study, he realized that he had been born with a “pre-existing chromosome in his head.” He was a bit freaked out at the notion of having a “pre-existing chromosome” in his head and was wondering if he could ever be cured.