Understanding Agarose Gel Electrophoresis

Lab Investigation

An introduction to the electrophoretic process.

Use specially formulated, multicolored dyes to explore the basic concepts and techniques of one of biotechnology’s cutting edge procedures—electrophoresis. Your students will learn how electrical charge and molecular size is used to separate the dyes on an agarose gel into an array of colors so brilliant that they can be easily analyzed - even without the use of a stain! They’ll use their findings to draw a standard curve of the molecular weights to determine the size of unknown dye fragments separated on the gel.

Accommodates class size of 40 students.