Biotechnology Skills

Full course description

In this skills course, you deepen and apply the theoretical knowledge learned in the previous years and in the Gene Technology and Biological Separations courses by performing a set of interconnected experiments involving different techniques. Experiments include: cloning of an insert into an expression plasmid, bacterial transformation, selection of positive clones by check PCR and restriction digestion of the plasmid; extraction and isolation of a recombinant protein from a bacterial culture using affinity chromatography, SDS-PAGE and Western blot analysis of the purified protein; Design of guide RNA for CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing and detection of indels using different techniques such as T7E1 assay and RFLP. Furthermore, you are introduced to the concepts of Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and Good Laboratory Practice (GLP), and their importance in ensuring the quality and reproducibility of the results both in academic and industrial settings.