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An improved method for DNA extraction and a call for help with a paper
Hi all,
So in my latest video I cover something I've been working on for a while. Normally when you go to extract DNA you use a silica column and a centrifuge and the rpocess can get really tedious. While I was in Uni I got to thinking about how it could be improved and so I cooked up some magnetic silica beads. Instead of running them in a column, you just drop them in you sample with some special salts and then use a magnet to pull them out and drop them into clean water. Under high salt DNA sticks to them, in clean water it drops right off. I'm able to make lots of these beads for very cheap, but the question remains,how effective are they? I did some iniital testing while I was in university cause I had access to my proffs lab, but I no longer do, so can't test them further. If you're interested in testing these out and have access to either a nanodrop spec or a qubit fluorometer, I'll send you a vial of the beads and the salts i used. Anyone who helps test these will be listed as a coauthor in the paper I plan on publishing on this.
A note, this idea isn't totally novel and many bioed companies carry products like this, but they are usually very very expensive. So I want to see how effective home made stuff is as I feel it would be more useful to people like us who are set up in their garage and don't have 1000 to throw at a DNA extracting kit that only has 100 preps in it.