• Question: How do the machines that you work with read DNA of an organism?

    Asked by to Dave on 18 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Dave Baker

      Dave Baker answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      Wow. Well, one machine uses a ‘flowcell’. It’s like 8 rectangle tubes. On the inner surface of the tubes are little bits of DNA but only one strand and we know the bases in this DNA. So, we get the peices of DNA that we want to sequence or read and make these into one strand (DNA is usually 2). Then we stick these to the DNA on the flowcell. Now we know where it is! We then add 1 unit of DNA, there are 4, a c g t. When this happens a laser blasts this new base or unit of DNA and it flashes out some light. We read this light with a camera, hence read that base. The machine does this hundreds of times and it’s called sequencing by synthesis. Google Illumina!

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