MCCCD Official Course Competencies:

BIO173  2009 Spring – 2011 Fall

Basic Instrumentation and Lab Math

1.         Identify the uses of common laboratory equipment relevant to biotechnology. (I)

2.         Explain the fundamental principle(s) by which each instrument of laboratory equipment works. (I)

3.         Perform the basic calculations commonly used in the biotechnology laboratory. (II)

MCCCD Official Course Outline:

BIO173  2009 Spring – 2011 Fall

Basic Instrumentation and Lab Math

I.          Biotechnology lab equipment

            A.        Pipettes

            B.        Balances

            C.        pH meters

            D.        Spectrophotometers

            E.         Centrifuges

            F.         Gel Electrophoresis Equipment

            G.        Thermal Cyclers

            H.        Chromatography equipment

II.        Basic Biotechnology calculations

            A.        Scientific notation

            B.        Metric prefixes

            C.        Concentrations of solutions

                        1.         Percentage

                        2.         Molarity

                        3.         Normality

            D.        Dilutions

            E.         Buffers, pH and pK

            F.         Cell growth, logarithms, and semi logarithmic functions

            G.        Quantification of nucleic acids

            H.        Quantification of protein

            I.          Centrifugation Calculations

                        1.         Inter-converting Relative Centrifugal Force and Revolutions per minute

            J.          Recombinant DNA Calculations

                        1.         Frequency of endonuclease cut sites

                        2.         Ligation efficiencies

                        3.         Transformation efficiencies

            K.        Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Calculations

                        1.         Tm

                        2.         PCR efficiency