Gel Electrophoresis draft v 02

**** Update *****

This illustration is complete.
See it here

**** Update *****

**Sample loading system added**

The next round of edits on the gel electrophoresis illustration. The objective for this version was to add a system for creating and loading samples. The samples are based on an activity to use gel electrophoresis to identify a DNA sample found at a crime scene. But the sample generation and loading system illustrated here should be able to be modified to illustrate any number samples and banding patterns.

The premise for this set of samples is that some PCR based technique can be used to determine if a sample if DNA collected at a crime scene matches one of three suspects.

The samples available for the crime investigation are

  • S - Standard (a ladder or other size standard)
  • C - Crime scene sample
  • 1 - Sample from suspect 1
  • 2 - Sample from suspect 2
  • 3 - Sample from suspect 3
  • V - Sample from victim
The tubes are labeled with these abbreviations. Hovering over them triggers a tooltip with the full label. Each tube has enough sample to fill three wells.

Samples are loaded into the wells by clicking and dragging from the tube to the target well. The When a tube is clicked, a drop of sample is removed from the tube and follows the mouse. If that drop is released over an empty well, the well fills with that sample. If the drop is released anywhere other than over an empty well, it returns to the tube.

A series of error messages appear in response to actions wouldn’t or shouldn’t be performed:

  • Adding a sample to a well that is already loaded
  • Taking sample from a tube that is almost empty (only three drops can be removed from each tube)
  • Continuing to try to load the gel once all of the wells are loaded
Releasing the drop somewhere other than over an empty well fails but does not produce an error message.

Status V 2
  • Sample tubes created. Code to generate samples can be edited to allow this framework to illustrate different sample combinations. This prototype is based on a crime scene investigation.
  • Samples can be added to the wells of the gel. Robust set of errors and behaviors ensure the gel is loaded in a way that does not interfere with next steps in the process.
Next steps:
  • Add a reset button to start over if a mistake is made loading or running of the gel
  • Write code for band migration and link it to the running of the current
  • Consider safeguards to allow or prevent bands from running off the bottom of the gel.
  • develop concepts for visualization of the results: band migration, final position, staining, lane to lane comparisons.
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