SCIENCE

PGLO EXPERIMENTS IN YEAR 12 BIOLOGY

This week was quite an exciting week for the Units 3 & 4 Biology students and teachers, as the students conducted the “PGLO experiment”, where we inserted the GFP gene, a gene that gives jellyfish their bioluminescent properties, into E.coli bacteria, allowing them to glow under UV light.

The experiment gave us a deeper understanding into the process of Bacterial Transformation and genetic engineering, which is an important part of our upcoming Units 3 & 4 Biology SAC. In the experiment, students conducted various procedures, including the preparation of the bacterial culture, the introduction of the foreign gene, the process of heat shock to allow the bacteria to take up the gene and selection to identify successfully transformed bacteria. 

The experiment perfectly encompassed the various topics covered in Unit 3: gene editing, bacterial transformation and gene regulation. This was by far the most complex experiment we’ve done and was relatively challenging considering that it was the first time any of us had used equipment such as micropipettes and sterile loops to pick up bacteria! 

The experiment served as an excellent introduction to the possibilities that genetic engineering can provide to society (such as manipulating bacteria to produce a specific, desirable protein) and gave us some much-needed insight into what a career in biology would be like. Overall, we would like to thank the McKinnon Biology staff for providing us with this rare opportunity to conduct this experiment as some of the equipment involved was fairly expensive and rather strenuous to set up. 

But it was all worth it in the end, it’s not every day that you get to see glowing bacteria!

Willem Voorham

Science Teacher