Day 3 What Makes You?
By:
Tan Yi Khai (Sr1ScD)
On Saturday, 22 June 2019, Sr1ScA students have gathered in the school’s biology lab to attend the final scientific workshop of Kuen Cheng Science Week. The Academic Department had invited a team from University of Malaya (UM) for the workshop with a title, What Makes You? The participating students arrived at the lab early in the morning. Guest speaker, Senior Lecturer Dr Phua Suat Moi and her team from UM made interesting and important introduction about physical body of human beings.
Dr Phua Suat Moi
What actually makes us? We are actually made of DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid, our scientists mentioned. It is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. It’s what makes us unique. Unless you have an identical twin, your DNA is different from that of every other person in the world.
The workshop started with a short introduction about DNA, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) & Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP). Prof. Dr. Chua Kek Heng talked about the unique DNA sequence of every person. The introduction ended in about 30 minutes. The first hands-on activities started with the UM lecturers letting students to extract their own DNA from cheek cells and plant DNA from fruits by using household materials. To extract human DNA from our cheek cells, we can simply gargle some salt water and then spit it out. Liquid soap and iced-cold alcohol are added right after the water is collected in a cup. After a few minutes, we can use just a pin to hook up the clump which consists of DNA .
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After extracting the DNA, each group sent a representative to load the DNA sample into a well in the agarose gel by using micropipette. The gel was then placed in an electrophoresis tank and a power supply was connected. After 30 minutes of electrophoresis, the gel was photographed under ultraviolet light to make the DNA visible by naked eye. Students gathered around the table to have a closer look on the machine and searched for DNA “bands”. Bands of smaller DNA fragments will be found closer to the bottom of the gel while the fragments with larger sizes were discovered near the loading wells.
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The last activity begins after a short 15-minute break. The activity is called “DNA fingerprinting lab: Who ate the cheese?” It is sort of a criminal quiz which the students need to find out which suspect is the person who ate the cheese by looking at their DNA fingerprint. As we mentioned earlier, every one of us has a unique fingerprint pattern which unless you have an identical twin; DNA is different from every other person in the world.
Participants were divided into groups and each group was given a task to determine who is responsible for eating the cheese. Students were to model the process of electrophoresis and DNA fingerprinting. They had to cut the paper strips with DNA sequences into fragments, counted bases number on each fragment and taped on a pre-drawn chart. The crime scene DNA was compared to that of the suspect DNA as indicated on the chart. Suspect who was found guilty of eating the cheese had finally been identified!
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A quiz session was held after the end of all the activities. After the end of the scientific workshop, as the student-reporter, I conducted a small interview session with the UM lecturer team. When they were asked about the performance of the students, they all agreed to a point that out students show great respect and the will to learn. They also advised all of us to be more active in engaging ourselves with activities other than only being in the class. This final scientific workshop day ended with amazement and marked the end to the entire Kuen Cheng Science Week – The World of Colours.
