• Question: what is you job like and who can you tell the dna from a car

    Asked by jamesbeilby to Adam, Joanna, Louise S, Louise W, Marcus on 12 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Louise Stanley

      Louise Stanley answered on 12 Nov 2012:

      My job is good. I spend most of my time interpreting results and writing results so Doctors can give them back to their patient. I get to talk a lot, which is good! I am afraid that you can’t get DNA from a car as it is only found in cells and not man made objects.

    • Photo: Adam Paige

      Adam Paige answered on 12 Nov 2012:

      My job involves doing experiments to answer questions about medical biology that I am interested in, and also teaching students about science and trying to interest and excite them about it – so yes, a great job.

      No, you can not get DNA from a car, but you can from a horse, or a fly, or a virus, or a strawberry. And DNA is the same kind of molecule in all these things despite how different these species appear to each other. Which was an amazing discovery when people realised this.

    • Photo: Joanna Giles

      Joanna Giles answered on 13 Nov 2012:

      I really enjoy my job too! I get to study whatever I like and do any experiment I can think of. I also get to teach which I really enjoy.

      Yep, DNA is only from cells so cars themselves don’t have them. But if you’re thinking of forensics – like on CSI or crime shows when they get DNA from inside a car, scientists will look for any blood or hair or skin samples to try to get DNA from them. A tiny speck of blood can have enough DNA for scientists to copy it and then analyse it to see who the victim or the suspect could be! Amazing stuff!

    • Photo: Marcus Wilson

      Marcus Wilson answered on 14 Nov 2012:

      My jobs really fun, I spend most of my time doing experiments using lots of differnt equipement to try and answer so basic biological questions we have.

      programs like CSI are a bit far fetched, but you would be surprised how good fornsic tets are getting. it usually takes a lot longer than they show on the TV, but you really can use tiny amounts of starting material.

      you can get DNA form anything that is living or once lived. We have now looked at the DNA dead people like the pharoah tutankhamun, or even form the bones of neanderthals. We have sequenced the entire genome (every bit of DNA) from neanderthal bones that were 38, 000 years old!

    • Photo: Louise Walkin

      Louise Walkin answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      The same answer I’m afraid, you can’t get DNA from a car, but you can get it from any other living thing!

      I really enjoy my job, I get to work in a lab, do some teaching, study, develop my own ideas and work with some really amazing people. I’ll be really sad when I finish my PhD, but I love working where I am so much that I want to carry on working here after I finish. Fingers crossed! 🙂

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