• Question: What is your favourite experiment

    Asked by Owen:-) to Andy, Chris, Harriet, Jess, Nikki on 11 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Christopher Blanford

      Christopher Blanford answered on 11 Mar 2016:

      Hi Owen

      This is the answer I gave Sophie and others:
      /biochemm16-zone/2016/03/04/chemistry-its-my-favourite-part-of-science-i-really-enjoy-learning-about-the-different-reactions-that-happen-in/

      Clock reactions. Check out this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JAqrRnKFHo

      I know I should write something like ‘enzyme reactions’, but I like colours and explosions. That’s what got me interested in chemistry and helped me win a prize before going to university. (Not for blowing anything up, but for explaining why I like chemistry.)

      Chris

    • Photo: andy chapman

      andy chapman answered on 13 Mar 2016:

      I agreed with Chris in the same answer to this question, this reactions are amazing!

    • Photo: Jessica Groppi

      Jessica Groppi answered on 13 Mar 2016:

      Hi!

      Within the experiments I tried since I started chemistry, I always liked everything involved in organic synthesis. Using reactions to build new molecules is like playing Lego on a really really small scale.

      Jess.

    • Photo: Nikki D'Arcy

      Nikki D'Arcy answered on 14 Mar 2016:

      Hi Owen 🙂

      I love doing an experiment called PCR. It’s pretty amazing. Check out the Wiki link below for a full explaination but basically, it means you can look for a gene you are interested in in a sample and multiply it millions of times so you can detect it. It’s so cool.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction

      In my PhD, I used a version of it called 16S. This is a gene that is found in all bacteria. Using this technology, you can take a single sample containing lots of different species of bacteria and identify them all. It may not sound amazing but it’s a really new technology and something we’ve not been able to do in the past!

    • Photo: Harriet Reid

      Harriet Reid answered on 14 Mar 2016:

      Hi

      My favourite experiments are the ones that work! So often the experiments that I run don’t give clear answers.

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