Cloning Club

Together with the Doctoral Programme in Biomedicine (DPBM) we are organizing in autumn 2016 a workshop and a practical course about cloning (course code 921244).

Dates and venue (workshop): Weekly discussion workshop (8 events each 1 to 1.5 hours) starting Tuesday 30.8.2016; venue: meeting room 7 (Biomedicum Helsinki, 5th floor, except 27.09. and the last workshop on 25.10., which take place in BM B136A); 1 credit
Dates and venue (practical course): Decentralized lab course (at the participants schedule and venue or - for participants without own access to the necessary facilities - in the first two weeks of November in our lab); 1 credit
Course information page: http://www.helisci.fi/hbgs/cloning-club2016
Registration page: https://elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/71701/lomake.html
Detailed course info: PDF
Advertisement poster: PDF
Course material: Material will be added after every meeting here

Cloning has the appeal of being boring. However, all starts with DNA. Genetic engineering is not only here to stay, but will become more and more important: we are just scratching the surface of its potential. Almost all biomedical research involves DNA constructs: expression vectors to transfect cells, shuttle plasmids to make viruses, constructs to generate transgenic animals.
The skill to generate a DNA construct is needed until the arrival of that promised device, which will spit out any plasmid a few hours after you have fed it the plasmid's sequence.
Many new technologies are available and as a result, it is more difficult to choose than in the old days when restriction enzyme cloning was the only option. Today, demands and options are endless and you need to choose the right strategy to maximize success and speed.