The PCR Song

OK, this clip was released i think 2 years ago, but I only managed to dig it out yesterday… Hilariously awesome*10!!!!

The clip is meant to mimic the song “We are the world” (music arrangement & music video! 😀 ), which I happened to watch it few hours before I watch this PCR clip… The song “We are the world” contains MJ, you know what I was doing… LOL

Anyway, PCR stands for Polymerase Chain Reaction… It was a ground breaking technique in molecular biology, which won the inventor of the technique a nobel prize! Basically, when you need a large amount of a stretch of DNA, you definitely need to know PCR! And the lyrics of the PCR Song explains it:

There was a time when to amplify DNA,
You had to grow tons and tons of tiny cells.
(Oooh) Then along came a guy named Dr. Kary Mullis,
Said you can amplify in vitro just as well.

Just mix your template with a buffer and some primers,
Nucleotides and polymerases too.
Denaturing, annealing, and extending,
Well it’s amazing what heating and cooling and heating will do.

[Chorus]
PCR when you need to detect mutation (detect mutation)
PCR when you need to recombine (recombine)
PCR when you need to find out who the daddy is (who’s your daddy?)
PCR when you need to solve a crime (solve a crime)
[x2]

(Copied from http://practicality.wordpress.com/2008/01/13/the-pcr-song-with-lyrics/)

They say in the old days, doing PCR means shaking your reaction tubes in a hot water bath for say few minutes, and a cold water bath for few minutes… and repeating them for N times… (N here means a lot lah, I’m no molecular biologist… 😛 )

And nowadays, with a machine as seen in the video, you can do PCR by a few buttons!  😀