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Introduction
Molecular methods have come a
long way since the discovery of restriction enzymes in the 1970's.
Nowadays we take for granted automated methods such as DNA
sequencing machines with a very high throughput, and PCR consoles
that can give a result within an hour. Indeed, advances in the
molecular biology field have been as stunning as those in computing
and electronics but this had not been truely appreciated by the
public at large.
However, it wasn't always that
easy. Few remember the days when manual DNA sequencing was the norm
and that PCR could be quite a tedious process and was not always
reliable. Of course, there is also cloning as well. The aim of this
site is to publish some of these antiquated methods so that those
presently using molecular biology methods could have a feel of what
it was like then.
The protocols listed here were
mainly those used by Dr. Peter Simmonds et al. at Edinburgh
University in the late nineties on Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) that led
to the establishment of the present genotyping system for HCV.
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