PCR song

(MV from Bio-Rad)

The PCR Song

There was a time when to amplify DNA,
You had to grow tons and tons of tiny cells.
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.

PCR, when you need to detect mutations.
PCR, when you need to recombine.
PCR, when you need to find out who the daddy is.
PCR, when you need to solve a crime.

---

From May, I came to know this interesting MV, a commercial mimicking the 1985 best-selling 'We are the world'. I then spent some time searching over the Internet for more information about the production and found it so entertaining that I couldn't help but embed it on my blog.

The MV was released by the Bio-Rad Corporation to promote their new PCR machine – 1000-series of thermal cyclers.



Just like May, I am also a deserter from the biology camp, with a degree in botany but now settling down in the field of music. PCR reminds me of the undergraduate days, particular the fourth year when I, together with my wife, then girlfriend, worked with DNAs in Prof San-San Tsay's microbiology lab.

According to a textbook I read when I was a 2^nd-year botany undergrad, PCR, the acronym for polymerase chain reaction, is

a method for amplifying DNA in vitro, involving the use of oligonucleotide primers complementary to nucleotide sequences in a target gene and the copying of the target sequences by the action of DNA polymerase.

To be brief and simple (if you are not familiar with the biological dialect at all), PCR is a molecular biology technique invented by the Nobel laureate Dr. Kary Mullis, through which multiple copies of a specific DNA piece can be reproduced in high amounts.

Although now PCR seems alien to me, I'm so glad that what those scientist sing in the video is still intelligible to me.