Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi Arnlan,

I don't think you did your experiment incorrectly at all, and there's no such thing as wrong results, just wrong interpretations or poorly controlled experiments. In your case, you have showed that a higher concentration of plasmid does not always mean better transformation. I do transformations all the time in the lab, and I will tell you that there is definitely a sweet spot. Too little DNA concentration and you won't get any transformed cells, but too much can also inhibit the reaction, so your results make perfect sense to me. As for what you say to the judges, I think you said it very well here:

The only thing that I had in mind when doing the experiment was getting the greatest transformation efficiency as my results. On my purpose it says that to synthesize proteins in a cheaper way so it is important to know how the plasmid concentration effects transformation efficiency. So due to my results on having a better transformation efficiency with a smaller concentration can I conclude that using a small concentration of plasmid is cheaper and moreover gives a better results and a better transformation efficiency

You can't conclude that a smaller concentration ALWAYS gives better transformation efficiency, but you've clearly shown that a higher concentration of plasmid also does not mean better transformation efficiency, so to keep costs down, it should be possible to user lower plasmid concentrations for many transformations.

I hope this helps!
JMP

Aha! Thanks, I will make sure to take that in mind as I get ready for the state science fair.

As of next years project, I'm still thinking of it in detail, but i'm still researching about the effect of bovine bile on cancer growth.