Amanda+Shadlock

__ Shadlock Thermo Cyclers ____ © __


 * About the company: **

Amanda Shadlock founded __Shadlock Thermo Cyclers © __ in 2005. The company is devoted to making and selling Thermo Cyclers for their customers. The company started out very small in 2005, but as the significance and awareness of PCR technology increased, the company has now become a multi-billion dollar international company to this day.


 * About the CEO and founder, Amanda Shadlock: **

Amanda Shadlock is the CEO of __Shadlock Thermo Cyclers © __. She is a graduate of Stanford University where she studied molecular biology. Polymerase Chain Reaction was a relatively new technology that Amanda believed was going to become something extremely important in future biology and it really interested her, so she decided to start a company that could sell Thermo Cyclers to other scientists who were also interested in pursuing this new technology. Today, she lives in Lake Placid, New York and is currently 29 years old. She is not required to do any work for her company since she has over 200,000 total employees and 50 factories worldwide. Amanda enjoys travelling, skiing, and being a part time figure skating coach.


 * History of PCR technology: **

Kary B. Mullis was driving down the highway one spring evening in 1985 and was just thinking randomly when he came across an idea about copying DNA strands but not through cellular DNA replication, this was called Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR. He was a molecular biologist working for Cetus Corporation in Emeryville, California at the time. With much further studying of this discovery, he developed a manual technique and he later earned the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for inventing the idea of PCR.


 * The Science behind PCR technology: **

Polymerase Chain Reaction seems like a complex process, but it can become very easy to understand. The process takes place inside a Thermo Cycler, or the machine that regulates the temperature of the DNA and also heats and cools the DNA. In order to correctly carry out the procedure, one will need two primers and an enzyme called DNA Polymerase that matches up the corresponding nucleotides to the single stranded DNA. In a Thermo Cycler though, the enzyme used in place of DNA Polymerase is called Taq Polymerase, which comes from the bacterium //Thermus auquticus//, which is found in hot springs. Taq Polymerase is equivalent to DNA Polymerase in that they both are used for the same purpose, just in different organisms. In this case, Taq Polymerase is used because it is stable at higher temperatures whereas DNA Polymerase is not as stable and will break apart. First, the DNA is heated for several minutes at approximately 94-96 degrees Celsius so that it will separate into single stranded DNA. Then it is cooled for another few minutes at 50-65 degrees Celsius. That is when the primers connect to the sides of the single strands of DNA. After that the temperature is raised again to about 72 degrees Celsius for several minutes. At this time, the polymerase binds to the DNA through the primer and creates a complementary DNA strand. This process keeps repeating itself for several hours until you end up with billions of copies of the same DNA strand.




 * Current uses of PCR Technology: **

Polymerase Chain Reaction technology can be used for many experiments and situations. In the field of Forensic science; all that is left at the crime scene is one drop of blood. To make sure that the only evidence doesn’t get wasted by making a mistake, that is where PCR comes into play so now that one drop of blood can never be gone forever. PCR is also used for researching many kinds of diseases,mutations, and genetics. Once the DNA has been copied, you can run different kinds of DNA on a gel to see if they are in any way similar or different. The image below is showing the results of DNA on a gel.




 * __ Shadlock Thermo Cyclers © __**** ’s future plans **** : **


 * Keep providing even more customers with Thermo Cyclers.
 * Sell enzymes that are needed for the PCR reaction.
 * Redesign our Thermo Cycler into something more friendly to every kind of scientist, such as high school students, or scientists who cannot afford such machine.
 * One of our most important goals as a company is to influence the PCR “world,” and by that I mean, to increase the use of PCR technology around the world, or to hopefully positively impact scientists’ discoveries someday, possibly with the help of a Shadlock Thermo Cycler.

“PCR and Cloning.” //sciencemag.org//. 11 January 2012. Web. .
 * References: **

“Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR).” //genome.gov//. 11 January 2012. Web. <[]>.

“The Polymerase Chain Reaction.” //faculty.plattsburgh.edu//. 11 January 2012. Web. .

“Polymerase Chain Reaction.” //accesssexcellence.org.// 11 January 2012. Web. .

“The History of PCR,” //siarchives.si.edu//. 23 January 2012. Web. .