who invents agarose gel, and how and why is it become to use?

Question

kirchwey, i know the basic information about agarose gel, but i would like to know how does it first come to use and who first starts using it to run DNA and protein samples.

Answer 1

Agarose is a polysaccharide obtained from agar (sometimes referred to as agar-agar) which is extracted from seaweed. Agar has been used as a food thickener for many years. Both agar and agarose form a gel in water and can be used for gel electrophoresis, a chemical analysis process that extracts, separates and displays the components of a mixture of organic substances. Agarose is considered a high quality medium in this application. The ref. describes a low-cost way of constructing and running an electrophoresis experiment on one's own DNA.

Answer 2

Dr. Fred Sanger (Nobel laureate in chemistry two times) was a separation scientist who discovered electric charge could be used to separate proteins on filter paper. This was later adapted for use with agarose and other gelled substrates. See "dideoxy chain termination method" in the second link, below.

Answer 3

Dunno who invented, but agarose gel is used for DNA as well as RNA seperations. It provides a mapping technique for DNA fragments and seperates based on molecular weight, voltage, gel conc., buffer conc., etc..