University of Calgary researchers’ discovery saves time and money in the lab

Like many great discoveries this one happened by accident and now it’s being used as an important tool helping researchers save time and money.
 
A few years ago, a biochemistry student in Dr. Raymond Turner’s lab was working on an experiment that recorded the emission of fluorescent light from a protein. He noticed, under certain conditions, the proteins he was studying were emitting visible light, something that hadn’t been observed before.
 
“At first we thought the student had made a mistake. I suggested to Ray that maybe the phenomenon was real. He was thinking the same thing. We tried the process again,” says biological sciences instructor Dr. Robert Edwards.  “When I separated the proteins in an electric field by the normal procedure it was possible to eliminate the elaborate process of staining and de-staining usually used. Under the rightconditions the proteins still glowed - bright spots against a dark background.”
 
Edwards and Turner, biological sciences professors, thought they might be on to something that could potentially help others.  It turns out they were. After further investigation by Carol Ladner, a graduate student, a few more tweaks to the process and collaboration with researchers from the Montana State University, they created a technology that allows scientists to see proteins better and a lot sooner than the previous methods used in labs.
 
Researchers in many fields, including medicine, biochemistry and microbiology, use this process of protein electrophoresis to measure the amounts and types of proteins for research, teaching or diagnosis.
 
“This new method provides researchers with an efficient and cost effective method to obtain the results of their protein gels,” says Turner, who helped in the investigations. “Also the need to use harsh chemicals and their disposal is eliminated.”
 
The traditional method involves time-consuming staining and de-staining procedures after separating the proteins on a gel which looks like a thin slab of jello between two sheet of glass.  This new technology, which is licensed to a multi-national life science company through Innovate Calgary, is based on UV-induced biochemical reactions within the gel matrix. This allows the user to view results of both one- and two-dimensional protein gels within as little as 2.5 minutes.
 
“It’s been very rewarding for us to know that our discovery is helping researchers around the world become moreefficient,” says Edwards.