Hey - First things first, Hi all, I'm new to this board :)

I'm usually a full-time student (Pharmaceutical Chemistry) but as part of my degree (the year before my honours) I take a year out in the pharmaceutical industry.

My placement has started me of doing PCR which I'm fairly new to - I've been told my technique is fine but I've run into a problem that no-one seems to know the answer to...

First of all, I usually load a sample of mastermix (N-Amp/Primer/Internal Control/Water mix) onto a gel along with other samples that have been run through PCR, and on the gel it has been showing a band with Internal control... Is this supposed to happen?

Secondly, after I have lysed Biopsy samples, do I store them at -20 degrees or 4 degrees??

I'd really appreciate any help!!!

La

Some more information would be helpful. I assume you are running your samples out on a typical agarose gel (0.7-1%)? How much primer are you including in your mix? What size is the band you are seeing?

As for the biopsy samples, if you are generating whole cell lysates and are denaturing them right away, you can store the samples at -20°C, but if you are storing the lysates undenatured, I would store them at -80°C.

I am fresh to this site too. I hope to know some companion.
Thanks!