The Hole in The Wall - Season 1 - Episode 26

4 years ago

The Hole in The Wall - Season 1 - Episode 26

“i’ve never really wondered about the process of getting information from evidence…most times all i want is results” she stroked a microscope and looked round the lab in appreciation “How exactly does it work, is it like a photocopying machine?”

Terry chuckled and I sensed him finally relax fully. ” no, not really. Basically what we’re doing is making copies of a specific sequence of the DNA. What we do is put the DNA in this thermal cycler…” he patted the device lovingly “it has a thermal block with holes see….its for tubes with the reaction mixtures.” He broke off checking our expression to see if we were following him. We stared at him blankly.

“Anyway” he continued “what it does is it lowers and raises the temmperature in specified programmed steps”
“This poly something….what is it?”
“Polymerese chain reaction….okay let me put it like this, There’s a particular process when the heating and cooling is applied and ranges in temperature depending on the reaction….okay? so a cycle is a period it takes to heat and cool before it starts again for another cycle.”

I nodded in encouragement as though I understood every single word, which was a lie.
“So the thing is as the PCR progresses, the DNA generated is used as a template for replication. Which sets of a chain reaction and amplifies the original DNA template in exponentials”

“Hmmmm….so that cycle you talked about, how many would it take for the amplification?” Dagnet asked. She seemed to be on the same wave length with Terry.
“Approximately 28 cycles”
“Woa….and how long is a cycle?” Bami asked glancing at his watch
“Its hard to say..you know each cycle may differ”

“just give an estimate”
“I’ve already given an estimate, i said 28 cycles, you’ll have to wait and see if you want to know the exact time, which will be hard because some cycles are so different in duration”

“You know what maybe you should start right now…forget the teaching for now” I urged him.

“Are you sure this DNA you brought is really human and not bacteria or something else” Terry asked as he loaded tubes in the thermocycler.

“its human for sure, I was…” I bit my tongue and glanced at Dagnet.

She didn’t say anything but looked at Terry “Is there a way you can make sure, so we don’t waste time?”

“this is a waste of time, he’s told you its human and it is, I was there and it came from the grave the lady you gave to us yesterday is buried or supposed to be anyway” Bami was frustrated and he eyeballed the both of them after his rant.

“its quite easy, I just assess the quality and quantity of DNA, its called quantification.” Terry continued like Bami hadn’t spoken. The young man loved to talk, or should i say loved to teach. Wether it was from an urge to show off or educate i didn’t know or care but time was of the essence.

“Terry-” I began
“but it wouldn’t be necessary, i’m sure its human” he said.

“So now what do we do?” Bami asked
“Well we wait for the PCR to finish”
“Then what do we do?” Bami asked again
“We’ll need to distinguish the various molecules from one another. Its called capillary electrophoresis. Basically it means-”
I tuned out the young scientist and brought out my phone just remembering the picture in my box. I logged in and accessed my mail. Damn this network!

I had been staring at the three words on my phone screen for five minutes now and it was still ‘loading’

Everyone had fallen silent and Bami and Dagnet both watched Terry move about. The only sound was the muffled whistle suppressed by the face mask coming from Terry.

I shook my phone is frustration.
“You know its frowned upon to be with your phone in here” Terry said frowning at me.
“well….I need to make a call…i’d be in the outer office” I was already at the door when a thought occured to me.

“Hey Terry….that picture you sent to my mail yesterday….do you still have it?”
“Sure, its on my laptop”
“I’d like to see it please”
He shook his head in bewilderment like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing “Hello! I’m kinda busy here….besides the picture correlates with the identification of the fingerprint so whoever’s name popped up is who the picture belongs too”

“Just tell me where your laptop is I can locate the picture myself”

He looked at Bami “Is this guy for real?”
Bami looked at him blankly.

Finally he looked at me and cleared his throat “ehem….okay just give me 15 minutes i’d show you the picture”
“Don’t worry I’d show him, continue your work.” Dagnet said. She looked at me “I have printed pictures we uploaded into our wanted list. I’d call somebody to bring it up.
“Thanks a lot”

I stepped out of the lab and tore my mask off. That place reeked of death and I was glad to be out of there.

I tried Andy’s number.

“Hello”
“Andy…what’s up is the doctor back yet?”
“nope” I heard the sound of water flushing
“Where are you?” I asked
“I went to ease myself”
“What of the cooler, hope you didn’t let it out of your sight?” I couldn’t keep the panic out of my voice.

“Relax….errrm…Tonye is watching it”
“okay….”

“What’s happening over there…has the Terry guy started?” He asked
“Yea…his running the tests right now, okay call me if there’s any development”
“alright sure”

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