Inspiration from a Jell-O Cup: The MiniOne GelCup for Electrophoresis

What is it about a Jell-O cup that makes everyone happy?  Perfect serving size, no preparation, easy-to-open package, no refrigeration required… If only preparing gel for electrophoresis was so easy, right?

We kept hearing over and over – from teachers directly – they were often deterred from doing hands-on labs due to the setup time required.  When it comes to gel electrophoresis, teachers could spend hours before class making gels and hours after class doing post-lab work to process the gel for visualizing.  We heard them loud and clear and our team went to work to create solution to help make gel electrophoresis more rewarding and less time consuming.  We started by introducing the GelCup.

MiniOne GelCup

The MiniOne GreenGel In-a-Cup (GelCup) is pre-mixed, pre-measured and pre-cut to provide students the ability to have the hands-on experience of preparing and pouring a gel in seconds rather than a teacher or student spending hours to accomplish the same task.

MiniOne GelCup: pre-mixed, pre-measured and pre-cut.

In the photo above you can see we have cut the pre-made agarose into little pieces. Not only does this speed the gel pouring process along, it makes the gel melting process faster. Also of importance, GelGreen, a non-hazardous DNA stain is added into the GelCups already so your agarose gels are cast with stain effectively eliminating the post staining process.

1. Smaller pieces = more surface area and less thickness to penetrate making it easier and faster to melt.
2. You don’t have to worry about superheating since the microwave time needed to melt the gel is minimal (30 seconds).  The gel melts before it can superheat.  While any microwaved solution may become superheated and boil-over when agitated, the use of smaller pieces in our GelCup eliminates that risk.

The MiniOne GelCups eliminate all the before and after hours required to perform gel electrophoresis. Done with the gel? Throw it away in regular trash. What are you going to do with all that extra time?  How about have dessert!