April 1, 2013 (Vol. 33, No. 7)

URL:
http://bit.ly/XpK5aD

Rating:
Strong Points: Helpful notes for buffer preparation, many calculators
Weak Points: Many Qiagen customer-specific resources

Platform:
iPad/iPhone

Cost:
Free

Summary:

No, unfortunately, this app will not perform your Mini-preps for you… (Now that would be a million-dollar app!) Instead, the app provides some useful tools for molecular biologists such as calculators and buffer resources. The calculators section covers physical unit conversions, chemical calculators (molarity and the like), and molecular biology calculators (such as converting mass of dsDNA to molarity). The buffers section of the app contains not only recipes for a few common buffers, but also includes some general guidelines and advice such as how to store buffers. (Of note, the buffer recipe section also includes additional notes that are worth their weight in gold, such as “EDTA will not go into solution until the pH is about 8.0.”) Finally, the app contains sections that will be useful to Qiagen customers, as they detail protocols for Qiagen reagents or instruments…like the QIAcube, which incidentally does do your Mini-preps for you.

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