Question

If you have a generation time of 20 minutes, if you started with 5 cells, how many cells would you have in 200 minutes, assuming that the culture is in exponential phase throughout the experiment? 2 pts

Answer 1

First calculate the number of generations. If each generation takes 20 minutes, there are 10 generations in 200 minutes.
The formula for calculating the population of cells is:

N = A X 2^n
where N is the number of cells, A is the starting number and n is the number of generations
Therefore N = 5 X 2^10

= 5,120