Question

In this lab, we'll be using PCR to make many copies of a small region of your personal DNA genome. It is a very bad idea to touch anyone else's sample...but it is ok to touch your own sample without gloves. Why

Answer 1

Sounds like a trick question.

Maybe not. contamination is easy, but gloves are a barrier between other organic material on yourself (such as what you ate for lunch) and what you are testing.

Other than the fact your DNA will be different than another person’s DNA, if we assume you are theoretically free of debris of any kind, then your DNA would test the same always.

Note: any contamination after purifying extract for a small sequence can give false positives. There are repeat sequences possible that would interfere if you are testing a small enough sequence.

I hope that helps!