Just bleach it
Earlier I made a post about decontaminating solutions and how to homebrew them for cheap. I had one more patent to talk about but I felt kinda burnt out (and a bit guilty that I was bullying the decontaminating solution manufacturers association (DSMA) so much ), I ended up letting it sit for a bit. But this horse isn’t quite dead yet, as I think there’s some very useful information to be gleaned by examining the solution known as DNA Zap, from Thermo.
It’s a bit of an oddity, a TWO part cleaning solution meant to destroy nucleic acids, which you apply to an area one after another. Pretty…how you say, le fancy, non? Taking a peek at the MSDS will tell you that Part A contains copper sulfate, which I hadn’t encountered in decontaminating solutions before. WHY??? WHY DO YOU NEED COPPER SULFATE??? What magic is in the mix that can possibly improve on your standard soapy/bleachy/NaOH-y goodness?
Go read the patent, titled “METHOD OF MAKING A FORMULATION FOR DEACTIVATING NUCLEIC ACIDS” it’s fascinating. It’s written in legalese, but the amount of figures/tables/DATA proving the efficacy of this mixture is astounding! Hats off to the people who did all the work, what a nice bit of optimizing 🙂 It’s a pretty neat little system they’ve thought up.
