Word: chromatograms
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Segregated Compounds. To prepare a bacterial chromatogram, Scientists Alexander and Gould use a pure strain of bacteria, allow them to grow for several hours in a nutrient solution, then extract the metabolic products that have been excreted. These are injected into a chromatograph, where they are converted by heat into gaseous form and fed into a column containing a packing material and an organic liquid such as Carbowax-a chemical that has a different attraction for the molecules of each chemical compound. Thus every compound that passes through the column is slowed to a degree...
...sensed by an ionization detector and recorded on a graph as a distinct peak. Within minutes, all of the compounds have passed through the chromatograph, each forming its own peak on the graph. Since the metabolic products of each strain of bacteria contain different chem ical compounds, each chromatogram forms an easily identifiable profile...
...Stored Chromatograms. When Alexander and Gould have substantially increased their collection of such bacteria identifications, they hope to store it in a computer, creating a central file similar to the FBI's store of human fingerprints in Washington. Then, when a chromatogram of unidentified bacteria is prepared, it can be fed into the computer, matched electronically with the appropriate chromatogram in the computer's memory, and quickly identified. By using the combination of bacterial fingerprints and computers, says Gould, "detection and identification, which now take days or weeks by classical methods, could be done in hours...
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