Digest Detective
Six samples. One mystery vial. Choose informative DNA cuts, compare the resulting bands, and identify your sample in three experiments.
Find the mystery sample
1. Choose a reagent. 2. Run a digest. 3. Compare measured lengths with the candidate predictions. Mark exclusions, then identify the only match.
01 / Choose your assay
Each reagent cuts at a different DNA motif. Preview predicted bands before spending a run.
02 / Read the evidence
No assays yet. Select a reagent and run your first digest.
03 / Compare & identify
Predictions are for the selected reagent. Equal numbers mean indistinguishable bands. Crossing out a sample is a notebook mark; you can undo it.
Choose an assay that splits the candidates into useful groups.
How the laboratory works · source
A digest cuts a synthetic DNA strand wherever a reagent’s recognition motif occurs. The gel shows the resulting fragment lengths; shorter pieces travel farther. Repeated lengths are shown as one brighter band, with counts in the evidence log. Circular DNA joins the final fragment back to the first.
All samples are synthetic 256-base teaching sequences. This is a deduction game, not a laboratory protocol. Every case can be solved within three well-chosen assays. Restart repeats the same case; New case rearranges sites, candidates and the unknown.
Restriction matching and linear/circular fragment splitting are ported from Biopython Bio/Restriction/Restriction.py, copyright (C) 2004 Frederic Sohm, under the Biopython License Agreement. Original game and GPT-generated reagent art; full notice in LICENSE.txt.