What does splitting dna tell a researcher, why is it important? What is the purpose of isolating a sequence?

I just wanted to know, because i have done gel electrophoresis, but i don't understand what the results are telling me, why do i need to separate dna?What does splitting dna tell a researcher, why is it important? What is the purpose of isolating a sequence?
In what context are you performing your work? What kind of class are you taking, or what kind of laboratory work was this?



In general, gel electrophoresis is performed to determine either a) whether products are present at all, or b) the size of the products. The gel electrophoresis may be run with a size ladder, and by comparing the bands seen in the gel to the size ladder you can determine the size of your product.



Gel electrophoresis may be performed to physically separate different products from one another, so that one of the products can be extracted from the gel (physically cut out of the gel) as a method of purification from the other, non-desirable products.What does splitting dna tell a researcher, why is it important? What is the purpose of isolating a sequence?
check out this research group someone on the message board might know http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/