Gel Doc, also known as Gel Documentation System, Gel Image System or Gel Imager, is widely used in molecular biology

Molecular biology

Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...

 laboratories for the imaging and documentation of nucleic acid and protein polyacrylamide

Polyacrylamide

Polyacrylamide is a polymer formed from acrylamide subunits. It can be synthesized as a simple linear-chain structure or cross-linked, typically using N,N-methylenebisacrylamide. Polyacrylamide is not toxic...

 or agarose gels typically stained with ethidium bromide

Ethidium bromide

Ethidium bromide is an intercalating agent commonly used as a fluorescent tag in molecular biology laboratories for techniques such as agarose gel electrophoresis. It is commonly abbreviated as "EtBr", which is also an abbreviation for bromoethane...

 or other fluorophores such as SYBR Green

SYBR Green

SYBR Green I is an asymmetrical cyanine dye used as a nucleic acid stain in molecular biology. SYBR Green I binds to DNA. The resulting DNA-dye-complex absorbs blue light and emits green light . The stain preferentially binds to double-stranded DNA, but will stain single-stranded DNA with lower...

. Generally, a Gel Doc is composed of an ultraviolet

Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays, in the range 10 nm to 400 nm, and energies from 3 eV to 124 eV...

 (UV) light transilluminator, a hood to shield external light sources and a camera for image capturing.

The new gerneration imger provide the user with an extended applications covering fluorescence

Fluorescence

Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation of a different wavelength. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore lower energy, than the absorbed radiation...

 and chemiluminescence which camera

Camera

A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...

cooled -60 degree C. The famous brands are Royal Biotech, Vilber Lourmat, Syngene, Kodak, Alpha Innotech, GE, DNR, Bio-Rad.