Throughout my lectures in Introduction to Molecular Biology (281) course I ask the students:

• Where does the cell get DNA polymerase from?
• From where does E. coli get the lac or trp repressors?
• Where do ribosomes come from?
• etc.

I ask many questions of that nature depending on the material covered.  Most of the time, I see puzzlement in the students’ eyes.  My reply is always “the cell purchases DNA polymerase from Sultan Center (a supermarket).  The cell finds what it needs in aisle 3 and on shelf 5”.  The students realize that there is something wrong going on.  I laugh and explain that genes exist to make what the cell needs.  After few weeks, they get the point and they can easily respond to my question and kills the joke in its infancy :-).

Noor Ali and Faten Alruwaili have produced interesting visual 899km about my use of Sultan Center (a supermarket) joke.  Faten has done good job drawing me in class with my ice coffee in my hand :-).  I never thought I look that cool.