...Biomedical research, for instance, contributes heavily to medical practice, and understanding the scientific process...can vary "Lab assistants" usually wash glassware, prep media, etc. "Research assistants" are more involved... maintenance Administrative assistant: assists PI with admin duties Staff scientist: similar role to a...professors, and other mentors, and four years after I started college, I will be entering a PhD program to continue... As scientists, we probe beyond the realm of established theory. Realizing that textbooks don’t tell us... process can help us understand how new therapies can be developed and applied. The current pandemic serves...the lab Official title is typically Professor, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor Sometimes teaches...

...involved, it can be difficult for scientists to understand how GPCR activation leads to downstream effects... the endogenous ligand or drug. In the inactive state, the luminescent chimeric protein Gα-Rluc8 and Gγ-GFP2...resulting in a decreased GFP2 emission. The activation state can be measured by a BRET2 ratio, which is the ratio...pharmaceutical drugs, there is still only a partial understanding of how GPCRs signal through G protein signal...provides scientists with a toolkit to gain an understanding of the signaling through the transducerome from...as well as the activation by drugs to further understand their mechanism. These plasmids are available... the transducerome, to gain a more complete understanding of a GPCR mediated response.  Acknowledgements...

...can use the loss of resistance as a marker for successful cloning. In these instances, the cloning vector...Resistance to antibiotics is a widely used tool in molecular biology, yet scientists rarely stop to think...to maintain the plasmid. Adding an antibiotic resistance gene to the plasmid solves both problems at once...pressure to keep your plasmid. Viva la (bacterial) resistance!  What are antibiotics? Antibiotics are generally...bactericidal) or slow growth/prevent cell division (bacteriostatic); however, the distinction between the two ...categories may be a bit of a gray area as some bacteriostatic reagents can kill bacteria when used at high...subunit; inhibits aminoacyl translocation Bacteriostatic 50-100 ug/mL in EtOH Polymyxin B polypeptide...

...musician, then metastasize is touring. But you know what a touring musician needs? A backstage team. Meet ...progression, and metastasis. The microenvironment’s physiology is deeply connected to these 3 stages and contains...microenvironments have started to gather attention. By the 1960’s, scientists have begun to understand two main areas... seem to take center stage in cancer development, the microenvironment backstage play just as important...Meet the microenvironment, a tumor’s backstage team. Microenvironments are cellular regions with specialized...highly prone to affect it. While tumors may be the stars, there's plenty of action outside of tumor cells...them, making it even harder to cure cancer. To understand how cancer cells influence microenvironments ...

...challenging for researchers using CRISPR, and that standardizing and improving the gRNA design process and rules...applications is necessary going forward. The standardization of CRISPR methods was a common thread at the...NIH Common Fund, emphasizes that we need more standardized methods for evaluating CRISPR technologies, ...basic or early pre-clinical research. However, standard terms and techniques are not enough to move the...including a detailed look at how cut-to-mutation distance affects editing efficiency. Optimizing Donor DNA...members of Jacob Corn’s lab describe how a better understanding of Cas9 biophysics can help enhance HDR. CRISPR...

... Marc Zimmer’s recent book, The State of Science: What the Future Holds and the Scientists Making It ...their inclusion here adds much needed context to understand every other problem. For non-scientists, Zimmer... ago. Teaching by example No examination of the state of science would be complete without the inclusion...to. The problems and challenges described in The State of Science have not changed in “COVID times,” but...next week.   A stepping stone When I discussed The State of Science with the five Addgene colleagues who ... learn everything about one specific topic, The State of Science could be a jumping off point to explore...

...concept. It is imperative that we all understand what antibiotic resistance is and how it develops so that we...Microbiology Pages What is antibiotic resistance? Antibiotic resistance is defined as microbial survival despite...generally organisms with multi-drug resistance are resistant to three or more different classes, or types...Learn How Antibiotic Resistance Genes Are Used in the Lab How does antibiotic resistance develop? There are...in which bacteria can become resistant to antibacterial drugs. Resistance can be intrinsic, meaning a ...means the bacterium is not naturally resistant but has become resistant somehow overtime. One fantastic example... example of intrinsic resistance would be Mycoplasma species’ resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics, like...

...number of participants and the standard academic calendar. So you want to start a journal club? Here are some...begin building a high level understanding across multiple teams or to stay abreast of current trends in...certainly had concerns that I may not have time to stay current or enjoy that discussion. Luckily, one needn't... edge science, researchers of all varieties must stay current with literature and emerging technologies...recurring meeting amongst scientists that aims to help stay current on new and emerging work by collaboratively... The first thing to do if you’ve thought about starting a journal club is to find a topic and seeing if...clear purpose and effective time management, for starters.  Now, you are ready for your first journal club...

...Though Cas9 is not a static molecule in any binding state, RNA loading stabilizes the closed conformation...pyogenes.   Figure 2:  Crystal structure of S. pyogenes Cas9 in the apo state (PDB ID 4CMP) with domains...the PAM is so flexible in this state that it doesn’t appear in the crystal structure (Figure 2) at all. ...Pro tip! X-ray crystallography cannot capture flexible or disordered regions, so crystal structures like...in this region. The crystal structure in Figure 3 shows the guide RNA stabilizing the DNA-binding protein...pyogenes Cas9 in the apo state (PDB ID 4CMP, top) compared to the guide RNA-bound state (PDB ID 4ZT0, bottom...engineering, and studying its structure can help us understand the parameters of CRISPR experimental design....

...cells, are already resistant to this antibiotic due to stable integration of resistance genes in their genomes...selection agent. Pros: Stable (spectinomycin). Cons: Cost (spectinomycin) or stability (streptomycin), doesn...damage. Choosing an antibiotic resistance Choosing the best antibiotic resistance ultimately comes down to ...antibiotic and happy selecting!   Antibiotic Resistance Stability Time Saving?  Works for multiple organisms... M., & Larminat, F. (2005). Resistance to the antibiotic Zeocin by stable expression of the Sh ble gene...Plasmids need antibiotic resistance genes so that you can specifically isolate bacteria containing your...interest. But does it matter which antibiotic resistance gene you select? In this blog, we’ll break down...

... camera, OR, monitor from that distance.  Build: We got a wheeled stand and mounted a monitor to it. It...Addgene’s Science Video Production Specialist, I’m constantly thinking about ways to improve our productions...Pivot Back in March 2020, just four months after I started with Addgene, I was about to have a check-in with...resources we have, and we developed a great plan to start consistently knocking out high-quality videos for...the window. So, much like SynBio, it was time to start our Design-Build-Test-Learn cycles. If you’re not...filming myself. While easiest from a production standpoint, it wasn’t ideal for our Lab Protocol videos....space to shoot was another hurdle. As we slowly started to realize that we were going to be out of the ...

...to compare the photostability of different fluorescent proteins? Measuring photostability Since it is clear... to quantify the photostability of fluorescent proteins. To determine photostability, an experiment is...Measuring photostability at realistic powers will provide better insight into the photostability in the ...Measuring photostability in living cells provides a much more realistic view of photostability. Selecting...This avoids substantial changes in excitation power and will help to keep the photostability of the probes...this series, we will discuss how to select a photostable fluorescent protein. Photobleaching is the irreversible...desirable to have fluorescent proteins that are photostable. On top of photobleaching, fluorescent proteins...

...the resources. Instead of creating a start up budget, create a start up list.  In this post we’ll help you...most start-up P.I.’s. It doesn’t have to be complicated, or difficult to create this list. Start BEFORE... much do you need to start your lab”. You can respond by saying, “The exact start up costs may vary greatly...Consulting, Inc. “How much do you need [for your lab start up]?” A hiring chair or dean will often ask a faculty...leads to poor outcomes; not enough funds to get started, wasting funds on unnecessary materials, or even... you successfully negotiate a start up award by giving you step by step instructions on creating a budget... in regards to the budget. Creating a budget We start by using your research specific aims. This is actually...

... and increase your lab sustainability. For my other posts on lab sustainability, check out my Recycling...the quick things above, try joining or starting a sustainability project. This could be: Setting up a ...This is the last post in a blog series on sustainable practices in the lab, where I’ll list some easy...unimportant. With so many big contributors to the sustainability problem, how can one little change make a difference...reusable water bottle instead of buying yourself a big stack of plastic cups. By initiating little changes in...lab Here are a few easy and fast things you can start doing right away to reduce your consumption in the...whole-cell extract from 2009. Join a newsletter to stay up-to-date on all the latest news and encourage ...

...chromatin and want to start sharing your plasmids through Addgene, don’t hesitate to start the process! Addgene...illustrations from Leah Bury of Microscopic Art. I started thinking about this problem when I recently attended...megabase away, or looking at the histone methylation status at a double-strand break that needs repairing. ... Pederson Phil Sharp Julie Ahringer Alexander Stark Bas van Steensel Richard Young Yi Zhang Leonard...H3.1 H3.3 HIST1H1E HIST1H2BB HIST2H2BE RBX1 STAG2 Xist Your favorite gene! SWI/SNF Genes:       ...

... Commercial DNA Ladder Penn State Ladder: Homemade Plasmid Prep Penn State Ladder: Commercial Plasmid ...undergraduate students led by Dr. Song Tan at Penn State developed the plasmids, pPSU1 and pPSU2. When restriction...$200-$500 for 1000 lanes worth of ladder. The Penn State ladders are significantly cheaper. When using a ...Your Agarose Gel Other Resources Read about Gel Stains on the BitesizeBio Blog ...

...to a few limiting factors.  To start, the average health science startup requires a great deal more capital... CEO of miLab, a Boston-based startup focused on empowering early-stage scientists. You can think of miLab...while becoming a health science entrepreneur at 22. Start with your network You've spent your life making ...the feedback we received from our network.  We started with the idea of a biotechnology investment fund...for such a fund is an impossibility at our early stage.  After each pitch we made, we considered the feedback...backgrounds (an essential component to any successful startup management team). Sreyan is a research associate... The world is against you.  As I mentioned, you start at a disadvantage in the health science space if...

...good ideas to a SynBio startup At some point, our ideas got pretty good. We started doing extracurricular...co-founders of Revolution Bioengineering.  Last year we started a company. Revolution Bioengineering is two responsible...working in a new technical discipline that nobody understands (synthetic biology), building a product no one...a plant that could sense and respond to novel substances. We both had an applied science bent, so the ...postdoc in order to rebuild my resume, so I had started to entertain other options. Keira had it a little...occasionally thinking about how we could bypass the establishment hiring system altogether. We had a lot of ideas...and dissected with equal enthusiasm. It may have started as idle conversation to pass the time in a job ...

...interview with Crystal Shih Podcast breakdown Intro Chapter 1: Who is Crystal Shih? Crystal's educational...Gray at Caltech, Crystal moved on to a Postdoc in the chemistry department at MIT. Crystal now works on protein...skills. Outro Many thanks to our guest, Crystal Shih. Crystal Shih leads project and scientific teams ...Crystal Shih is an Investigator III at Novartis, a multinational pharmaceutical company based in Switzerland...therapeutics at Novartis - listen to learn more about Crystal’s exciting career path, to gain insight into industry...to succeed in your own career. One pro tip from Crystal - be agile and willing to move on to new projects...how delegating can empower people Chapter 3: How Crystal advanced at Novartis, and how to prepare yourself...

...three larval stages where larvae molt in order to continue growing in the next larval stage. After the ...remain stable as homozygous alleles, others cannot. Geneticists need a method for maintaining stable lines...three-part series. We’ll first discuss how to get started on fly work in this post. The second post will ...the bees when it comes to fruit flies Drosophila start life as fertilized eggs that develop into embryos...the third larval stage, Drosophila will pupate, which takes about one week from the initial deposition of... visible dark spot. Pupae begin eclosion at the start of the day and throughout daytime. They mostly stop...through their translucent bodies. This is the ideal stage to select for females because you can be certain...