... for analyzing time-lapse images, quantitatively evaluating antibody staining, or counting cells are now...biology, innovative new imaging approaches are constantly being developed which combine computational processing... process framework FIJI are just three of the constantly growing number of "community-driven" software... fix security-critical bugs, and contribute to constant updates of the software. In hardware, this process...can literally put their work on the shoulders of giants. The still relatively young movement of sharing...Chew Chai, Manu Prakash, "Squid: Simplifying Quantitative Imaging Platform Development and Deployment....

...cellular pathway of interest conveys no significant survival advantage, such as a non-essential mechanism ...aging. For both a screen and a selection, it is important to clearly define what type of factor you are ...conditions. For screens, there is no obligatory growth advantage – that is, you are not specifically looking at...throughput? Will it be sensitive enough? No one wants to spend time screening hits that aren’t “real” ...lowering the culture temperature to exacerbate a mutant phenotype, very similar to enhancer/suppressor ...condition that can apply enough pressure to select for variants of interest, though. A selection can take the ...

...synthetic biology to target and light-up bacteria unwanted in food, healthcare settings, etc. What project...engineer bacteriophages and use those to detect unwanted bacteria. How did graduate school help prepare...of technologies, effectively communicating the advantages embodied, and driving the enterprise value of...it by reading a broad variety of materials and constantly practicing. “The expenditure of effort in preparation.... Second, "an entrepreneur must be OK with the constant fear of failure at all stages in the startup"....potential conflicts that waste money and time. Most importantly, “the company does not become real until someone...Before seeking funding, ask yourself if you really want to do this.” Biotech startups are only successful...

...are ways you can hone important skills for the profession. One of the most important skill sets for a science... of the who, what, where, when, why and most importantly, how, of a science policy career.  Who does science...approval for a new product or a well-endowed philanthropy who can shift the funding landscape to focus...increased science funding and other issues. Whether you want to pursue science policy as a full-time career or...science policy? I would argue that this is the most important question that you can explore. The answer will...advice for you and your next steps. This advice is important, but must be taken through your own personal lens...you determine what parts of your current job you want to keep or change and can inform your move into ...

...genetics was booming, SciFi saw the rise of literary giants such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, James Blish...editing technology led to the development of many important medical and agricultural products. But it also... that revolves around synthetic humans called replicants which are genetically engineered by a powerful...recognition sites had to be designed each time we wanted to target new genomic sites. The discovery of the... (Langdon). The plot involves Langdon chasing an anti-villain geneticist named Zobrist who designs a virus...plot of the movie involves The Rock and his super giant albino gorilla fighting off a monstrous wolf and...SciFi is one of the most imaginative and most important genres of literary fiction. It has always served...

...optogenetics, and chemogenetics experiments. Recombinant AAVs (rAAVs) The primary application of AAV is...the deliverable DNA) are removed, resulting in recombinant AAVs (rAAVs) with maximum “trunk” space for genetic...specific cells and/or tissues is one of its biggest advantages. Specificity can be achieved using specialized...specificity; this is particularly helpful when wanting to target specific neuron subtypes, since AAVs ...and our AAV data hub to see if others have used relevant viruses for your system. This post was contributed...and Richard J. Samulski. "Self-complementary recombinant adeno-associated virus (scAAV) vectors promote..."Development and optimization of a real-time quantitative PCR-based method for the titration of AAV-2 ...

...As a scientist, perhaps the most important part of your research is communicating the results of the ...the work. Yes, those control experiments are important - but without letting other scientists know the results...conference poster or talk, or submitting patent or grant applications; to informal settings like lab meetings...amounts of access or feedback. One of the most significant shifts in scientific communication is the rising... of listing “Submitted” articles in their CV or grant applications. A number of organizations (such as... or invite attendees to read and comment online! Want the general public (say, policymakers or community...research materials available to the community significantly sooner. Plus, authors can include the Addgene...

...White and Anthony Collmann of White Consulting frequently do sessions by Skype or phone. Samantha Sutton ... goals are for the coaching relationship. Do you want to change jobs? Grow your professional presence?... consultation meeting or call for free.  Take advantage of this to get the information you need to choose...a scientist from academia to industry, you might want to consult the Cheeky Scientist. Their motto is ...coaches I have mentioned. I have seen a lot of fantastic online content for PhDs and postdocs posted by...bottom line – there are lots of people out there who want to help. Don’t be afraid to ask and to make an investment...

...machine or robot out there that does exactly what you want plus way more than you thought it could ever do!... taking a lot of time. Enter the Biomek FXP! We wanted a machine that would improve our transformation...purification We're developing ways to prep large quantities of DNA because some countries just can’t receive...fills all those vials? Well, it used to be a lab assistant, but with increased plasmid demand it was too ...fill 400 vials in 35 minutes compared to a lab assisstant filling about 200 vials in 45 minutes by hand...have used in the lab. It’s especially useful if you want to avoid sore fingers. There are other process ...about more lab updates as we develop them. In the meantime, if you have any great lab automation tips and...

...process involves a significant amount of QC. First, we perform Picogreen quantification on each and every...high-quality isolated DNA samples of sufficient quantity for sequencing. This process is completed in a... preparation process and includes Picogreen quantification of various intermediate steps, a sizing electrophoretic...electrophoretic gel, and qPCR quantification of the final libraries. A broader view of the whole plasmid... Analysis Platform to Assess the Identity of Recombinant Adeno-Associated Viral Preparations from Viral...

...selectable with the antibiotic whose resistance gene is encoded in the viral vector. This antibiotic selection ... 320,000 viruses can infect mammals. Even more abundant are the Earth’s estimated 1031 bacteriophages ...that infect bacteria), many of which are doing important work in our microbiomes. Given that viruses are...tips for your virus experiments. References 1. Anthony, Simon J., et al. "A strategy to estimate unknown...hepatitis B virus DNA and hepatitis C virus RNA quantification as measured with branched-DNA technology." ...PMC84922. 5. Ugai, Hideyo, et al. "Stability of a recombinant adenoviral vector: optimization of conditions...

...fragment. The availability of both wild-type and mutant loxP sites has allowed scientists to leverage this...site-specific recombination. The FLEx switch takes advantage of the orientation specificity of the site-specific...needs. How does the FLEx switch work? Let’s say you want to design a genetic FLEx switch that turns BFP expression...followed by the mCherry coding sequence in the antisense orientation (Figure 1, top). The entire DNA cassette...the gene you would like to rescue with in the antisense orientation (let’s call the gene “GeneR”). The...that your gene of interest starts in the inverse/antisense "off" position and is flipped to the sense (on...Saunders A, Johnson CA, Sabatini BL. 2012. Novel recombinant adeno-associated viruses for Cre activated and...

...equipped using fast-acting optogenetic tools. The advantages provided by chemogenetics are instead that it...Targeted and specific delivery becomes especially important for studies in neuroscience where specific tissues...neuron need to be targeted. Targeting is also important in the development of therapies when expression...Picking Ligands Picking the right ligand is also important for building a chemogenetic system. Your experiment...cellular response you aim to manipulate. It is important to consider that the same receptor can elicit ...drug that only binds to one receptor, so it is important to fully characterize the compound, or compounds...will promote hyperpolarization. PSAM ligands The advantage of PSAMs lies in their ability to be specifically...

...modular cloning toolkit for genome editing in plants. BMC Plant Biol 20, 179 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186...libraries depend on many gRNAs delivered with a relevant Cas nuclease. MoClo can be used to assemble multiplexed...are not available to those working with yeast or plants. Using MoClo, or better yet, a pre-made MoClo kit...achieve a desired effect. This is commonly used in plant biology to achieve traits such as disease resistance...blog on choosing a MoClo strategy and kit if you want to learn more about this cloning technique! Many...Cloning Guide EcoFlex MoClo Kit CIDAR MoClo Kit MoClo Plant Parts Kit Resources on the Addgene blog High Complexity...

...smallest program. I don't mean have fancy food or a fantastic view (these are nice if you can afford them). ...performance with room for fortuitous improvisation. You want to make it look effortless to the audience, but ...so her ability to control the event is what is important. Choose 4 panelists (maybe 5) and no more. Too...on the topic at hand. You can use this to the advantage of the program. Start the program by polling the...Timing is everything Many of my suggestions are meant to keep the event on time. Nobody likes a program...postures shift, they are checking out. If you can, plant 1-2 good questions with trusted audience members...section. And what about those audience members that want to take over? It is the moderator's job to politely...

...first things you might want to know is what their project is. Or maybe you want to introduce yourself ...poster: those that want you to walk them through the entire poster, or those that want to look through themselves...to introduce yourself and what you do. You might want to include your university and your advisor’s name...like “Let me know if you have questions or if you want me to walk you through the poster.” Have a notebook...there. Check out the conference website for any relevant hashtags and handles to help you find other scientists...

...patients. And, to be honest, I’ve never enjoyed grant-writing. The more I talked to people with industry...interested in the drug discovery process, or you want to end up in an industry job, being immersed in ...on which company you choose. If publishing is important to you, make sure that your project will not involve...pages. In academia, however, writing papers and grants is an inescapable and essential part of being able...’re often required to at least attempt to write grants. If you don’t enjoy or excel at writing, an industry...postdoc will free you of the never-ending cycle of grant-writing that is academic life. Of course, because...contrast industry postdocs at those companies. Do you want a postdoc that’s shorter? Longer? Would you like...

...PEG precipitation of the HEK293 cell culture supernatant because it’s time consuming to prepare the 40%...virus from the cell pellet alone. If yield is important, or if the viral particles of the AAV serotype... concentrations of iodixanol to separate out contaminants from an impure AAV preparation. 15%, 25%, 40%...titration by qPCR Overview: AAV titering by qPCR quantifies the number of genome-containing viral particles... primer/probe set can be used and samples are quantified by comparing to an AAV standard curve, which ...Universal real-time PCR for the detection and quantification of adeno-associated virus serotype 2-derived...R.A., & Samulski, R.J. (2007). Production of recombinant adeno-associated viral vectors for in vitro and...

... is our own immune system, which can recognize antigens on cancerous cells and eliminate them from the...ensues, traditional chemotherapies have taken advantage of the universally-dividing behavior of cancer...approaching the Ras problem by exploiting the different mutant versions of Ras that are most prevalent in human...fluorescent protein fusion studies and the generation of mutant cell lines. Further, for each plasmid in the kit...making the results of any such study as clinically relevant as possible. Connecting the research community...community, will soon expand to include several other important pathways. We invite feedback and contributions...of signaling pathways with potential to confer anticancer drug resistance." Science signaling 7.357 (2014...

...called Cascade (CRISPR-associated complex for antiviral defense). Cascade is brought to the target location..., with Cas3 systems making up type I, the most abundant type in the Class 1 category. These type Is can....com.   The Cascade complex Cascade is an important component of the CRISPR Cas3 system. Most Cascade...is pulled through the Cas3. This mechanism is important for Cas3’s biggest trick. Cas3 likes to bluff,... pairs, stopping either at boundaries defined by anti-CRISPR proteins or running into other proteins naturally...to its full potential. Hopefully more people will want to utilize Cas3’s degradative power in the future...CRISPR 101: Cas9 vs. The Other Cas(s) CRISPR 101: Anti-CRISPR Proteins Switch Off CRISPR-Cas Systems INTEGRATE...