About the author

Suzanne Kennedy

Suzanne is Director of R&D at Mo Bio Laboratories in California, and the author of their blog, The Culture Dish. She has a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Virginia Commonwealth University.

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I don’t need to tell you that you can find (virtually) everything you need to know on the internet — encylopedias are a thing of the past. Now, you have an app for that on your phone. You don’t even need to wait to get home.

So it makes total sense that for science, we would learn techniques via the internet. But not just a literary “how-to” guide anymore. Videos as a learning tool are starting to take a bigger role in teaching. A live demonstration speaks a thousand words!

In a previous article, I talked about JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) and how they were leading the way in publishing live videos on techniques that go along with a published paper.

But learning can also be just a simple 30 second to 5 minute video on how to perform a specialized technique, one which is  not necessarily publishable or citable. That is what some scientists are doing from both academics and industry.

Below are two examples of the use of video to teach techniques; their sole purpose is to teach.

How to Handle a Water Filter Membrane

This first one was made by MO BIO Labs and demonstrates a best practice for transferring filter membranes from a vacuum filter unit into tubes for bead beating or storage. This short 50 second video is enough to give the scientist the basic technique required to safely handle a wet filter membrane without tearing or scratching it.

Filter membrane insertion into a bead tube

It is short and helpful- allowing the user to visualize a technique that in words would be difficult to emulate.

Making a Agarose Gel

This next video was made by researchers at the University of Leicester. Even though this is longer (5:44), it is packed with great information on agarose gels including the size range of agarose separation, what % gel to run for small and large fragments, and what your gel will look like if you don’t melt the agarose completely. This video would be perfect for training new students. This lab also did a second video called Running an Agarose Gel.

University of Leicester Making an Agarose Gel

As you can see, this video is more professionally done and the lab far cleaner than most I’ve ever been in. I hope the University of Leicester plans on doing more molecular biology videos!

BiotechprojectAZ Channel

I wanted to draw your attention to one more academic institution that is creating videos for learning and that is called BiotechprojectAZ. These series of videos show undergraduates demonstrating how to prepare, pour, and stain agarose gels. They are very nicely done and the students speaking on the videos did an excellent job.

These videos are all new and unfortunately, I can’t find any more detail about the location of this work- whether this is a university or college or if AZ stands for Arizona. If the director and producer of the BiotechprojectAZ channel would contact us, we would love to hear more about your plans for future videos and why you decided to embark on this great project.

As you can see, videos offer a better way of learning, but especially when it comes to science. Some much of science is technique based and having “good hands”. If the person with great lab hands could show us exactly how they do that method, the mystery would be revealed.

Bitesize Bio is interested in featuring your video techniques for our readers.  They don’t need to be professionally produced and they can be short or long. If you have a great way of doing some technique and want to share it with other scientists, send us the video and we will post it on Bitesize Bio.  Scientists helping other scientists is what we are all about.