As biological catalysts, enzymes transform their target substrates into products. Enzyme kinetics is the rate of that transformation. By understanding how an enzyme’s behavior is affected, you can figure out how it functions in physiology or fails to function in disease. Now it gets complicated… What affects an enzyme’s kinetics? In the first place, most [...]

The pH meter is probably the least understood and most abused piece of equipment in the biological lab, probably because it is an undercover agent from chemistry and only a rare biologist likes chemistry. Look over there, it stands in the corner of the lab, covered in dust, glass probe encrusted with crystals. In a [...]

A former colleague and friend of mine worked in technical support, taking calls from scientists. Most of the calls came from life science researchers frustrated by failed experiments. My friend would listen for a bit, then almost always exclaim in very charming but booming Russian-accented English, “No! You must add buffer to the experiment! It [...]