by Suzanne on November 25, 2009

The fourth Thursday of November marks the annual tradition in the U.S. called Thanksgiving. Originally, Thanksgiving was a religious holiday that has sinced turned secular and became a national holiday in 1941. Now, for families (read on...)

by Suzanne on November 9, 2009

In a previous article, I listed some ways that people annoy their co-workers and many of you added some of your own pet peeves. Now I would like to discuss some ways to be the lab favorite, also known as the "golden child". Does (read on...)

by Suzanne on November 5, 2009

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 (read on...)

by Suzanne on October 16, 2009

Every day you go into the lab and you spend the 8-14 hours with the same group of people. And when you spend that much time with people, bench to bench, for anywhere from 3-6 years, you really need to learn how to get (read on...)

by Suzanne on September 30, 2009

The problem of amplification of DNA templates containing high GC content continues to annoy researchers despite the many strategies developed to overcome this issue. Betaine is the most common additive used to enhance (read on...)

by Suzanne on September 21, 2009

qPCR is a technique used daily in most labs, but the first step, designing your primers, can be the biggest obstacle to even getting started. Without a good pair of primers, you can't start asking the real questions and (read on...)

by Suzanne on September 8, 2009

When was the last time you had to give blood or a swab sample for a test, such as for a cold or flu, or some other virus? Have you ever wondered about the accuracy of the test results? If the test is FDA approved, then you can (read on...)

by Suzanne on August 25, 2009

Each winter, the flu season peaks in January as new strains of virus emerge and spread among school age children, elderly and immunocompromised members of the population. Diagnosis of flu, and other infectious diseases, puts (read on...)

by Suzanne on August 10, 2009

Formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissues are valuable samples that typically come from human specimens collected for examination of the histology of biopsies for the detection of cancer. But each sample contains much more (read on...)

by Suzanne on August 4, 2009

So you have some blood stored in the -20C or -80C and you want to isolate RNA from the samples. If you wanted DNA, you would have many products to choose from. But for RNA, your choices are more limited. Obtaining RNA from (read on...)