Laura Grassie

Bitesize Bio
Laura received her PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Dundee before moving into the world of scientific publishing. She has previously worked as an Assistant Editor for the journal Genome Biology and has had various roles in scientific publishing. She is now a Managing Editor at Bitesize Bio.

Articles by Laura Grassie

Tips for Choosing Your Lab Notebook Pen (and Why You Need to Choose Carefully)

Tips for Choosing Your Lab Notebook Pen (and Why You Need to Choose Carefully)

Keeping a meticulous lab record of your experiments is a necessity. And it’s drilled into us to back up our computers, including backups stored in different locations to ensure vital records don’t get lost. But how do we protect the hard copy information in our lab books? You may not have given much thought previously…

Genomic Analysis of Single Cells: The Benefits of Being Single

Genomic Analysis of Single Cells: The Benefits of Being Single

You don’t need to be told about how next generation sequencing technologies have revolutionized the way we study the genome and the epigenome. Whether you want to look at transcription (RNA-seq), translation (Ribo-seq) genomes (DNA-seq), interactions of proteins and DNA (ChIP-Seq) or to study epigenetic features such as methylation (whole genome bilsulfite sequencing) there are…

A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words – Making Diagrams Simple

A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words – Making Diagrams Simple

Figures play a central role in science not just as a way of displaying results, although this is obviously important, but also as a way of getting across complicated theories and processes in a relatively simple and direct manner.  I’m a firm believe in the power of putting ideas into diagrams and spent a considerable…

Let’s Talk About Stats: Getting the Most out of your Multiple Datasets with Post-hoc Testing

Let’s Talk About Stats: Getting the Most out of your Multiple Datasets with Post-hoc Testing

So you’ve performed a test such as an ANOVA and have found that there is statistical significance in your data (lucky you!), however you now want to know where that significance lies. When you are comparing multiple sets of data it might seem like a logical thought to simply perform an individual t-test between each…

Let’s Talk About Stats: Comparing Multiple Datasets

Let’s Talk About Stats: Comparing Multiple Datasets

Last week I focused on the left-hand side of this diagram and talked about statistical tests for comparing only two datasets.  Unfortunately, many experiments are more complicated and have three or more datasets.  Different statistical tests are used for comparing multiple data sets. Today I will focus on the right side of the diagram and…

Conrad Waddington and his epigenetic landscape

Conrad Waddington and his epigenetic landscape

I was first introduced to Conrad Waddington’s epigenetic landscape when reading ‘The epigenetic revolution’, a fantastic introduction to epigenetics, and in my opinion, a must read for anyone who is looking for an entertaining and enjoyable introduction to this fascinating field. In his model, Waddington likens the process of cellular differentiation to a marble, which…

How to Reduce Antibody Contamination When Western Blotting Co-IPs

How to Reduce Antibody Contamination When Western Blotting Co-IPs

Co-immunoprecipitation is a method used to detect protein-protein interactions. While it can be wonderful when it works, there are many problems associated with this technique. One of the biggest problems that I have faced when using this method is contamination by the light and heavy chains of my precipitating antibody when performing western blots of…