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Performing reproducible research is critical in science. This article discusses eight steps you can take to make your research more reproducible.
Autofluorescence, background fluorescence in unstained cells or tissues, often interferes with microscopy clarity. The article outlines causes, such as natural fluorophores like NADH, and offers strategies like selecting distinct fluorophores and optimizing sample prep to minimize its impact and enhance image accuracy.
Accuracy and precision are critical for achieving reliable and reproducible results. Read on to discover what these terms mean and how to improve your accuracy and precision.
Effective laboratory sterilization methods are essential for working with isolated cell lines. Read our guide to the top 6 sterilization techniques to banish those bugs.
Do you fully understand why enzymes have the best catalytic activity within a specific temperature ranges? Find out in our handy guide.
Here’s an easy guide on how to maintain your lab balance. Following these tips will ensure your balance remains clean and perhaps most importantly, accurate.
Contamination in your pipette can mean contamination in your experiments, making cleaning pipettes regularly critical. Here’s an easy guide on how to do it.
Kits for DNA gel extraction are a great way to save time in the lab, but they are costly and produce much plastic waste. Discover three easy kit-free DNA gel extraction methods that can save you money and reduce waste in the lab.
I’d bet that your trusty pipette is probably one the the most often used tools in the lab. But do you have any idea how to check the accuracy of your pipette? We’ll take you though how to do this in just 7 easy steps.
We all rely on pH, pKa, and pI for a vast amount of our research. But what is pH? How does it relate to pKa and pI? Read the definitive guide.
If you’ve worked in a lab, odds are you’ve had an encounter with filtration of one sort or another. Do you understand exactly how filters work, though? Or have you wondered why certain filters are used for certain lab applications?
Don’t just take in on faith that your measurements are accurate. Discover how to verify your measurements using gage R&R studies.
Using gloves in the lab is necessary for safety but can result in the dreaded “sweaty glove hands”. Read our top tips on how to banish those sweaty palms for good (or for at least as long as it takes to do your experiment)!
Messing up the initial calculations in your experiment is setting yourself up for failure. Here is a quick refresh on calculating the number of molecules in any DNA sample.
Have you ever given thought to how you are disposing of antibiotics in the lab and whether or not it’s correct? Discover the problems associated with improper antibiotic disposal and how to correctly dispose of different antibiotics in the lab.
Did you know that there are many alternatives to the animal-derived products we use in the lab? Read more for how and why you might want to make the switch.
When I was in school, I absolutely hated giving talks. I was a really nervous presenter, my heart would start beating faster, my face would go red, my hands would shake…even my voice would tremble! Since then I’ve made some big breakthroughs, and now I absolutely love giving talks and lectures. Here are my top…
We’ve all been there. You’re looking to replicate a result you have read in a paper, or maybe even one that has come from someone else in your own lab. But try as you might, you can’t get your head around the less than effective lab protocol that’s been provided. Or, worse still, you are…
When developing an assay, whether it is for basic research or for use in diagnostics, you will often be asked about your assay’s sensitivity. This is perhaps one of the most important performance characteristics you can determine for an assay, and in regulated work, such as in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development and clinical diagnostics, it…
At some point you have to leave small-scale cell lysis and move to large culture volumes for experiments currently in vogue, be it microarrays, total RNA libraries, or large-scale pull-downs for interactome or metabolome analysis. And at this point, you have to change your lysis method from an on-the-bench in eppendorfs to one capable of…
Designing and running PCR reactions in the lab has become so commonplace that the number of primer design tools available can be a bit overwhelming for a beginner (or even an experienced molecular biologist!). Below are four of my favorite online programs available to make primer design quick, easy, and effective. A quick note before…
Once upon a time, I thought reproducible research meant if someone else showed X in a paper, then I should be able to get X in my experiment. However, this actually refers to replication, an important but separate concept. Reproducible research is data analysis that starts with the raw data and arrives at the same…
When you work in a laboratory, preparing samples sets for many different experiments is a large part of the job. Keeping track of your samples can be tedious or even challenging if you don’t already have a good system in place. However, getting this right is a critical part of the experimental process. In this…
Pop Quiz Time: You get a new bacterial strain from a culture collection, but you’re not quite sure what the genetic notation (i.e., all the letters and symbols) means. Do you: A. Cry? B. Ask around to see what your lab mates think? C. Cross your fingers that your friends at Bitesize Bio can help…
Bubbles isn’t just the name of my favorite cartoon character from Power Puff girls, or just the best activity for a kid to play with, in general. In my adult world, they stand for a whole lot more, but can still cause extreme emotions. At the lab bench, seeing bubbles brings happiness or sadness depending…
If you have worked in a lab before, you probably think you are prepared to work anywhere. You’ve done the safety classes, know how to store the chemicals, even know how to work the chemical shower. Unfortunately, that doesn’t fully prepare you for greenhouse work. Greenhouses are a different kind of greenery-filled animal entirely, and…
If you are working in a scientific laboratory, it is very important to be aware of the various types of water available, because the purity may not be acceptable for your specific experimental application. In most labs, there are generally two types of water piped in to the sinks: Industrial Water Industrial water is non-potable…
It is never too late to take proactive measures to protect your research budget in the event of a funding lapse.
Every lab has a culture, a vibe of its own. Nowhere does the distinct character of the lab become most apparent than the way in which the lab chooses to pour agar plates. You may have heard or been told to pour plates at some point in your lab career. These “plates” could be called…
As a researcher, it’s satisfying to manage your own projects and do the bench work yourself. After all, if you don’t have experience with a technique, you’re usually expected to figure it out (with or without direct supervision). In some situations, dealing with difficult molecular techniques is simply part of the job description. The scientific…
One of my favorite things about being a biochemist is to imagine everything at the molecular level—sometimes, in very corny ways. I envision the proteins I pipet and mix as dynamic characters in a molecular soap opera that intermingle with each other in complex ways. The biomolecular characters in my soap opera interact and react,…
Have you ever needed to work in a cold room for a long period of time? For example, if you need to dialyze or purify a protein of interest that is temperature sensitive, working in a 4°C cold room might be the only way to accomplish the work. Well, you are in luck. I dislike…
If you type on a keyboard, pipette, or do anything repetitive with your hands for a long time, chances are you’ve felt it: numbness in the base of the thumb, pain in the wrist, or a weak feeling in your hand. These sensations can come from a lot of things, but the symptoms add up…
Here’s a few things to take into consideration when starting up a new lab. Starting anything new is understandably overwhelming, but let’s break it down and go through the main points of designing your own laboratory. Purpose of Your New Lab The purpose and function of your proposed lab sets the course for the tasks…
Imagine pipetting your publication experiment and then your favourite lab mate has an urgent question, which of course you helpfully answer. But when you finally turn back to your experiment you suddenly are not sure which pipetting step you were at. It’s happened to us all! Efficiently keeping track of your samples in a sometimes…
On the surface, it would seem easy enough to pick an enzyme (or an amount of enzyme) for an experiment. Just look at the concentration on the label, adjust accordingly, and you’re on your way. Alas, not with enzymes. The number of units used to measure enzymes is dizzying. However, it’s better now than it…
The more experienced hands in your lab know that molecular biology is rarely just a journey from A to B. As a result, I’ve constructed this short workflow as an introduction to genomic molecular techniques.
One of the most exciting things about being a scientist is doing experiments that have never been done before. Unfortunately, this can also be one of the most daunting aspects of science. Read on to make taking on your next experiment less daunting.
I’ve recently been doing some lyophilization of biological extracts. While I was preparing for the experiment, I became interested in the number of different methods there are for drying, concentrating and storing samples: freezing, freeze-drying, rotary evaporation, centrifugal evaporation and blow down drying. Here is a brief description of each technique for biological sample storage…
In part one, I discussed the ‘how to’ of simply freezing samples and the basics of vacuum evaporation, often referred to as speed vacing. Now, we’ll have a look at two more complex sample storage techniques (at least in terms of equipment) for drying samples (lyophilizaton and rotary evaporation) and the simpler method of blow…
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