Join Us
Sign up for our feature-packed newsletter today to ensure you get the latest expert help and advice to level up your lab work.
Mammalian cell culture techniques are not simple, and culturing the cells requires a lot of maintenance as well as patience. In addition, doubling times compared to bacterial cells can take days instead of hours, which is most evident when contamination occurs. However, implementing small-scale hollow fiber bioreactors for culturing mammalian cells can save a lot…
Lab outreach programs are one of the ways that science reaches out to its future generations and entices them to join the ranks of those who have pledged allegiance to the pursuit of the unknown. Successfully running these programs for young adolescents depends on a certain number of factors, such as the ability to capture…
Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) remains the cornerstone of biological sequence analysis. When users have one or few queries, the data are easy to interpret based on the graphical output that the search provides. However, when you have to analyze hundreds or a few thousand queries, running graphical outputs can be computationally intensive, difficult…
Working in a lab can be stressful, there is so much to do, and so little time to do it that we often feel overwhelmed. Sometimes you come into the lab and there are 15 experiments that just need to be done, so you throw on some music and start doing a bunch of them…
One of the much sought after question asked by many researchers worldwide is – “What is the gene expression profile of a single cell within a heterogenous pool of cells?” While mass cytometry is the current ‘hot’ methodology for single cell analysis, the good old flow cytometry can help us perform rapid analysis of single…
gif by Kronin Okay not talking about that kind of matrix. But the kind of matrix that is crucial for MALDI (Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization). I talked briefly about MALDI in my last article, Imaging Mass Spectrometry: The New(ish) Kid on the Block. Now I want to tell you more about MALDI, specifically the matrix….
Pat yourself on the back, you saw a post with the word “coding” in the title and you didn’t freak out or glaze over. That’s the first step. Coding seems to have such a stigma attached to it; people tend to think that it’s incomprehensible nonsense that they could never learn, and that it has…
In the frenzy of today’s scientific publication landscape, it is essential to take a proactive stand at your online visibility and reputation. There are online tools that can help you make yourself spotted and translate your hard work and high-quality science into actual impact. So if you are interested in improving your chance of landing…
In Part 1 of this article, I introduced you to using code for basic image manipulation in ImageJ and working with the command recorder to expand your coding vocabulary. I covered how to make a simple macro, how to edit it and then save it to be run again another time. If you skipped the…
If you find it very difficult to call your boss by her first name, feel obligated to wear business casual clothes to the lab, or reckon that it’s slightly weird that your fellow PhD candidates are inviting you to a casual night out instead of to the library to study, then like me, you just…
Choosing a PhD topic can be very hard. There are a lot of things to consider from the subject to the supervisor. Here are some tips to help you choose. Find out what you really like This is the first topic because it is the most important. My first advice would be to get some…
Having just finished graduate school, I have been given the privilege of nearly unlimited time to reflect (Yay! Unpaid, Boo!). Graduate school was, for me, a juxtaposition of intellectual growth, real-world learning and great fun. An introduction to adulthood with training wheels—while simultaneously being a blur of anxiety, work, sleepless nights and existential crises. I…
When it comes to registering the signal output of your Southern/Northern/Western/probe hybridization, you are spoilt for choice these days. You can go all retro and use X-ray film. You can go digital and use a phosphorimager. Finally, you can go fluorescent and use a fluorescence detector. So, what are the pros and cons of each…
The world as we know it couldn’t exist without microbes. It is estimated that there are tens of trillions of bacteria living just in and on humans. (Ewww?) One trillion has 12 zeros. To put that in perspective, the entire human population on earth is only 7.3 billion with a measly 9 zeros. With that many microbes…
I’ve never run a sequencing gel in my life, but people around me did, and they spent a lot of time on getting it just right. Although the principle described by Sanger in 1975 sounds straightforward (1), sequencing gels are very long and very thin – less than a millimeter thick! They were easy to…
From one lowly PhD student to another: we need post doctoral scientists. From their ability to seemingly do everything right to their moral support after a weekend of failed experiments and questioning the decisions that led you up to this moment * clears throat *. The list of support post docs offer is endless. So…
It’s official. You’ve signed on the dotted line and you are about to begin the most exciting and frustrating journey into the depths of the unknown: a journey otherwise known as a PhD. You’ve heard the horror stories from previous students; the cloning that wouldn’t work for reasons unknown to man, the data that indicates…
Here are some ideas to make your liquid handling robot perform at its best.
If you’re planning on using lentivirus for your next experiment, chances are you’re wondering how much virus to use. For in vitro work, multiplicity of infection (MOI) is the theoretical number of virus particles applied per target cell. That is to say, if you have 1 million cells and you want an MOI of 5,…
After ten years of postdoctoral research there is one important piece of advice I would give to anyone embarking on a research career: Spend as much time managing your data as you do generating it Take time at the beginning of each project to organize how you will record what you are doing day-to-day. The…
Three dimensional cell culture mimics the extracellular matrix (ECM) that offers the structure and support for cells in vivo, thus creating the complex architecture and network required for cellular communication. For 3D cell culture beginners (or enthusiasts), the information available may seem overwhelming. It sure was for me. But it can be simplified. For example,…
Sometimes, you have to work with radioactive materials in the lab. If you happen to be one of those lucky individuals, it is important to take extra precautions in your work to ensure your safety, and good results! Here are my tips to make sure you radiate confidence doing your experiments. Know Your Element It…
The development of CRISPR/Cas9 technology has made it relatively straightforward to selectively edit genomes and has revolutionized the way in which we approach biological questions. CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and in simple terms, this technique allows you to direct a nuclease to cut at a specific site in the genome of interest. The…
In real life, cells are instructed to commit suicide for the greater good of the organism. The programmed cell death (apoptosis) is important during development of a multi-cellular organism. A good example you will appreciate is the dis-appreance of the tail from a tadpole as it turns into a frog. On the reverse, the lack…
Anyone working with laboratory animals has probably realized that simply putting two animals together does not always yield new offspring and reliable continuity of the animal line – unfortunately animal husbandry isn’t that simple! Of course, apart from making sure that the two animals put together are from different genders, there are a lot of…
Supported lipid bilayers are a very useful tool in many fields of cell and membrane biology. But how easy is it to make them? Bilayers can be made quite reproducibly, once you have found a reliable protocol! However, it can take some time to optimize your technique, so to increase your chances, make sure you…
How often have you looked at slides down the microscope and your thoughts have been miles away? Have you ever been sitting at the bench pipetting and preparing a PCR and wondered if you had really added your forward primer to all your samples (I’ll put my hand up to this one!)? Or spent time…
Whether you’re already in the field or an undergrad looking to enter the scene, here are some great places to keep up to date with the latest news and trends in stem cells. Listen About It For auditory learners, or people that listen to music on their way to the lab, you could switch it…
Struggling with your PhD advisor relationship? Sometimes its repairable and sometimes it’s better to switch. Discover how to identify when it’s time to switch advisors and steps you can take to ensure a smooth successful change to keep your research and academic goals stay on track.
Like most other chromatographic techniques, thin layer chromatography (TLC) separates out individual compounds from a mixture depending upon the polarity of each compound. The solvent system travels up a silica plate by capillary action and passes over the sample that you spot onto the plate. As the solvent travels up, it moves the compounds present…
While working as biologists, we often come across mixtures of compounds, and the first question that strikes our minds is ‘what are the components in this mixture?’ One might think of using chemical assays to find the presence of specific compounds. But that sounds painful, doesn’t it? Well, the good news is that thin layer…
While most of us have heard of super resolution microscopy, many of you may not have heard of MSIM, or Multifocal Structured Illumination Microscopy. This under-the-radar imaging technique is relatively quick, cheap (by comparison) and will allow you to get a lot of data, fast. So What is MSIM Anyway? MSIM, as I mentioned earlier,…
This article mentions of suicidal thoughts. If you are having thoughts of self-harm, I encourage finding someone to talk to. It can be a family member, friend, or professional counselor. Many countries also have suicide hotlines. Mental Health is often not a priority for institutions or individuals in academia. Making institutions friendlier will take time,…
The ability for DNA polymerase to copy a long stretch of DNA is becoming increasingly important. Why? It has to do with the advances in our sequencing technologies. Our next generation sequencing (NGS) technology requires the DNA polymerase to copy a long stretch of DNA (sometimes up to 50kb) as NGS is churning out genetic…
Before I get into today’s topic, please allow me to digress a bit and start with a few sentences that sum up the polymerase chain reaction (PCR); the grand-daddy of molecular biology. PCR, a method that is at the heart of modern day molecular biology discoveries, is a process that amplifies genetic material through our…
Say you just joined a lab and have been assigned your very own project to work on. As part of your new responsibilities, you have to breed and maintain the mutant (or transgenic) mouse line which you will be using for your experiments. An integral part of mouse genetics experiments is determining the genotype of…
Taking publication quality immunofluorescent images of can be a very time intensive, and frustrating process with hours spent capturing, processing, and putting the images into final figure format. And, if you aren’t careful, you can do a lot of work only to realize later that you need to re-image something for one reason or another….
Wow, you’ve done it! Your experiment worked and your boss asked you to write it up for publication in your favorite journal. Where to start with presenting your flow data? Take a deep breath, help is in hand in the form of the MIFloCyt Guidelines. As with other scientific techniques, there are ‘Minimum Information about…
Even in the most basic applications, fluorescence microscopy can be a very powerful technique. Simply put, the ability to actually see the biology you are interested in cannot be matched in directness. Often, the aim of fluorescence microscopy is to observe the effect of an experimental manipulation. Ultimately, you would like to know that the…
Recently, I have witnessed the uprising of various next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms and it’s quite interesting because each platform uses a different method. Previously, I’ve written about the exciting possibility of nanopore sequencing—a new sequencing technology based on the “signature” electrical currents generated as a single strand of DNA passes through the nanopore. The…
The eBook with top tips from our Researcher community.