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Search below to delve into the Bitesize Bio archive. Here, you’ll find over two decades of the best articles, live events, podcasts, and resources, created by real experts and passionate mentors, to help you improve as a bioscientist. Whether you’re looking to learn something new or dig deep into a topic, you’ll find trustworthy, human-crafted content that’s ready to inspire and guide you.
If you are bringing cells to a core to be sorted there are a few things you can do to optimise your sorting and will help the core staff. Here are a few hints: 1) Know the size of your cells Do you know the size of your cells? Not many people do and its one of…
Mercury burners are one of the most common light sources used in fluorescence microscopes, producing a wide spectrum of wavelengths making them a great light source for viewing your samples. But they do have their issues – one of which is their propensity to break or become damaged if not used and cared for correctly, which…
This article introduces a comprehensive toolbox designed to streamline the qPCR workflow for researchers. It covers essential calculators for oligo properties, resuspension, dilution, and concentration, plus a unique spectral overlay tool for multiplex qPCR design. These tools help reduce trial and error, optimize experiments, and save time by consolidating key functions in one accessible platform.
Figuring out what’s what When studying cells and cell subsets (and cell sub-subsets, and so on!!) we need ways to identify and classify every single cell. This will allow us to individually analyse each population and, for example, help to discover their role in health and disease. A principal way we do this is by looking…
Do you need purified recombinant protein to test biological drugs? But you don’t have the time or facilities for cell culture and purification? Try using in vitro translation (IVT) instead! IVT is like your own miniature protein factory. And it is great for a wide range of molecular biology applications because IVT can be much…
Today I would like to introduce you to pUC18, a plasmid most noted for its high copy number. In the first article in this series, we talked about how origins of replication (ori) control plasmid replication and copy number. To learn about this, we focused on the pBR22 ori and the role of Rop protein in…
SLIC, or sequence and ligase independent cloning, was developed by Li in 2007 and published in Nature Methods. What makes it a Nature Methods worthy protocol? Unlike other forms of cloning, SLIC does not require restriction enzymes or a ligase! Seriously! Don’t believe me? Why not have a go for yourself? I’ve detailed the main steps below to get you started. How it works To…
When you’re trying to solve a PCR problem, you’ll probably resort to a Google search at some point or another. Here’s a list of the Top 10 go-to websites to help solve your PCR problem.
Power nap anyone? Depending on how long your commute is, and what type of transport you use, you could make your commute useful. If you are taking public transport, you can use that time to answer those emails you don’t have time to get to at the office/lab, or to catch up on reading some…
You’ve nurtured your cells for weeks, perfected your experimental conditions, and nailed down all the controls. You’ve harvested your cells and gently lysed them, now you’re ready to look at the proteins. What’s one of the most common next step in protein analysis? A denaturing gel or SDS-Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis! SDS-Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis, or SDS-PAGE…
Do you suspect that your favourite protein is doing something really cool? But you cannot see it because your confocal microscope’s resolution is limited. Then Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscopy is what you need! With the power to smash through the diffraction limit of confocal microscopy, STED opens up a whole new world of improved…
Copyright is something that a lot of scientists only give a passing thought to. However, this is something that affects us all. If you publish your work, then you need to understand copyright, the different types of copyright, the difference between open access and copyright and what you can and cannot do under different copyright…
A lot of chemical reagents are relatively non-hazardous.But there are just as many that are extremely hazardous, which means you’ll want to take precautions to reduce any risk of exposure, repeated exposure, and of course, accidental contamination of anything – or anyone – that walks out of the lab at the end of the day….
Working in a lab in a developing country can be a unique and exciting opportunity for any scientist. It can be very rewarding, but also challenging as you navigate foreign settings to conduct your research. Here are ten tips for working at the bench in developing countries. 1. Expect cultural differences Everyone approaches science differently…
Oligonucleotides are those smallish bits of DNA or RNA that we rely so heavily on for many of our molecular biology experiments. In their naked form, they are single, inert strands of DNA or RNA bases. But if you dress them up, you can increase their functionality. Here are some of the common oligo wardrobe…
Want a PCR method that gives you high sensitivity and is cost-effective? Then you might want to try Mediator Probe PCR. This method gives you sensitivity and limit of detection comparable to that of dual-labeled hydrolysis probes without the high cost. We all know how expensive small batch probe synthesis orders can be, especially when…
Over the years, I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs in the lab. The latter quite often centering on a failed or plainly weird PCR experiment. As I’ve gone on and become ever more fastidious about my lab practices I’ve realized that the majority of these little calamities were perfectly avoidable. In my…
Every protein is unique and thus every protein has its own set of production and purification challenges – many of which cannot be predicted. Therefore to successfully produce and purify your favorite protein you need to know and understand these five unpredictable protocol variables (X factors). Tweaking these X factors just might be the difference…
Colocalization blues (and reds and greens) Trying to find if and where two epitopes co-localize (or, to be more precise, where they are found in close proximity) may seem easy at first: 1) Bind your two epitopes with primary antibodies from two different species, 2) bind these primary antibodies with two secondary fluorescent antibodies, one…
A marriage of sorts Fluorescence resonance energy transfer, or FRET, is often done using a microscope, which means it can be difficult to analyze large numbers of cells in one sitting. One way to overcome this, is by combining FRET with fluorescent-activated cell sorting (FACS), giving you a high-throughput method to screen for protein interactions…
What do cell lysis, clean dishes, and gallbladders all have in common? Answer: detergents! These useful chemicals can solubilize fats and other proteins in water. They are the key to applications as varied as lysing cell membranes, extracting DNA, and solubilizing proteins for gel electrophoresis. To help you understand these important chemicals, we provide a…
Yup, we really are in the digital age…even the pathology is digital. Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr. It has never been easier to take pictures and share them. The digital revolution is upon us and nothing is safe, even your pathology samples. Digitizing your pathology samples can help you better organize and manage pathology for later. And…
Whether you’re a grad student or a post-doc, the decision to apply for external funding should be a no-brainer. It is in both your boss’s and your own interests to do this and will undeniably help you in future career pursuits. But before you even sit down to write, it’s important to do your research…
What do bunnies, coins and PCR have in common? They all have tails! (ha ha!) Thermal asymmetric interlaced PCR or TAIL-PCR is used to sequence and analyse unknown DNA fragments that are adjacent to known sequences. Think of it as being rather like networking. You know you want to get to know someone so you…
As researchers, we are constantly on the lookout for new and improved ways to analyze, detect and quantify our favorite protein or gene. Luckily, we don’t always need to reinvent the wheel! PCR-ELISA is a good example of where two commonly used techniques have been merged together to create a very powerful analytical tool. What…
When it comes to Western blotting, there’s no denying it: Your membrane is a key player. After all it is the physical scaffold that holds your precious samples and it needs to be up to the challenges you throw at it. But depending on your protein’s properties and your downstream detection steps, finding the optimal…
Single-molecule localization techniques are another way to achieve super resolution. Discover how the different variants work, and get info on what researchers are doing with them.
The golden rule of flow cytometry, especially cell sorting is: ‘Put good cells in and get good cells out’. When you sort you might not get good cells out and you may not get the numbers you were expecting. In my previous article I touched on a few reasons why your cell numbers might be…
Consider a jigsaw puzzle. While most of the pieces have a different picture on their surface, all pieces fit together in an interlocking pattern. As unlikely as it may seem, restriction enzymes from different organisms can produce interlocking pieces of DNA – so called compatible cohesive ends (CCE). These are pieces of DNA, which fit…
We all know, generally from bitter experience, that experiments don’t always work first time and that sometimes the little things that govern success are the things that get left out of that online protocol! So whether you are assessing proliferation by nucleotide incorporation or by dye dilution, here are some handy hints to help you…
You walk into your tissue culture room to find a window open, the incubator’s humidity tray empty and a pipette lying on its side in the hood on a used glove… After you have found and torn to shreds the person responsible for this monstrous act (!!), consider posting the below tips to help those…
Look Ma, No Kit! Unlike with kits, there are no propriety reagents in a DIY protocol. You know what exactly is in each reagent. The DIY approach is catching on!
The literature is bursting at the seams with information about plasmids, sequences, origins of replication and more, and it can be overwhelming to sift through everything (at least for me!) when all you want is to find out a simple fact about your plasmid of choice!! This series of 3 articles aims to take a…
You are finished with your super-arduous experiment. Now the fun part! To “read” your results with a microplate reader, but do you know which microplate reader to use? Or even that there are different types? Have no fear. I am here to help ye, scientific one! Read on for my pointers on picking the right…
If there are a million cells of interest in your sample and you pass them through a sorter, you might expect to get a million cells back. But you don’t – and here is why. Hardware aborts A hardware abort occurs when an instrument can’t process the information about an event because it is still…
A few years ago, I was doing research in a lab in Ireland. Our lab, among many others, was moving to a new building. Everything was chaotic. Half our equipment was in the old building and the new lab was creepishly empty. The fire alarm went off every few days. There was a constant…
Glucose is the preferred food source for E. coli, however when glucose levels drop, E. coli need to look for other ways to feed themselves. One way in which they accomplish this is to replace glucose metabolism with lactose metabolism. The induction and control of lactose metabolism is complicated and its process has been exploited…
The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 ushered in a new era of rapid, affordable, and accurate genome analysis—called Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). NGS builds upon “first generation sequencing” technologies to yield accurate and cost-effective sequencing results. Fred Sanger sequenced the first whole DNA genome, the virus phage ?X174, in 1977. In that…
Antibodies are one of the most important tools in molecular biology. Basic researchers use antibodies to identify, locate, isolate and quantify specific proteins. Clinical researchers use antibodies to target a specific drug (such as a chemotherapeutic agent) to a particular cell. Because of the cell specificity provided by the antibody, a higher amount of antibody…
Trying a new protocol is always a little daunting, especially if no one else in your lab is doing it. So it’s always good to find a tried and tested protocol from a reputable source before getting your hands dirty. Or at least one that can start you off in the right direction. It is…
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