Liam Thompson
A trained molecular biologist with a predilection to finding better, faster and cheaper protocols for molecular biology. Has taken a sabbatical from the bench to recover from thesis trauma.
Articles by Liam Thompson:
Ye Olde Antibiotic Plates: Stability of Antibiotic Agar Plates
After a late night transformation you realise you have forgotten to make any plates. Should you use the old stash of amp plates you found in the back of the cold room?
Pimp Your Plasmid Growth Medium
I often wonder why it is that molecular biology researchers stubbornly refuse to change 4o-year old methods that, while work, are not as good as newer, faster and cheaper methods out there. I suppose rational scientists often have irrational superstitions. One example of an old method that could be improved is the growth media used…
Coping With a Quarter Life Crisis
A quarter life crisis is the psychological crash felt when transitioning from the bubble of education into a “real” job. But never fear, help is at hand.
A Menagerie of Mini Prep Methods
There’s more than one way to do a plasmid miniprep. Here are 5 to add to your molecular biology arsenal.
Recycle Those DNA Extraction Columns
You know those ridiculously priced and throw-away DNA mini, midi and maxi-prep columns? Well the good news is that you can actually re-use them if you are reasonably careful at regenerating them, with this simple and cheap method described in detail by Nagadenahalli B. Siddappa in Biotechniques in 2007. Apparently these columns can be reused…
