...backgrounds with technical expertise that ranges from astronomy to bioethics to chemical engineering and...explore their Local Engagement Playbook for step-by-step guides on how to engage in your local community....societal pressures including economic, cultural, and political. Science policy looks differently depending on... p” policy.  “Big P” policy is what you might typically think of. It occurs in a government setting: drafting...in Congress, or can also happen at the state and local level. The big secret about science policy that ...STPF cohort members came to DC to do either a sabbatical year or transition away from academia as tenured...supplement to your career through engagement with your local or state governments. Most communities have opportunities...

...principles to biological systems. Today, what started in Cambridge with a handful of local high school ...BioBuilderClub teams’ biological engineering designs and ideas ranged from a biological breathalyzer to pesticide...School Apprenticeship, preparing local (Massachusetts), economically disadvantaged students for paid summer...into today’s classrooms,” BioBuilder answers the call by offering a variety of educational programs all... Dr. Natalie Kuldell from MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering. Built primarily from her 20 years...experiential learning. “Students may forget the technical details they hear in their classes,” she said,...learning outcomes by emphasizing the importance of critical thinking, persistence, teamwork, and communication...

... the so-called “reproducibility crisis.” Results in preclinical, biomedical and psychological sciences...researchers.There is both theoretical and empirical evidence (in psychology, cancer biology, pre-clinical life science...sciences were called into question after credible attempts to replicate major findings could not be replicated...practices (QRPs) can quickly lead us to find statistically significant results that are not robust. Sampling...research plans become public eventually). It is typically done right before data collection starts, and ...each hypothesis will be tested with a specific statistical test.  Preregistration makes clear the distinction...differences between groups. Hypothesis generation is critical for advancement, but we are too often encouraged...

...their visions for a successful and sustainable biomedical research sector at our first Future of Research...discussed, many related to the structure of the biomedical workforce. Quotes taken directly from participants...around the USA undertaking BEST programs, including local schools in Boston: the Boston University School ...of Medicine and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Graduate education programs are also beginning...internship to be taken in an industry, regulatory, or clinical environment. It remains contested, however, whether...shape and inform the overall structure of the biomedical research sector, and what a tenable workforce...Shapes Science’ and contributing to the NIH’s Biomedical Research Workforce Working Group. Along with ...

...mice at a time. Because mice are more genetically and physiologically similar to humans than many other model...study calcium signaling in the entire adult brain, using a plasmid that expresses a genetically encoded... of mice as model organisms is that they are genetically tractable. Mice can be easily manipulated with...also relatively straightforward to manipulate genetically. Scientists can make a new line of flies in only...reasons above but because they actually share many biological properties and processes with our own cells. ...important experimental model in the study of neurological diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease (PD). ...embryonic development to adulthood. This ability to genetically manipulate and visualize cells and tissues allows...

...have been typically optimised for immortal/genetically-corrupt cell lines, lack scalability, and have ...alone in the cellular milieu. It is, therefore, critical to understand how proteins interact with one another... another (or with DNA) to perform diverse biochemical tasks in the cell. One of the most popular approaches... to tag the protein of interest with a small biochemical “epitope tag” such that these tagged proteins...epitope tagging in mammalian stem cells. For easy scalability to the 96-well format, we developed a “TAG-IN... purchased from various other suppliers with a typical turnaround time of 5-7 days. The crRNA and tracrRNA...optimized to achieve high knock-in efficiency. To calculate the tagging efficiency in the transfected cells...

...which aims to increase your understanding and technical proficiency with common applications - now let... differences of twofold or greater with good statistical significance (Taylor, 2017). With the right conditions...appropriate choice (Panina, 2018). Look for studies specifically aimed at determining the best options for a ...of triplicates to understand variation due to technical error.  Plate readouts can be affected by plate...sets and most machines have a protocol that automatically performs the normalization step.  Machines Most...when using fluorescent probe-based chemistry - theoretically, up to five or six reactions in a single well...and sets.   🔥Hot Tip🔥 The ABI machines automatically record fluorescent data on all channels - helpful...

...ratio calculators Lab math calculators These calculators can help you with common calculations performed...lab. Molarity calculator Promega's Biomath Calculators Primer resuspension calculator (sign-in required... Cloning ligation reaction calculators These links can help you calculate how much insert and backbone...required.)  DailyCalcs Science Calculator app for iPhone Reagent and Data Repositories These links can help...assembly, or In-Fusion cloning.  NEB Ligation Calculator: This tool works for any cloning method. You ...

...Attempts to remove excess bone surgically cause the body to “heal” the surgical site with even more bone that...therapeutic biologic design (ADCs) along with pre-clinical analytical development. His areas of expertise include...protein engineer currently working at Sanofi Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, MA. When I joined Sanofi/Genzyme...to get in shape. After three kids, I had put on typical middle age weight and “exercise” consisted of taking... learned there was a Genzyme-based running team called Running for Rare Disease that runs on behalf of... But, there is HOPE. FOP is a genetic disease typically caused by a single R206H point mutation on the...growth in mouse models. As this biologic moves into clinical trials, there is new HOPE for AJ. But, as we in...

...ways to monitor cell, organelle, and protein localization. For instance, you might dye your cells and ...timers, add an entire new dimension to monitoring localization; using FP timers, researchers can look at a ...single image of a cell and understand how protein localization changes over time.Hallmarks of fluorescent protein...time but independent of protein concentration. Calibration curves correlating this ratio to the total expression...in whole cells or as a pool of fusion proteins localized to a specific region of the cell. For example,...fluorescence falls within the linear window for the theoretical timer shown in Figure 1B, you can use the equation...temperature, and pH, but timer activity can be calibrated to these different conditions, enabling the use...

...fluorescence microscopy vs. confocal microscopy In confocal microscopes, optical sectioning of a specimen...sheet, typically 2-6  microns, illuminates only one thin plane of the sample surrounding the focal plane...Lee and Pantelis Tsoulfas of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Miami. The beginning...expressing eGFP under the human ubiquitin C promoter. Anatomical abbreviations: Gr= Gracile tract, Cu= Cuneate...originally named orthogonal-plane fluorescence optical sectioning (OPFOS) (2). Arne Voie, David Burns ...illumination (i.e. light sheet).  This is in contrast to confocal laser microscopy where the laser and the reflected..., the photomultipliers used to detect light in confocal microscopes are less efficient than the modern...

...visualize the localization of the FP (fused to the protein of interest), thus tracking the localization of that.... The most commonly used are GECIs - genetically encoded calcium indicators (e.g. GCaMP). Others include...capacity. Many of these FPs are fluorescent when ectopically expressed in most organisms. Furthermore, fusing...fluorescence. Therefore, FPs are used to study many biological questions. The two most common uses are: 1) to...following their activation. The four main FTs are called Slow-FT, Medium-FT, Fast-FT, and mK-GO. Large Stokes...For LSS proteins, the Stokes shift is ≥ 100nm. Specifically, these proteins are excited by UV light or blue...of the split FP. This technique is also is also called Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation (BiFC)...

...the sandwich and typically takes less than an hour. However large proteins typically do not transfer as... boiling in the presence of a reducing agent, typically containing thiols, to cleave disulfide bonds. ...gel on top of the resolving gel. A stacking gel typically has a different ionic strength and lower pH and...nitrocellulose or polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) in a step called protein transfer. While both nitrocellulose and...are “sticky” and have the potential to bind nonspecifically to the antibodies used for staining. To address... the controls listed on the vendor’s website. Typically, the vendor will demonstrate that their antibody...binds to endogenously expressed protein at physiologically relevant levels. Some vendors will also test...

...editors (CBEs) and adenine base editors (ABEs) chemically modify target bases without breaking the DNA ...one-ring pyrimidine base. This is a far more complex chemical task, not a job for a single enzyme. Base ...editing works in general. Base editors use either catalytically dead Cas9 (dCas9) or a Cas9 nickase (nCas9) ...adjacent DNA to create a region of separate strands called an R-loop (Figure 2). This allows the guide RNA...terminology when discussing base editors, like calling it the “edited strand.” Uracil excision repair... an engineered adenosine deaminase capable of chemically converting adenosine (A) to inosine (I, treated...converting the C base to uracil (U). This is the same chemical reaction performed by CBEs. However, most CBEs...

...BglBricks: A flexible standard for biological part assembly. Journal of biological engineering. 2010;4(1):1. Pubmed... diverse functions, and thus, is used in many biological fields. In synthetic biology for example, high-throughput...elements to generate non-natural tools such as novel biological circuits or sensors. Given the expanding palette... can be used to detect structure and protein localization, as well as cellular processes like gene expression...in-frame to a tethering partner, which directed localization of the fluorophore, and thus enabled labeling...emission maxima Tethering partner Subcellular localization 1 TagBFP 399nm/ 456nm histone 2B (H2B) Chromatin...to generate polycistronic containing multiple identical polyadenylation signals or promoters Gibson et...

...al.: bowtie2 -f -x HG19_GENOME --local -f -k 10 --very-sensitive-local -L 9 -N 1 -U GRNA_23MERS -S GRNA_HITS.sam...genomic regions that are bound to modified proteins called histones. We can detect modified histones with ... Table 1. Because of DNA’s 3D geometry and the chemical properties of modified histones, a genomic region...maintaining ESCs. So which of these 13,000 regions are critical? One hypothesis: the enhancers! This leads us ...approach for designing an experiment to identify the critical NANOG binding sites: 1. Find Enhancers that have...differentiate Step 3 reveals which NANOG-related genes are critical to stem cell survival. Knowing which genes influence...and therapeutics. We’ll have more to say about clinical applications of CRISPR in the next section. In...

...fixatives - chemical cross-linkers and organic solvents.  Chemical Cross-Linkers Chemical cross-linkers...artifacts and how to minimize them. FocalPlane. https://focalplane.biologists.com/2020/07/07/fixation-artifacts-and-how-to-minimize-them...-linking cellular proteins. Cross-linking is a chemical reaction that covalently joins two molecules and... confusion. Paraformaldehyde: Many IF protocols call for paraformaldehyde (PFA) as the fixative. PFA ...depolymerizes, producing formaldehyde. Often people will call the resulting solution PFA, but it’s really just...proteins can be lost during fixation with these chemicals, which impacts sample structure and could also... target to be washed away. Furthermore, these chemicals can also alter the structure of proteins, which...

... We’ve also created constructs with containing chemical tags such as the SNAP-tag, Halo-tag, and CLIP-...animals and fix the samples. When you use AAVs, it typically takes a few weeks to achieve optimal expression... Any longer and the cells may start to show morphological abnormalities due to the excessive amount of... levels of XFPs - Reduce the amount of tTA. Paradoxically, too much tTA leads to a reduced expression ...most likely by suppressing transcription. It is critical to express a minimal amount of tTA to achieve ...brain samples, we recommend pretreatment with ScaleCUBIC1 (Susaki et al., 2014), before clearing with SeeDB2...sensory systems focusing on the functional and anatomical maturation of the olfactory system.      Takeshi...

...get there and more practically, when do you need to be there? A typical biomedical postdoc fellowship ... fail to replicate. Plan experiments logically and strategically to increase your rate of productive results...theJanelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Today's postdoctoral fellows (PFs) face...submitted manuscript in a high-profile journal typically takes 6-12 months depending on the revisions and... to be ready to write by Year 3.5. Thus, it is critical to get an experimental system up and running very...identified a postdoctoral mentor. A good mentor typically writes the grants that fund your research, guides...However, you have finite time and resources. You typically have 4-5 years to make discoveries and publish...

...circle. Typically, a yellow check mark indicates that a particular parameter was automatically adjusted... The vertical black dotted line represents the cut site. Cutting and error-prone repair typically result... of robust software tools. As a consequence, a critical step in the gene editing workflow - analyzing ...over-looked.  Synthego has developed a new tool called ICE (Inference of CRISPR Edits) to solve this problem...guide RNA sequence you used. The ICE tool will calculate overall editing efficiency and determine the profiles...and interpret data about these types of edits is critical to the CRISPR workflow. For a multiplex sample...steps to learn. For increased flexibility and scalability, the ICE software has two analysis formats: sample...

...dissonance (Kunda, 1990). More specifically, they were engaging in a behaviour called the “biased evaluation ... past my bedtime, poring over my grandparents’ medical textbooks by torchlight under the covers. In high...boasted to me that he never eats “anything with chemicals in it,” leaving me to wonder how he has survived... read a version of the abstract where the real medical conditions had been swapped with made up illnesses...their preconceived ideas about the controversial medical issues. Participants gave significantly more favourable...beliefs even though all three texts were otherwise identical. Likewise, when participants read an abstract ...rate that study as untrustworthy, inaccurate, methodologically flawed, and biased. As a result, the control...

... or poor scalability.  Scientists at Janelia Research Campus and the University of California, Berkeley...across broader physical areas of the brain and enable access to neurons that are physically blocked, such...driven by neurons. By studying how neurons are physically connected, we can begin to understand how the...Therefore, by simply looking at how neurons are physically connected we can begin to understand how the ...region (anterograde tracer, Fig. 1B). Tracers are typically delivered to a particular location and they either...retrograde tracer) (Fig. 2). Viruses as neuronal scalpels Viruses can be injected into the brain and efficiently...neuronal signaling, or manipulating any other genetically controlled function. By using AAVrg in Cre transgenic...

...protein. The electrical system converts the fluorescence intensity to a voltage pulse, called an event, ...of the population as a whole, scientists gain statistical power in their observations. However, while flow...subcellular analysis such as morphology or subcellular localization studies. For these, alternative methods such...Cells are first resuspended in a pressurized buffer called sheath fluid and transported through tubes or capillaries...in single-file where it is interrogated by the optical system (Figure 1).   Figure 1: Cells expressing...complexity, measured using visible light scatter The optical system has both visible and fluorescent light sources...same direction as it was initially traveling is called forward scatter (FSC) and provides information ...

...compute using electrical impulses to coordinate emotions, thoughts, and behavior. Historically, scientists...To bring greater control to Acr activity as a biological tool, Niopek and colleagues turned to optogenetics...fusions, and xCas9, and requires no additional chemicals or modifications. This versatility opens up the...scientists study the electrical activity in the brain by inserting electrodes into the brain. But this process...and expensive. Thus scientists have turned to genetically encoded voltage indicators. To expand the voltage...thousands of proteins for one that can report electrical activity via imaging. They took the light-sensitive...light-sensitive protein QuasAr2 and systematically mutated it. Using a robotic picking approach to select cells...

...working on new experimental and theoretical methods to push the scale of genetic engineering, with the... genomic scale, with the expectation for major advances in agriculture, materials, chemicals, and medicine...to get everything to the scale of building synthetic genomes or genome-scale construction projects. Not... make a very large number of regulators. That basically means larger genetic circuits that could conceivably...material as sophisticated as wood. To build at that scale, we also have to think through programming cells... ground up, but so that genetic designs of that scale could be created. Someone could take on an engineering...resource control - everything that’s necessary on that scale.  If you look at what we’ve already put in, the ...

...in their ability to be specifically and potently activated by pharmacologically selective effector molecules...wiring of the brain and the underpinnings of neurological disease, neuroscientists need to be able to ...What is chemogenetics? Chemogenetics relies on genetically introducing engineered receptors that are only...co-developed by Bryan Roth's and Takafumi Minamimoto's lab called deschloroclozapine (DCZ) shows promise as a CNO...et al., 2019). Using PSAMs PSAMs PSAMs, or pharmacologically selective actuator modules, were developed... such as varenicline, are already approved for clinical use. Varenicline has been further modified to ... create ultrapotent PSEMS (uPSEMs) that have drastically increased potency. Download our chemogenetics...

...formulating new biological concepts. However, rates of reproducibility for preclinical studies, as reported...on solutions to reproducibility issues in the biological sciences and featured speakers from academia,...Overview - Jeffrey S. Flier, Researcher at Harvard Medical School, former dean of the faculty of Medicine ...2017 and Schmmidt 2009, but for our purposes we’ll call a study reproducible if its findings can be predictably...to your own research and thereby help move the biological research enterprise towards greater reproducibility...experiment, you’ll need to analyze your results. As biological researchers deal with larger and larger datasets...stories has, however, made it difficult to publish so-called “negative” results that conflict with our original...

...responsivity in screening ASAP3 variants. B) Electrical and optical recordings of spontaneous activity in human...protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are critical components of many physiological pathways and represent the largest...GPCR. Example applications include large-scale pharmacological profiling or interrogation of context-dependent... created ASAP5, a faster and more responsive genetically-encoded voltage indicator (GEVI) than previous...mEPSPs has been possible with conventional electrophysiological methods, it has remained difficult with ...largest family of human drug targets. To enable large-scale profiling of many GPCRs, Mikel Garcia-Marcos’ lab... collection of BRET-based ONE vector G-protein Optical (ONE-GO) biosensors (Janicot and Maziarz et al....

...research? I grew up knowing little to no biological or biomedical scientists and had no idea what the daily... global problems. Biomedical research, for instance, contributes heavily to medical practice, and understanding...the Daily Psychological Experiences of First-Generation College Students. Social Psychological and Personality...hazardous liquids. Working in a lab is nothing like a typical part-time or 9-to-5 job. I had to ask to find out...In basic science (as opposed to translational, biomedical, or applied sciences), people conduct research...with what happens in the lab Official title is typically Professor, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor...project. Lab technician / Research assistant Typically has a Master's or Bachelor's degree Generally ...

...pAAV-hSyn-mCherry Read on to learn more!  Calcium sensor AAV The GFP-based calcium sensors are single-wavelength ...Addgene! Archon1, a voltage sensor AAV Historically, electrical activity in the brain was measured with...sensors with intensities that change in response to calcium binding. There are a few versions of these jGCaMP7...brightest resting fluorescence of the GCaMP7 family of calcium sensors and can be used for imaging of small neuronal...variant of jGCaMP7 in AAV1 at Addgene! See all calcium sensor AAV at Addgene. GABA sensor AAV GABA is ... directly imaging GABA have been limited. Like calcium sensors, different iGABASnFR have been developed...(pAAV.hSyn-FLEX.iGABASnFR) has good membrane localization and brightness. The F102G variant (pAAV.hSyn-FLEX.iGABASnFR.F102G...

...nuclear localization of fluorescent proteins, they found that adding a triple nuclear localization signal...fluorescence protein-based calcium sensors (jYCaMP1), variants of the calcium indicator jGCaMP7, that are...with red fluorescence protein-based calcium sensors. These new calcium sensors include syn-jYCaMP1s (slow...purified recombinant proteins at small and large scale.  This new technique involves selection in the cytosol...compartments in mammalian cells By Angela Abitua Genetically encoded fluorescent proteins are often used to...specific structures, compartments, or specific localization of biomolecules within cells. However, sometimes...sometimes these fluorescent proteins might not localize to the right places, which can provide misleading...

...Research Fellow with Pamela Silver.  Most types of biological motion (whether endocytosis, vesicle trafficking...it to suit our purposes? In search of simple biological machines R bodies can repeatedly extend and...R-bodies, check out this video. Most types of biological motion (whether endocytosis, vesicle trafficking...to pH changes without the need for ATP or other chemical fuel sources. Like an actin filament or a microtubule...polymers, however, R bodies do not exert force by dynamically rearranging into different polymerization states...body monomers respond to pH changes by undergoing local conformational changes. These tiny movements are...by propagating through an enormous lattice of identical subunits. A brief history of R bodies R bodies...

...to develop strategies to make our classes more practical and hands-on. Students in these courses get plenty...quick flashback to time spent playing a card game called “Magic”. There were complicated rules that governed...upon who your challenger was, you might have to drastically alter your strategy. I realized that similar ...engineering and strategic knowledge to solve a clinical disease case. As a teacher, you explain the game...strategies while noting any gaps in their knowledge. Practically speaking the format I decided on was to have ...of 4 people face each other on a single chosen clinical disease case. Then, each team received a whole...build a transfer plasmid that could be used to genetically manipulate human stem cells. Then they had 10...

... has been critical to the Broad’s success over the last 11 years and was certainly critical to drawing...background in history and specifically the history of RNAi left him a bit skeptical of the technology at the...cancer biology in Ed Harlow’s group at Harvard Medical School and then applied to work at the Broad Institute...towards the Broad. In order to ask interesting biological questions, you need a tremendous amount of technology... in true collaboration with scientists asking biological questions. Doench loves that he still gets to...terms of determining what genes are involved in biological process X, you can do with CRISPR technology....with Addgene - he says he’s “known of Addgene basically since the beginning and [has] been using Addgene...

... Clinical applications Viruses in vaccines helped pave the way for their use in other clinical applications...vector from basic science research all the way to clinical gene therapy. But how can you use these amazing...and delivering a genetic payload. This cargo is typically their own genome, but this step can be engineered...’ve decided on an application, our Viruses as Biological Tools blog can help you learn about the different... express proteins. Viral expression cassettes typically contain a promoter (inducible or constitutive)...delivery Screening libraries, large collections of biological independent variables, are becoming increasingly...development well over a hundred years ago. Since then, medical technology has changed a lot, but viruses have ...

...into those of the cells they infect. These are typically DNA viruses, such as adeno-associated virus, herpesviruses...cycle to continue. They rely on a viral protein called reverse transcriptase to convert their RNA genomes...plasmid contains Gag, Pol, Rev, and Tat genes. Specifically for our knowledge here, the Pol gene encodes...encodes three separate enzymes that are proteolytically processed from the larger protein: PR (protease), RT...of lentiviral particles.  The envelope plasmid typically encodes the vesicular stomatitis virus G protein...could lead to an undesirable interruption of a critical gene. Because the integration of lentiviral vectors...Insertional mutagenesis is especially concerning in clinical settings, as evidenced by retroviral gene therapy...

...networks underlying your favorite biological phenotype in a scalable way. This blog post will introduce...by guest blogger Alan Wong. The complexity of biological systems can hinder our attempts to study and ... guide RNAs (gRNAs) for genome editing in large-scale has led to the rapid generation of genome-wide gRNA...genetic perturbations in single cells. Methods to scale up multiplexed CRISPR systems for high-throughput... genetics that underlie complex regulation in biological systems. The CombiGEM platform provides a means...currently an Assistant Professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Hong Kong. He is...technologies to interrogate and understand complex biological systems. He can be contacted at [email protected]. ...

...pathway (Raf1, EGRF), the KTR localized to the cytoplasm. This all-optical psMEK1 + ERK KTR-mRuby2 system...since other signaling networks can also be non-specifically activated and, like the game of telephone, often...must be transmitted by intermediate messengers. Optical control of kinase activity can provide greater ...greater spatiotemporal resolution than pharmacological or genetic approaches, but only a few such methods exist...Problem:  There is no common method for creating optically controlled kinases. The Solution: In Zhou et al...constitutively active MEK1. This photoswitchable MEK1 is called psMEK1. When exposed to 500 nm violet light, the...phosphorylation, much like endogenous ERK, and its localization serves as an indicator of MEK1 activity. When...

... 2016; Constantini et al, 2012). The localization and biological properties of new fusions can be compared...previous two posts in this series described a practical approach to selecting a bright fluorescent protein...ultracentrifugation. Sedimentation equilibrium analytical ultracentrifugation yields an affinity and has...efforts tested whether FP fusions to connexin localized correctly to gap junctions (Shaner et al, 2008... with native interactions, preventing proper localization in these assays. However, these strategies will...most likely in an antiparallel configuration), typical structures known as Organized Smooth Endoplasmic...the performance of fluorescent proteins in your biological system with the microscope that you will be using...

...Rather than inhibiting protein function, these so-called “small molecule degraders” recruit the proteasome...degraders provide distinct advantages over pharmacological inhibitors including rapidly depleting a protein-of-interest...resistance to inhibitors, and inducing prolonged biological effects. While targeted degradation of endogenous...selective degradation of protein targets in time scales that are not possible with traditional genetic ...here. The Methods section of Nabet et al., Nature Chemical Biology additionally provides detailed information...FKBP12F36V binding ligand (ortho-AP1867) via various chemical linkers. Our current lead dTAG molecule is dTAG...FKBP12F36V-tagged LACZ) with dTAG molecules in your biological assay of choice to ensure that there are no toxicities...