...advancements and the noteworthy work of fiction that it inspired. CAUTION: Spoilers alert! Pre-DNA Era  H.G. ...In the 1960s, Har Gobind Khorana, Marshall W. Nirenberg, and Robert W. Holley cracked the genetic code...and the rise of killer machines that exterminate entire humanity were the two most popular topics that ... agricultural products. But it also made SciFi director Ridley Scott wonder what would happen if these...engineering to exploit human beings. Ridley Scott directed Blade Runner (1982). It is a dystopian film that... double strand break. These breaks can then be repaired by homologous recombination with a repair template...mutations in the genome. They fused a catalytically impaired Cas9 protein to a DNA-editing enzyme to generate...

...photoswitching (Kremers et al, 2009), which usually are undesired properties. In the ideal situation, a fluorescent...illumination, TIRF or spinning disk confocal use entirely different excitation power regimes. Therefore,...that a photostable fluorescent protein is a key requirement for quantitative live-cell imaging, it is important...photostability of the fluorescent proteins can be directly compared. An example of a photostability measurement...proteins or localized fusion proteins and do not require dedicated plasmids or constructs. It should be ...imaging would be mTurquoise2, based on the data acquired at low excitation powers. Note, however, that,...Plasmids for Subcellular Localization Browse the entire Fluorescent Protein Collection ...

...these experiments require antibodies. You run a quick internet search for the required antibodies and find.... Some applications use either direct (primary-conjugated) or indirect (secondary) methods. In those cases...determine whether you should use an antibody that is directly conjugated to a detection substrate, such as a...location of a protein in a tissue section then a directly-conjugated antibody will provide better resolution... one from a large distributor that may not have direct experience with the product. Note that many antibodies...

...failures require re-attempting the same step, some require going back two steps, some require starting... our insights can help steer you in the right direction when writing your own software. None of this is...starting over entirely, and our software needs to handle these cases. The following code examples show how software... software simply follows a linear progression directing our techs through the process. The problem? As... itself. If something happens to the worm that requires a change of tube, there’s no clean way to separate...

...multi-cloning site flanked by T7 promoters to allow for bidirectional transcription to create dsRNA. Students can ...Sánchez lab describes the plasmids and protocols required for both WISH and RNAi experiments, as well as... molecular cloning to insert the cDNA into the desired plasmid backbone. The Sánchez lab plasmids allow... result in  the labeling specific cell types or entire organs in planarians. For example, the gene Piwi...proteins remove one strand of the siRNA and are directed by complementarity to the remaining single stranded...knockdown of beta-catenin. Other gene targets do not require amputation to be visible. For example, odf2 gene...Link: http://abt.ucpress.edu/content/79/3/208 2. Fire, S. Xu, M.K. Montgomery, S.A. Kostas, S.E. Driver...

...However, many diseases require techniques that can deliver gene therapies directly to the cells that need...reconstitution with a normally functioning T cell repertoire (1). In this example, it was possible to transduce...genome. AAV belongs to the family Parvoviridae and requires co-infection of helper viruses like adenovirus...facilitate and enhance DNA repair via homology directed repair (HDR). This characteristic makes AAV vectors.../vectors.php). These clinical trials have been directed at diseases including but not limited to hemophilia...overcome this issue by developing new capsids through direct evolution, capsid shuffling, and peptide displays...

...government; advising writers and directors in Hollywood; and working directly with community organizations...This guest post was contributed by Johnny Kung, Director of New Initiatives for the Personal Genetics Education...dialogue between scientists and communities. As the director of new initiatives at pgEd, I take on a variety... beyond the biological sciences, as well as to acquire leadership and communication experience. These ...communication A career in science communication or policy requires broad interest in issues at the interface of science...implications of their work. Johnny Kung is the Director of New Initiatives for the Personal Genetics Education...

...the gene to be transcribed, and typically occur directly after any 3’ regulatory elements, such as the ...transcription of the template and initiating the desired cleavage event, although some engineered terminators...downstream elements. A high affinity terminator may be desired for multi-cistronic constructs where high termination...certain RNAs. Unlike the eukaryotic mechanism which requires a consensus sequence for the addition of a poly...different than Polymerases I and II, which both require binding of termination factors. Although both are...The conserved eukaryotic polyadenylation signal directs cleavage at the cleave signal and addition of a...Position-dependent sequence elements downstream of AAUAAA are required for efficient rabbit beta-globin mRNA 3' end formation...

...challenge as it relies on inefficient homology-directed repair (HDR) to correct double-strand breaks (...tagging, however, suffer from many pitfalls: they require construction of plasmid vectors and/or rely on ... lines, especially for ambitious projects that require epitope tagging of a large cohort of genes (e.g...cells in the field (DAPI). Using the ICC assay as a direct readout of tag insertion efficiency, we have recently...also straightforward as the RNA molecules can be directly purchased and there is no need to construct plasmid...more effectively than Cas9 complexed with sgRNA. Direct comparison of Cas9 RNPs prepared with an in vitro-transcribed...was possible because reagents could be purchased directly from commercial suppliers without investing time...

...researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. CRISPR/Cas9 technology has revolutionized...edits. Cas9 is a DNA binding protein that can be directed to virtually any genetic locus when complexed ...exploited to either inactivate a gene or introduce a desired genetic alteration. Listen to Our Podcast Interview...and bind to DNA; when complexed with a gRNA that directs them to the promoter of a gene of interest, they...that allows users to decide which Cas9 protein is directed to which target site (1). Although this is possible...to the Cas9-gRNA complex. When this complex is directed to a target upstream of the transcriptional start...DNA but is no longer competent to cut DNA. When directed to a site downstream of the transcriptional start...

... for the expression of mammalian proteins that require multiple post-translation modifications for proper... Inducible promoters are extremely useful if a desired protein product is toxic to cells at high concentrations...their advantages, mammalian expressions systems do require demanding cell culture conditions compared to other... be quite time consuming and that insect cells require demanding culture conditions similar to mammalian...expression from each vector; lower expression may be required if your protein is toxic to E. coli. Of all the...share many of the same features and processing requirements as mammalian cell expression systems, including...allows for easier access and purification of a desired protein. Despite being a rather nascent technology...

...preps, lentiviral titration requires an additional couple of days, as it requires transduction of more cells...companies. Production of both AAV and lentivirus requires three plasmids — a transfer plasmid containing...available. Unlike mammalian cells, they do not require serum or an incubator to grow. The virus Insect...lentiviruses can be produced in insect cells, but they require cloning specific AAV or lentiviral machinery into...baculovirus plasmid. Production of baculovirus requires only two plasmids — your transfer plasmid and ...are readily available, so the amount of cloning required is about the same between insect and mammalian...

...handled at BSL-1, while lentivirus requires a BSL-2 setup. This requires a less involved setup when working...make them an attractive option. However, safety requirements and expression limitations may be too constraining...Created with BioRender.com. The in vitro option requires a bit less work for the first two steps, as no... them into mice. For in vivo screens, mice are directly infected with the CRISPR library. In vivo screens...still beats lentivirus. In mice, AAV is almost entirely non-immunogenic — meaning when conducting in vivo...Aryee, M. J., Joung, J. K., Breakefield, X. O., Maguire, C. A., & György, B. (2019). High levels of AAV...

...other 8 conversions are base transversions: they require switching between a two-ring purine and one-ring...the R-loop structure. In order to bind DNA, Cas9 requires (1) a guide RNA, (2) a complementary DNA sequence...DNA target strand, leaving the non-target strand unpaired and accessible on the outside of the enzyme. ...transversion editors. Red arrows indicate a conversion directly catalyzed by the base editor. Black arrows indicate...hypothesized that the CGBE edit process occurs entirely while Cas9 is bound, keeping the two DNA strands...maybe because repairing a GBE-derived abasic site requires more cellular factors binding to DNA. However,...regions that were already accessible. It's not entirely clear why this is, but it might point to a more...

...another option. However, most SRM techniques also require specialized instruments and technical expertise...material that is able to expand evenly in all directions to several times its original size. Depending...of - and ExM is no exception. First, expansion requires fixed samples. This limitation may be the both...expansion is for your sample to expand evenly in all directions, aka isotropically. But achieving isotropic expansion...optimization and careful execution, but they cannot be entirely eliminated. It is recommended that you image samples...limitations, ExM is a valuable tool, especially when paired with complementary experimental approaches. Since...demonstrated to work in different model systems, paired with SRM techniques, and adapted for detecting ...

...with tips and tricks for harnessing the homology-directed repair pathway, designing the best donor DNA, ...case for knock-ins. Knock-in mutations typically require an exact DNA sequence to be incorporated at a precise...template for repair? Read on to find out! Homology-directed repair and genome engineering The easiest way ...strand breaks – (HR). HR is the dominant homology-directed repair (HDR) pathway in mammalian cells, but a... S., Pan, H., et al. Methods favoring homology-directed repair choice in response to CRISPR/Cas9 Induced-double..., Alla, R. K., Doudna, J. A. Enhanced homology-directed human genome engineering by controlled timing ...et al. CRISPR-Cpf1 mediates efficient homology-directed repair and termperature-controlled genome editing...

... of hard-to-achieve factors. For example, FRET requires that fusion proteins be in close proximity and...fluorescence complementation BiFC has been used to directly visualize PPIs that regulate numerous cellular...FRET, as the overexpression of fusion proteins it requires can lead to aberrant subcellular localization ... construction Fusing FP fragments to your PIPs requires careful selection of FP fragments and, preferably...where BiFC outshines FRET — BiFC experiments only require that you image and measure the fluorescence of ...information, constructing appropriate controls may requires that you empirically test a number of mutants ...is a convenient, fluorescence-based method for directly visualizing PPIs in cells. The ease with which...

...was contributed by Future of Research Executive Director, Gary McDowell. On Dec 1st, the threshold at which...when the ruling was issued, a joint blog post by Director of the NIH Francis Collins and Secretary of Labor...the institutions that are meeting the salary requirements of the FLSA. In the University of California... minima of $30,000, and raising salaries would require those postdocs receive an increase in salary of... below the exemption level. Not only is this in direct contradiction to explicit policies set up other...postdoctoral training has not been demonstrated to be required for the jobs that the majority of postdocs end...McDowell! Gary S. McDowell is currently the Executive Director of Future of Research. He is interested in advocating...

...scientific knowledge they require. Biotechnology companies vary to what extent they hire experts for their technical... to publish in high-impact journals, and the requirement for a high grant success rate. At this point,...options. While some non-academic career options require additional study for late career scientists to ... similar), there are many roles out there that require exactly what life science PhDs can offer: vast ... and Their Careers in Our Career Videos What's required for a role in technical support? It takes some...necessary. The job description and the candidate requirements (and maybe also the proposed salary range) should...

... only possible through exploiting the homology-directed repair (HDR) pathway which occurs in cells at ...) base. Later the resultant U-G pair is either repaired by cellular mismatch repair machinery making an...second outcome and increases the generation of the desired T-A base pair. Figure 1: Transition mutation...by base editors. Pathways that compete with the desired outcome are not pictured. Adenine base editors...not as active as uracil excision, ABE does not require any additional inhibitor protein like UGI in CBE...NGG’ PAM cannot be editable? They can, but they require other base editor platforms. Hua et al. constructed...). Type Nickase Cas9 (D10A) Deaminase PAM requirements Reference CBE SpCas9 rAPOBEC1 NGG 6 SpCas9...

...system that we chose needed to fulfill certain requirements: Customizable to our specific needs Modern ...focus on our development instead of building the entire ecosystem Proven performance with other bioinformatics..., so our QC team could initiate and monitor the entire pipeline. Benefits of Nextflow for bioinformatics...pieces of software that depend on each other for the entire package to run. The small, portable system provided...Nextflow Establishing a complete pipeline however, required more than just identifying criteria that we needed...small with a print statement and tested that the desired data was available so we felt confident we were...process was added, we progressively constructed the entire workflow in the Nextflow script. With our completed...

... the creation of CAR-T cells directly within the body. Overall, DIRECTED can increase on-target delivery...unstructured templates and significantly reduced undesired edits (indels, etc.), while PE6c and PE6d were...Feng Zhang’s lab has developed a system called DIRECTED (Delivery to Intended REcipient Cells Through ...applications.   Figure 2: Modular features of DIRECTED particles where the fusion and targeting components... expanding the range of targetable cell types. DIRECTED is compatible with fusogens from different viral...experimental therapies and medical applications.  Find DIRECTED plasmids here! Strebinger, D., et al. (2023). ...

...Arabinose-inducible expression of T7 RNAP; IPTG may still be required for expression F- ompT lon hsdSB (rB- mB-) gal... such as M15(pREP4) use a lac repressor to act directly on the expression plasmid in order to repress ...which can prevent the culture from reaching the desired density within a reasonable time-frame. For these...you’ve tried a common strain and don’t get the desired level (or any) protein expression? Low expression...compatible with a pLys strain. Your strain may require additional antibiotic selection or a special growth...is accomplished by growing your culture to the desired density at 37°C and reducing the temperature or...secreted to the medium or if slow expression is required due to solubility concerns. Insoluble and Secreted...

...eukaryotic cell types (mammalian, yeast, plants, etc) require unique promoters and there is very little crossover...binding sites, commonly used in Drosophila Specific Requires the presence of Gal4 gene to activate promoter...Promoter from T7 bacteriophage Constitutive, but requires T7 RNA polymerase. When used for in vitro transcription... Negligible basal expression when not induced. Requires T7 RNA polymerase, which is also controlled by...Promoter from Sp6 bacteriophage Constitutive, but requires SP6 RNA polymerase. SP6 polymerase has a high ...bacteriophage lambda Can be temperature regulatable  Often paired with the temperature sensitive cI857 repressor....Promoter from T3 bacteriophage Constitutive, but requires T3 RNA polymerase When used for in vitro transcription...

...Whereas Southern blotting is labor intensive and requires a large amount of high-quality DNA, real-time ...automation, higher throughput screening, and a lower requirement for the amount of DNA used saving the researcher...Figure 1). Though some labs may prefer to send DNA directly for sequencing (more on that below), restriction...dideoxynucleotides (ddNTPs), lacking the 3’ hydroxyl group required for the extension of a DNA strand (8). Adding ...whole genomes or profiling transcriptomes (RNAseq) require sequencing of many samples at once for later comparison...confirming the results of a cloning experiment, require only one or a few sequencing reactions and may ...sequencing technologies could one day sequence an entire genome for under $1,000 (10). The future of sequencing...

...Essentially the goal was to determine what data is required for the academic research community to develop...prepare scientists for positions outside of academia Require that postdoc salaries be paid on fellowships instead... joining long programs if it is obvious that a desired career outcome is not easily achieved. Of note...incentives that encourage PIs and universities to hire a glut of trainees at low wages will still be there...take steps to broaden their skills beyond those required at the lab bench. At Addgene we try to do our ...was the idea that simply satisfying a percent requirement for diversity in graduate students, postdocs,...individuals are discluded/not treated equitably even when hired; well-meaning mentors often fail to judge the work...

...CRISPR/Cas9 for targeted genomic deletions We were inspired to produce intrachromosomal deletions based on... advent of CRISPR/Cas9, we began to explore the paired double-strand break (DSB) approach at a variety...applications in which the production of deletions by paired DSBs may be particularly useful. The first is the...context. An alternate outcome to deletions following paired DSBs is inversions [3]. These rearranged segments...loss-of-function frameshift mutations. However these may require restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis...target two exonic sites within a single gene using paired DSBs. This method allows for deletion screening...

...protein products is desired, as multiple selection markers can ensure that all desired tags have been integrated...linear PCR product is introduced into the cell by direct transformation. A given insert will typically contain...Simply design your amplification primers with the desired targeting homology—in frame, of course—and start...ONE 8(7): e67902. Many imaging studies rely on direct fusion of fluorescent proteins (FPs) to a yeast...specific filter sets and experimental output requirements. Select from these yeast-optimized fluorophore...

...), and photoswitches. Light-gated ion channels directly open and close when exposed to light and change... photoswitches OptoXRs are great for activating entire signaling pathways, but what if you’re interested...potential, then a channel with fast kinetics may be required, whereas a channel with slower kinetics can be...Principles for applying optogenetic tools derived from direct comparative analysis of microbial opsins. Nature...., & Bamberg, E. (2003). Channelrhodopsin-2, a directly light-gated cation-selective membrane channel....BiPOLES is an optogenetic tool developed for bidirectional dual-color control of neurons. Nature Communications...

...Promoter trap systems lack a promoter and thus require the trapping of an endogenous promoter. The system...traps, enhancer traps lack enhancer elements and require the trapping of endogenous enhancers to stimulate...constructs that contain splice acceptors. They require insertion into an intron of a gene, where they ...like promoter traps. While this system does not require insertion into an exon, like promoter traps, it...think enhancer traps are the top trap – they don’t require insertion in a highly specific gene region and ... the gene that they are monitoring as they are directly integrated into it. Enhancer traps do not need...