...when our middle school’s 8th grade science teachers reached out to their students’ STEM-oriented parents...presentation five times to groups of about 50 students each, and each group went on its own wonderful tangents. Some...about how I could combine all of these roles by reaching out to my school district not just as a dad, but...presentations. If you’re a scientist thinking about reaching out to your community’s schools, here are a few...technology into the school curriculum. Our Parent Teacher Association (PTA) has been instrumental in supplementing... means to request funding for events, consider reaching out to it. PTAs have more flexibility than the...math tables!  Be realistic about what you can teach  5-10 year olds in a single evening. Grades K-5 ...

...students and teachers can investigate together. Teachers decide which BioBuilder lessons to teach, and how.... A summer teacher professional development program that trains nearly 100 teachers each year, with workshops...needs of students and teachers. It’s possible to join a half-day workshop for teachers, to schedule a three-day...synthetic biology into the hands of students and teachers in the U.S. and beyond. “I want to learn more ... a question more and more students are asking. Teachers are also asking, “How do I engage my students .... Built primarily from her 20 years of college teaching experience, Kuldell sought to create a program...Educational Foundation in partnership with high school teachers to boost interest and understanding around the...

...explore genome editing approaches for exon skipping. Addgene depositor Charles Gersbach used paired zinc finger... respectively. Although each study used slightly different methods, they each observed the same positive...CRISPR-mediated exon skipping approach in mice, DMD researchers are very excited. This approach may also be applicable...so researchers have set their sights on another approach. Since shorter forms of dystrophin can still be...for postnatal genome editing in mice. Could this approach work with dystrophin exon skipping? For such a...Long et al., Nelson et al., and Tabebordbar et al. each chose to try exon skipping in DMD mice, which have...-type levels. With regard to off-target effects, each group finds very low to no off-target activity at...

...membrane and press each gently down onto a plate of colonies. Mark the orientation of each membrane on its... thick filter paper and saturate each with lysis solution (~3 ml each), pouring off any excess. When your... excess liquid from each membrane and press a fresh Kimwipe down firmly onto each to remove cell debris...Many thanks to our guest blogger Jessica Sacher! Jessica Sacher is a microbiology PhD student at the University... post was contributed by guest blogger, Jessica Sacher, a microbiology PhD student at the University of...interesting, much of what a phage faces as it approaches a host cell surface are complex polysaccharide...description of a technique published by Simpson, Sacher, and Szymanski in January 2016 in Viruses (5). ...

...screen, each gene is not targeted by only one gRNA, instead many different gRNAs are used for each gene.... screen approach is to use smaller libraries targeting subsets of genes. With such an approach, you lose...consuming to design 5 guide RNAs (gRNAs) targeting each of the 1000 genes you’d like to investigate in your...short) list of genes provided by the user. This approach is useful for several applications as will be ...genes are knocked out at the population level, but each individual cell only has a maximum of one gene knocked...more cells than gRNAs in a screen, to ensure that each gRNA has a good chance to contribute to the screen... involved in a studied cellular behavior. This approach is particularly suitable for in vivo screens, ...

...and most machines have a protocol that automatically performs the normalization step.  Machines Most general-use...different brand of qPCR machine, especially if you’re using a rapid-cycle machine such as a LightCycler,...above the primer and be at least 25 bp away from each primer, ideally located close to either the forward...previously-generated validation data, be aware that different machines, samples, and treatments may affect the assay....running a multiplex reaction or on a rapid cycle machine. Melt Curves An advantage of Sybr chemistry is ...edges of the plate. Compare the CT values within each set of triplicates to understand variation due to... by bubbles in wells, variations in volume, or machine surge errors and allow for well-to-well normalization...

...uncertainty estimates for each parameter, we added log-normal noise to each of the terms which make up...mean rate for each paper. Green and red lines depict the sum of mean +1 and -1 std for each paper, respectively... and contains requests from 5/22/14 to 5/19/20). Each paper has between 1–32 plasmids and a total of 2... depict the total number of plasmids ordered for each paper. Rough estimation of COVID-19 effect on...number of plasmid orders and new COVID-19 cases for each week by location. We observed that as expected, ...showing the plasmid orders and new COVID-19 cases each week. Statistical Modeling Note -- If statistical...global data at a finer temporal granularity. For each paper, we observed that the demand for the corresponding...

...about the status of each project. This creates accountability on the part of each developer and creates...would be easy to assign each developer to a single area/part of the code and have each developer work only...this can lead to wildly different ideas of how to approach a problem, but it is these very differences that...and the overall soundness of the software design. Each of us brings slightly different cognitive biases...framework is based on an iterative and collaborative approach to development. Scrum teams plan and break up ...mindful of the number of stories we commit to for each sprint, to ensure we will have the capacity to finish...are also able to consider different technical approaches that may come up during discussion.  One example...

...bearing the "Bunch of Baby Spinach"aptamer, which is a brighter version of Spinach2, an RNA aptamer that fluoresces.... Bunch of Baby Spinach, or BoBS, consists of three tandem copies of the Baby Spinach core embedded in...with Broccoli Vegetable tags, including Spinach, Spinach2, and Broccoli, can benefit your RNA experiments...cleave the target DNA. The inducible split cas9 approach can also be used for activation of specific genes...as TAL effectors or Zinc Finger Nucleases, the Gersbach lab has modified the RNA-guided CRISPR-Cas9 system...light-activated CRISPR-Cas9 effector, Polstein and Gersbach fused the light-inducible protein domains CibN...for many potential applications. Polstein LR & Gersbach CA, Nat Chem Biol 2015 Mar;11(3):198-200. SunTag...

...against this approach. First, this would prevent the study of the proteins independently from each other (see...(6). The EBOV genome contains seven viral genes, each flanked by a transcription start signal sequence...to study minigenomes, these four viral genes are each encoded on separate plasmids and are co-transfected...and the viral mRNAs are translated) by cellular machinery. NP encapsidates the negative sense, single-stranded...all four genes and necessary control elements for each would be relatively large. Cloning the viral genes...this plasmid would be more difficult compared to if each gene were encoded in separate (and thus smaller)...researchers to partially control expression levels of each gene by altering the amount transfected (see Technical...

...complex approaches to scientific questions become popular. There are only so many methods and machines one... a mailing list. This project gave me practice reaching out to other scientists, being clear about what...beyond your organization and/or scientific field. Reaching out to people who have little in common with you...starting a collaboration with a colleague. However, reaching outside your knowledge sphere allows you to connect...and meeting people with different mindsets and approaches can truly broaden your mind. When I first began...felt that I had to overcome some hesitation to ‘approach strangers’ and learn how to communicate outside...and started to be fun. I just had to remember to approach the relationship with the perspective of my potential...

...for a given experimental approach. First, unlike CRISPR, the AAV-based approach is only able to target ...limitations, the AAV approach is best suited for tissue culture based approaches that require modification...working to develop high efficiency gene targeting approaches improved on this finding with the addition of...challenging to develop high efficiency CRISPR-based approaches for the generation of knockins via homologous...sequence-specific knockins - for which the AAV approach is most well suited, since it routinely generates...there are important disadvantages to the AAV-based approach that must be considered when deciding whether ... cell, are more appropriate for a CRISPR-based approach. Second, the AAV preps generally used for gene...

...directed repairs (HDR). Split AAV vector approaches Split vector approaches increase the size of the gene delivered...following transduction, the partial genomes complement each other to restore the full-expression cassette. AAV... genomes is the basis of several split vector approaches developed in the early 2000’s which allow researchers...splitting the gene into two pieces: part A and part B. Each piece of the gene is then independently packaged...overviews and drawbacks of four split AAV vector approaches. 1. Overlapping  Overview: The overlapping strategy...tested and with the optimal sequences, the group achieved ~80% of muscle cells expressing mini-dystrophin...mini-dystrophin.  3. Hybrid  Overview: The hybrid approach combines the overlapping and trans-splicing methods. The...

...These questions will place each sample into one of four categories that are each suited to different types...fluorophores to block out of focus fluorescence from reaching a detector or restricting fluorescence to specific...fluorescent light passes through a pinhole before reaching the detector. The pinhole is specifically placed...placed to only allow light from the focal plane to reach the detector and all light from above or below is...holes rotates through the excitation light path. Each hole corresponds to a different location in the ... the focal volume. This leads to more rapid photobleaching and a reduction in signal intensity. 2-Photon...Photon microscopes restrict excitation (and bleaching) to a single focal point. This is accomplished by ...

...time, scientists have used almost all available approaches for generating iPSCs. The generation of iPSCs...vectors insert in different genetic locations in each transduced cell, so there’s unavoidable heterogeneity.... Excisable Cre-lox lentiviral vectors: This approach is the same as using a standard lentiviral vector...loxP scar behind at the site of excision, this approach is still not considered safe for therapeutic applications...polycistronic transgene or with four different adenoviruses, each expressing one factor. These vectors don’t integrate...dilution via cell division. A drawback to this approach is it has lower levels of efficiency at generating...transcriptional regulation, so it requires a different approach for regulating transgene expression. Check out...

...There are several ways to achieve multiplex IF. One of the most common approaches is to use sequential cycles...secondary antibody labeling and imaging, repeating for each target. Alternatively, you can perform simultaneous... 1: Schematic of multiplex immunofluorescence approaches. A) Sequential Multiplex IF, where one target...the sample, either by chemical treatment or photobleaching or by stripping out the antibodies, then start...antibodies are all of different species/isotypes and that each secondary has a different color fluorophore that..., you can still record the signal separately for each target.   Figure 2: Examples of simultaneous...since multiple secondary antibodies will bind to each primary antibody.      Look for primary antibodies...

...Strategies This approach compares target expression of antibody-independent approaches to your antibody-dependent...Genetic Strategies This approach uses a gene knock-down or knock-out approach to show that an antibody... it’s important to know what you are aiming to achieve. In general, these are three core goals of antibody...antibody-dependent approach. Antibody-independent methods may include analysis of transcriptomic or proteomic...levels of target detected in both methods. These approaches have relatively low sensitivity, which can be... specifically to the expected protein. Common approaches include using RNAi to knock-down expression of...antibody is binding to something unexpected. This approach has high specificity, but you need to be aware...

...subsequent process, we linked each step in our pipeline together.  Since each process can use a unique container... expand, we realized the need to modernize our approach to handle larger volumes of data. In this two-...our current need to analyze nearly 300 sequences each week. Our internal software was originally designed...plasmid sequence assembly, and possible solutions for each in the form of one-off scripts or programs, our ...the need to accelerate science using different approaches. We were also encouraged to see that a community...package, all of the pieces of software that depend on each other for the entire package to run. The small, ...complicated setup. We created, tested, and debugged each of our pipeline steps within its own container because...

.... Thus, Bernach sought to develop an artificial leaf replica system. “This bottom-up approach will allow... Melissa Chiasson, Elizabeth Unger, and Michal Bernach. Melissa Chiasson: Quantifying the abundance of...based on their eGFP:mCherry ratios. Genomic DNA from each bin are then extracted and sequenced. Chiasson is...vitro against different drugs and dosages.  Michal Bernach: Developing an artificial leaf replica system to...plant-bacteria and bacteria-bacteria interactions  Michal Bernach is a graduate student in Mitja Remus-Emsermann’...Canterbury where he studies how bacteria interact with each other and plant surfaces. His system of choice is...a fully controllable and reproducible set up,” Bernach explains. Developing an artificial leaf replica...

... goal for each analysis will help you locate relevant information in the future. Approach: Outline a...conclusion is “this approach is not ideal because…” Including a conclusion for each analysis or task will...biologists are finding themselves using computational approaches to analyze large data sets (myself included) ...data analyst in our lab took it upon themselves to teach me Python, a programming language favored by biologists... a brief overview of the approach that you will take to help you plan your analysis. There is no need ...scripts and input files that will be used to perform each task. Conclusion: Always, always, write a brief... that lays out which experiments can be found in each folder. This can be a simple .txt document. Record...