...However, if we think of creativity as a form of innovation, it’s clear that creativity is absolutely a transferable... 2: Blugene likes to spark creativity in out on the open sea Creativity comes in many forms. Whether...highlighting an oft-underlooked transferable skill: creativity. I’ve heard quite a few scientists state that...transferable skill developed during PhD training. Creativity is required to develop new projects and test ... study outlined in Originals by Adam Grant, a creativity expert at Stanford conducted an experiment in...dissenting opinions is to foster a culture of inclusivity. Work with and value people who think differently...training as a scientist has been building your creativity all along. In my own career, my team has used...

...there are more and more molecular biology-based activities making their way into high school classrooms,...transforming cells with green fluorescent protein, these activities are limited to those schools fortunate enough... of low-cost, easy-to-use educational biology activities – that any school could afford – led me to develop..., as each one is as cheap as 10 cents, making activities designed with FD-CF reactions affordable to many... accompanying curriculum to see if any of the activities fit your lesson plans. If you are an instructor...your research ideas into hands-on educational activities using the BioBits platform, please get in touch...

... for pathways that drive resistance to drugs in vitro, and they’ve shown that it works. But, he says that...

...insertions require complicated, often costly in vitro assembly methods. A new method, REPLACR-mutagenesis...mutagenesis methods Current SDM methods rely on in vitro assembly. To make a point mutation, you design two...Trehan et al. wondered if, instead of relying on in vitro assembly, they could make the E. coli do the work...since you skip the steps of gel purification and in vitro recombination. Across all modifications described...Reactions 1 1 1 per fragment 1 per fragment In vitro Assembly No No Yes Yes DpnI Digestion Yes Yes ...

...doing work outside of the lab. Extracurricular activities don't have to be ‘extra’ Today’s graduate and...of professions is to engage in extracurricular activities (EA). EAs can: Introduce new perspectives in ...outside of the academic world Participating in activities outside of the lab expands your professional ...! Taking action: Examples of extracurricular activities The table below lists potential EAs and which...within and beyond academia. Extracurricular Activities Professional Skills Open source classes (e.... interest in a different field Outreach activities (e.g. Volunteer at a local high school science...

...channelrhodopsin’s photocurrent strength, wavelength sensitivity, and off-kinetics.   This model was then used... measured photocurrent amplitude, wavelength sensitivity, and off-kinetics correlated with the model’s...experiments determined that ChRger2’s improved light sensitivity and higher-photocurrent properties when paired...

...experiment. Sensitivity Cas9 sensitivity is often closely related to specificity. Sensitivity is a measure...measure of off-target activity (left) while sensitivity is the measure of on-target activity (right). Cas9...by calculating the on-target activity divided by the off-target activity. Figure 2: Specificity...balancing specificity and sensitivity. Wild-type Cas9 exhibits high on-target activity, but also high off-target...consider: site accessibility, specificity, and sensitivity. Site accessibility Site accessibility is a measure...Specificity is the assessment of the off-target activity of Cas9. This can occur when Cas9 cleaves a site...measure of the on-target activity of the Cas9 nuclease. This can be determined by measuring the indel frequency...

...researchers to activate transcription or Cre recombinase activity only in the presence of GFP. These systems, known...

...kinase activity at the single-cell level can aid in drawing connections between signaling activity and cell...following phosphorylation bNLS activity is suppressed and NES activity is enhanced, leading to cytoplasmic...kinase activity.  Advantages of KTRs When compared to FRET reporters for measuring kinase activity, KTRs... method for monitoring live single-cell kinase activity is FRET, but FRET reporters are challenging to...localization serves as a proxy measurement of kinase activity. The key advantage of KTRs is that they are easy...together. Challenging  to Design: FRET reporter activity depends on both the distance and the orientation...FRET reporters. First, KTRs monitor global kinase activity that occurs in the cytoplasm and/or nucleus, while...

...Comparing SpCas9 and GeoCas9. *For in vitro Cas9 RNP activity or longevity. GeoCas9 is active at high temperatures...Optimal Activity 35 - 45 °C 50 - 70 °C Genome Editing in Mammalian Cells? Yes Yes Longevity in Serum... from 25-80 °C. Activity is expressed as Kcleave (min-1). SpCas9 has maximum activity from 35-45 °C, while... while GeoCas9 has maximum activity from 50-70 °C. The key advantage of GeoCas9 is that it functions... be incubated at high temps but still maintain activity following heat treatment. The second set of experiments...Harrington et al for more examples of GeoCas9’s editing activity in HEK293’s. GeoCas9 stability in human plasma...trick GeoCas9 has up its sleeve is its increased longevity in human serum. Harrington et al suspected GeoCas9...

...sequences, Cas12a activity gets activated. This unleashes indiscriminate ssDNA cleavage activity which cleaves...Specific ​H​igh ​s​ensitivity ​E​nzymatic ​R​eporter un​LOCK​ing) technique Sensitivity: Single molecule...Two-step-SHERLOCK has a sensitivity in the zeptomolar range while One-step-SHERLOCK has a sensitivity in the femto-aptomolar...SARS-CoV-2 using a CRISPR based DETECTR assay Sensitivity:10-100 copies of RNA per microliter Time: ~40... need for thermocyclers. This is followed by in vitro transcription and Cas13 is then used to detect the...visual detection of novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 Sensitivity: 4.6-11 copies/microliter of RNA targets in a...two crRNAs that bind to two regions improves sensitivity of the assay. This reaction also contains SSB...

...switch and turn off CRISPR activity. The ability to turn off CRISPR activity is an important step towards...thing that was missing: a way to shut off Cas’s activity. The concern is that the longer Cas remains active...edits to occur. Although methods to switch on Cas activity using light or drugs have been developed, the ... the labs found that anti-CRISPR prevents Cas9 activity in HEK293 by reducing editing from ~30% in control...proteins are highly diverse but most block CRISPR activity one of three ways: Inhibit DNA binding Example... Anti-CRISPR proteins (Acr's) can block CRISPR activity in many ways such as inhibiting crRNA loading,...experiments 1. Reduce off-target effects Prolonged Cas activity can increase the chance of off-target editing ...

...rapidly detect nucleic acids with high selectivity and sensitivity from patient samples. Find the DETECTR...nucleic acid detection however, either lack the sensitivity or the specificity to detect nucleic acids at...level. The Zhang lab has adapted natural RNase activity of the Cas13 protein to develop and optimize the... the method termed Specific High Sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter UnLOCKING (SHERLOCK and SHERLOCKv2) (Gootenberg...CRISPR-based diagnostics. SHERLOCK- Specific High Sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter UnLOCKING Cas13 (C2c2) was... your targeted nucleic acid. To increase the sensitivity of the assay, targeted DNA or RNA from a sample... SHERLOCK to detect DNA or RNA with atomolar sensitivity and single base pair mismatch specificity.  SHERLOCKv2...

...for its role in molecular biology, biotin (Vitamin H or Vitamin B7) is first an essential coenzyme that ...determined to be due to a deficiency in Vitamin H later renamed Vitamin B7/biotin. Egg white injury would plague...biotinylation. This 13 amino acid sequence is termed AviTag. Using AviTag, one can label a protein of interest with...bacterial fusion proteins Biotin is an essential vitamin for life Although biotin is most commonly known...bacteria and some fungi, thus mammals must obtain the vitamin through external sources. Humans absorb most of... biotinylate macromolecules of interest both in vitro and in vivo. Biotinylation reagents Biotin’s exposed...Scientific's Biotinylation Reagent Selection Tool. AviTag and BirA Proteins can also be biotinylated by exploiting...

...to control Rho GTPase activity. A) Schematic of Opto-RhoGEF design and activity. B) OptoTIAM (magenta)... light-sensitive ion channels used to control activities like neuronal signaling — think of a mouse with...there’s a lot more to optogenetics than neuronal activity. Researchers have designed a variety of photoswitchable...severing. A) Schematic of Opto-katanin constructs and activity. EB3N-VVDfast-iLID (anchor) and SspB-mCherry-p60...microtubule severing and has very low dark-state activity and toxicity. All of that means this light-powered...called SuperPLDs with 10, 30, 50, and 100 times the activity of the original, generated using directed evolution... with high efficiency in mammalian cells and in vitro, opening up a wide realm of possibilities. The CRY2...

...can interfere with activity. The resulting system was coined as CRISPR–Cas9 activity switching via a novel...stemmed from the goal of reducing off-target Cas9 activity. The use of nickases, prime editing, anti-CRISPR...targeting specificity or reduce the duration of Cas9 activity.  The field of optogenetics is renowned for enabling...such as microbial opsins, to control cellular activities using light. In 2015, scientists combined CRISPR...NLSx3-CRYPHR-p65 - it had the lowest background activity in the dark state and highest fold induction at...where light is required to reconstitute enzymatic activity. Photoactivatable genome modifications by NHEJ...low background and high fold-induction of Cas9 activity (16.4-fold). This paCas9-1 light-inducible system...

...and predicted on-target activity was balanced with predicted off-target activity when selecting guides....lower off-target activity, but it could also be caused by a reduction of on-target activity. However, there...-target activity, Morgens et al drew some generalizable conclusions about off-target activity, demonstrate...off-target cutting without a reduction of on-target activity, but it’s unclear if this holds true in genome-wide...sites that lack open chromatin marks, DNase hypersensitivity, or are in an enhancer, transcription factor...characteristics that influence gRNA off-target activity: 1) mismatches closer to the PAM are less tolerated...guides with high GC content have greater off-target activity. Short gRNAs have lower off-target cutting and...

... chance of cross-reactivity Higher level of background stainingLess sensitivityLess specificityLimited...specificityIncreased chance of cross-reactivity Sandwich High specificityHigh sensitivity Longer protocolIncreased...moleculesReduced chance of cross-reactivity Less sensitivityLess specificityLimited availability of conjugated... ELISAs for their accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity (a good ELISA can detect picogram quantities ...procedure removes one potential source of cross-reactivity.   While the method is simple and saves time,...Incorporating a secondary antibody increases the sensitivity of the assay, since multiple secondary antibodies...secondary antibodies can also be a source of cross-reactivity.  Sandwich ELISAs In the most common type of...

...between recipients.   In vitro prediction of drug immunogenicity  The goal of in vitro prediction of immunogenicity..., 2020).  Evaluating a drug’s immunogenicity in-vitro helps researchers understand a drug’s safety and...depending on the person. However, in silico and in vitro assessment of immunogenicity can help evaluate risk...silico prediction algorithms fail to capture. In vitro evaluation of ‌therapeutic immunogenicity is typically...induction (Groell et.al, 2018). Thus, microscopic in-vitro models can be built that contain various components...components of the immune system. Figure 2: In-vitro models for immunogenicity prediction of therapeutic...efficacy.  Better together Combining in silico and in vitro approaches enables researchers to develop safer ...

... light-activated tool for controlling neuronal activity, channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2), a blue light-activated...to blue light, this channel activates neuronal activity by opening and allowing positively charged ions...developed many optogenetic tools to control cellular activity with exquisite precision using only light. Optogenetics... tools, can control everything from electrical activity to gene expression, and even CRISPR based gene... optogenetic tool causing a change in cellular activity or gene expression. Experimental output is measured...(rhodopsins) either excite or inhibit neuronal activity upon exposure to light within a specific range...downstream signaling cascades (reviewed in Abreu & Levitz, 2020), including light-sensitive chimeric GPCRS...