Great tips, tricks or techniques deserve to be recognized. Get the inside scoop on a different protocol each week.
Despite it’s importance, reaction monitoring can be lax, in part because of the hassle of getting into a sealed round-bottom in the middle of a reaction. We have to unclamp, flip-up septum, re-clamp, remove septum, take sample, replace septum, unclamp, seal septum, reclamp then get on with the TLC. After all that work, it’s time for a nap…
The Video:
The video is in two parts. The first being the overview of electrophoresis and the second being an up close loading of samples in a gel. The reason for the first part is because I needed to fill in time and I wanted to see how well the video would time compress. I like playing around with that stuff, so I just did it. The second part was to take advantage of my new High Definition(HD) camcorder.
Whether we’ve just started a project or we’re expanding our current one, there are few things more overwhelming than learning about a new gene from square one. Just understanding the logistics can be a killer (Where is it expressed? What other proteins interact with it?…) and usually necessitates reading/skimming/sleeping through a chest-high pile of reprints. Until now…
Whether brute-forcing through hundreds of mini-preps or setting up so many reactions that you run out of round-bottoms, it’s not unusual to feel like a robot from time to time. It’s normal. However, if that robotic feeling doesn’t seem to be going away and you have a craving for WD40, call your doctor – or mechanic – immediately. Watch this video to see what can happen to an otherwise normal grad student after too much repetition…
How many protocols can you follow and then actually drink?! Unless you like the taste of silica gel or Tris buffer, probably not many…
Research is filled with numbers- from activation energies to reaction rates. While many of us can artfully dodge many of the gruesome equations associated with quantum mechanics or enzyme kinetics, one basic calculation remains inescapable.
All it takes is a little paper cut on your pinky to be reminded of exactly how many times you use the finger that you most certainly have forgotten about. For the next day or two, you will have a renewed respect for the distal digit and realize that in fact it’s a pretty productive member of the hand afterall.
Great techniques don’t have to be expensive or expansive. They’re often clever solutions to routine problems and this Technique of the Week is no exception.
When I first started cell culture, I was just maintaining a line of HEK cells so it was pretty much meat and potatoes cell splitting. I thought I had it all under control. Then I tried a 1:8 split into a 24-well dish…
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