How we make progress: volunteers!

 Do you know that everyone at project GRFT is a volunteer?

Meet Anthony, one of our diligent and hard working volunteers.

Anthony spent the summer taking courses in molecular biology and cell and developmental biology at UC Santa Cruz.  Now he's back and helping out with our work every week.  

protein expression virtual event 10May2017

Sign up and attend this interactive event on Wednesday.

https://www.labroots.com/ms/virtual-event/gibco-expressionworld-advancing-world-protein-expression



Log in anytime May 10, 2017 after 8:00 am regardless of your time zone

Attendees will receive first-hand knowledge of the newest technologies for high-titer recombinant protein production as well as protein expression system design, workflows, purification, and characterization methods. 

Blurry bands in gels?

This is a brilliant and simple fix to the problem of blurry bands we generally see in electrophoresis phosphorimager cassette images. The method uses foam-core which may be purchased inexpensively at an art supply store.  It produces higher resolution bands.  

http://rnajournal.cshlp.org/content/early/2016/10/19/rna.059303.116.full.pdf+html  

Thunderous applause to the team at Penn State.

Open source insulin project - come see us tonight.

The open source insulin project, ongoing at SF Bay Area biohacker spaces Counter Culture Labs and BioCurious Labs will have team members at California Academy of Sciences Nightlife 6 pm tonight 9-8-16.  I hope to meet some of you there...ask around for Eddy.

Basic skills in the lab - the fine art of pipetting

Those of us doing molecular biology wetwork in the lab are as much connected to pipettes as most of the general public are to mobile phones.

As any precision instrument, pipettors and tips must be handled gently and with care, of course paying attention to sterility.  Experienced biohackers who should know better often use improper techniques that cause one to cringe.  

There are basic pipette skills which are essential to learn, but it doesn't end there, it is really an art.

So in this post I'm putting in a few links to learning the fine art of pipetting, from the basics to more advanced techniques.  Please add any links or pipetting stories you may have to share.  

First, there is an advanced level webinar on May 31, 2016 

Protect your Cells with Proper Pipetting - How liquid handling influences your cell culture work

also an archived webinar:

The Tip of the Iceberg – How Pipette Tips Influence Assay Results

For the basics, there are a number of good videos

We get a lot of used pipettors, What needs to be done to make sure that they are accurate?  Calibration.

serial dilution - multi-channel

Happy pipetting, brothers and sisters!