Blogs

Report: Actions to Enable an Equitable and Innovative U.S. Bioeconomy

What does the future hold for biotechnology and biomanufacturing? I know I would like a crystal ball, but since I do not have one, the next best thing is to read thoughtful analyses that can help shed light on what might come to be, if we use our resources wisely and equitably. In this report Albert W. Hinman and Douglas C. Friedman discuss where the future workers and resources might come from, and how to make sure there is equal access to “the... Read more

Wow, this is an incredible Citizen Scientist opportunity! The organizers of the Genome Detectives project need volunteers to help annotate the DNA sequences of disease-causing bacteria. Bacterial infections kill people every day, even with the availability of antibiotics. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are becoming more prevalent, and new diseases are emerging, so we need to know more to be prepared. Register for an account and contribute along with 599 (as of 7/17/2022) other volunteers. Read on and see what the organizers of Genome Detectives say:

Take a trip down a double helix (that's DNA)! Become a Genome Detective and help us... Read more

I introduced the previous blog about our InnovATEBIO webinar ( To Reduce Variability/Enhance Reproducibility: Begin at the Beginning ) with a story about pH measurement. In the experience described in that blog, I was trying to measure the pH of a difficult solution, one with a high pH and containing urea. As it turns out, problems with pH measurement have continued to bubble up periodically in my life, even when my knowledge of such measurements is considerably more sophisticated than it was long ago. The table below shows data from a team of my... Read more

The Antibody Engineers NSF ATE project has published its first research project from the January 2022 Hackathon in QUBES. The project guides students through the process of investigating whether different commercial antibodies are likely to work against SARS-CoV-2 variants.

In the main research component, students use NextStrain.org and GenBank to find protein sequences from new variants and align those sequences to a spike protein complexed with an antibody. Mutations in the antibody binding site are modeled to understand how an amino acid substitution may change the chemical bonds between an antibody and... Read more

In May, my colleague, Jeanette Mowery, and I presented an InnovATEBIO webinar: To Reduce Variability/Enhance Reproducibility: Begin at the Beginning . This is the first of two blogs about that webinar.

Before discussing the webinar, I’ll share a personal story. Many years ago I was thrilled to land a postdoc position in a cancer research laboratory where I worked on a project involving the role of DNA adducts in initiating breast cancer. One of the reagents that I required had a pH of 10, and it included a relatively high concentration of urea. This reagent frustrated... Read more

Updated November 2022

In 2022, with support from our new NSF ATE grant project, University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and City College of San Francisco (CCSF) partnered with the California Life Sciences (CLS) Racial & Social Equity Initiative to pilot the Inclusive Research Mentor-Manager Training series aimed at helping life science labs and organizations build inclusive management practices and work places. This training was designed to teach current and future industry professionals how to efficiently and effectively train, performance manage, and support interns and employees of diverse backgrounds in an effort to foster inclusive, high-functioning... Read more

Not all of the episodes in the podcast series "How I Built This" are about biotech, but Episode 415 is, and it is fascinating! How to eat salmon, without catching fish? That is the question Wildtype cellular agriculture company founders Aryé Elfenbein and Justin Kolbeck are answering. When they first met in 2011 they had not planned on starting a company, Aryé was a cardiologist busy with medicine, and Justin was a diplomat who had lived all over the world. But something clicked, and soon the two were tackling the problems... Read more

The Allen Institute has so many amazing ways to explore biological systems. And they just unveiled a new one, this time teaming up with Google to bring the Human Immune System Explorer to everyone!. You can read more about this new portal in the June 1st, 2022 GeekWire article , The platform is still being expanded, but aims to help simplify access and analysis of the vast amount of human immune system data already collected, and still to come. The information is already being used by Allen Institute researchers to investigate the immune systems of... Read more

Talking Biotech is a weekly podcast that uncovers the stories, ideas and research of people at the frontier of biology and engineering. Each episode explores how science and technology will transform agriculture, protect the environment, and feed 10 billion people by 2050. Interviews are led by Dr. Kevin Folta, professor of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida.

I was intrigued by the title of Episode 343: Breeding the Next Amazing Apple. This episode has Dr Folta interviewing Cornell researcher Dr. Awais Khan, an expert in apples. I love apples, and have picked... Read more

That means that any educator that can demonstrate that they are affiliated with an educational facility will be able to get PDFs and electronic copies of the BS4NM Textbook, Lab Manual, Instructor's Guide and Course Planner (lesson plans) as well as most of the online digital BS4NM resources for use in their classroom with... Read more