This post was contributed by guest blogger Sean D. Stacey. Opinions on the apps discussed in the article are those of the guest blogger and do not necessarily represent the views of Addgene.

I think it’s safe to assume that anyone reading this article has a smartphone nearby. We tailor these devices to our own interests with the content we store in them: music, emails, chats, pictures, and apps. Throughout my time as a graduate student, I have relied more and more heavily on adapting my smartphone to help me with my research in terms of preparedness, organization, and sharing data. Here are five FREE science lab apps that have been educational and great for lab life. These apps prevent you from constantly searching the interwebs for lab resources, and instead conveniently provide them on your smart phone.

I’ve answered hundreds of phone calls and thousands of customer service emails in my six years as a senior scientist at Addgene. Having spent that long in customer service, I've daydreamed about the ideal customer service interaction - one that gives our customers the most utility in the least amount of time. Though I now spend far less time answering help emails and phone calls, I feel compelled to share my years of accumulated wisdom so that you, the customer, can get the most out of your email or phone call. Though my experience is based solely on my time at Addgene, I’m confident that these tips and tricks will apply to any biology-related customer support interaction.

This post was contributed by Kurt Swanson a structural biologist and protein engineer currently working at Sanofi Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, MA.

When I joined Sanofi/Genzyme nearly three years ago I decided it was time to get in shape. After three kids, I had put on typical middle age weight and “exercise” consisted of taking walks in the mall. I took action, joined a gym, and started running on a treadmill. After being with the company for about six months, I learned there was a Genzyme-based running team called Running for Rare Disease that runs on behalf of the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD). NORD raises money and awareness for rare disease and helps patients find the correct treatments, if available. As part of the team, I started adding mile after mile on my poor, poor legs.

Donate to the Addgene Super Hero 5k Team and Help Support FOP Research!

Hopefully you know that, if you’re an academic researcher at a nonprofit institution, you can order plasmids covering a wide range of fields from Addgene. What you might not know is that Addgene distributes curated collections of plasmids as kits with greatly reduced costs per plasmid. We generally create kits to allow you to easily use a set of plasmids together on a tight budget.

This post was contributed by guest blogger, David T. Riglar

Advocating for Science Symposium and Workshop 2016 – Sept 16-17 MIT, Boston

The Advocating for Science Symposium and Workshop, organized by Future of Research, Academics for the Future of Science, and the MIT Graduate Student Council will be held on Friday 16th and Saturday 17^th September respectively. Join us to discuss advocacy efforts toward positive change in the scientific enterprise and the way it is funded and to learn tangible skills necessary for affecting change. On Friday, the symposium includes a panel discussion and keynote by former congressman and CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Rush Holt, followed by a networking reception. Saturday’s workshop will be an advocacy skills “bootcamp” for a focused group of participants. More information can be found at http://futureofresearch.org/advocating-for-science-boston-2016/.