Beth Kenkel is currently a research scientist at a cell therapy company. She is particularly interested in science communication and viral vectors. Follow Beth on twitter @ElizabethKenkel.
Finding research papers is not particularly hard. There are millions of them. The real challenge is finding relevant papers. The latest installment of the Early Career Researcher Toolbox will highlight four tools for finding journal articles related to your actual interests ...
It’s time to choose your own protein purification adventure. You want to purify your favorite protein (YFP). You have two options: Option #1: Affinity tag purification You tag YFP and use an affinity column for purification. After binding YFP to the column, you wash several ...
CRISPR is a simple and versatile tool for genome engineering, but its utility is dependent on its ability to infiltrate cells. Options for CRISPR delivery include plasmid transfection, RNP electroporation, and viral transduction; but these methods aren’t stealthy enough to gain ...
One of the biggest barriers to gene therapy treatment of central nervous system (CNS) diseases is the blood brain barrier (BBB). It’s the BBB’s job to block the entry of pathogens to the CNS, but this also stops viral vectors, such as adeno-associated virus (AAV), from reaching ...
When I started writing for the Addgene blog, I was focused on writing about new scientific techniques and cool plasmids. Creating graphics were usually the last thing I thought about when writing posts. Since then I’ve realized my figures are just as important, if not more ...
Direct reprogramming describes the process where differentiated cells are turned into a cell type of choice while bypassing the intermediate pluripotent state. Though a valuable tool for regenerative medicine, direct reprogramming is an inefficient process, with the majority of ...
The vast majority of bacteria are undomesticated which limits the tools scientists can use to study them. For example, gene knockdown with CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) has been limited to lab-adapted bacteria because it has been challenging to introduce CRISPRi machinery into ...
Mutagenesis is a tool that both evolution and molecular biologists use to tinker with DNA. Making changes to a DNA sequence can help scientists identify and/or facilitate the evolution of new phenotypes, and forward genetics harnesses this at a large scale by screening diverse ...
