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Fluorescent proteins have enabled scientists to pursue creative research avenues previously unavailable to them. With these fantastic tools it’s now easy to monitor protein expression, localization, and protein-protein interactions. Beyond these common applications, researchers are finding new ways to apply fluorescent proteins everyday. 

The late Michael Davidson and Roger Tsien played enormous roles in enabling researchers to utilize and develop these tools by making their own fluorescent protein technologies widely available to the research community. To honor their legacy, we recently launched the Michael Davidson and Roger Tsien Commemorative Travel Awards. These awards are intended to help scientists share their fluorescent protein research with the academic community by funding their travel to a conference of interest.

In this post, we’re proud to announce our first two Michael Davidson and Roger Tsien Commemorative Travel Awardees: Xin Zhou and Fatima Enam. There were many excellent applicants but Xin and Fatima stood out for their creativity in the use of fluorescent proteins and the potential for their work to enable future discoveries.

Accelerating science and supporting scientists globally are the shared mission of both Seeding Labs and Addgene. The Addgene-Seeding Labs plasmid grant is a collaborative endeavor providing plasmids to researchers in developing countries. We are proud to introduce the 5 scientists who were awarded the Addgene-Seeding Labs Plasmid grant this year. These scientists work on projects spanning from the identification of plant compounds and insecticidal proteins to the development of renewable biotechnology products and biosensors for herbicides as well as developing yeast as source for dietary supplements!

Gladys Kaba from the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ghana will be receiving the third Addgene/Seeding Labs plasmid grant and plans to use the grant to order plasmids she can use as positive controls in PCR-based cervical cancer screens.

As we mentioned a few months ago, Addgene has been working with Seeding Labs to provide plasmid grants to researchers in developing countries. Today we’re proud to announce that we’ve selected our first two plasmid grant awardees: Drs Louis Bengyella and Kwabena O. Duedu, both from the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ghana. Read on to learn more about doctors Bengyella and Duedu and how they plan to use plasmids from Addgene to advance their research.

As Christopher Voigt explains it, his lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been “working on new experimental and theoretical methods to push the scale of genetic engineering, with the ultimate objective of genome design.” It’s genetic engineering on a genomic scale, with the expectation for major advances in agriculture, materials, chemicals, and medicine.

As they’ve gone along, Voigt’s group has also been assembling the toolbox needed for anyone to begin considering genetic engineering projects in a very big way. In one of his latest papers, published in Molecular Systems Biology in November, Voigt and Alex Nielsen describe what’s possible when multi-input CRISPR/Cas genetic circuits are linked to the regulatory networks within E. coli host cells.