Addgene blog
Search
About Subscribe
Subscribe

Alyssa Cecchetelli

Alyssa Cecchetelli is a Quality Control Scientist at Addgene. She received her PhD from Northeastern University studying cell signaling and communication in C. elegans. Alyssa is particularly interested in molecular biology, science communication, all NY sports teams and traveling. Follow her on twitter at @ACecchetelli

Blog articles by Alyssa Cecchetelli

Molecular Biology Protocols and Tips

Polymerase Chain Reaction Overview and Applications

Alyssa Cecchetelli August 10, 2021

What is polymerase chain reaction? If you have ever worked in a molecular biology laboratory you have likely done a polymerase chain reaction (PCR). PCR is an in vitro method in which a small amount of DNA can be copied many many times in a short time period. PCR was invented in ...
Molecular Biology Protocols and Tips

To Codon Optimize or Not: That is the Question

Alyssa Cecchetelli November 12, 2020

There are 64 different codons that encode 20 amino acids and three stop codons, meaning that the same amino acid can be encoded by more than one codon. Although the genetic code is universal, many different organisms actually prefer certain codons over others for certain amino ...
CRISPR

Four Base Editing Reporters to Monitor and Enrich Editing in Real-time

Alyssa Cecchetelli July 7, 2020

Base editors create specific point mutations in the genome, but they’re inefficient compared to CRISPR/Cas9 edits that rely on double strand DNA breaks. Due to this inefficiency it is crucial for scientists to not only easily identify base editing events in real-time but also ...
Schematic showing that base editing converts the blue fluorescent protein expressing plasmid into one that expresses green fluorescent protein.
CRISPR

Fluorescent CRISPR Reporters: SRIRACCHA and GEmCherry2

Alyssa Cecchetelli May 26, 2020

If you’re using CRISPR to make a genome edit, how do you know if your CRISPR experiment was successful in your organism or cell type? You can use DNA sequencing or other molecular cloning techniques to determine CRISPR/sgRNA efficiency of an experiment and confirm the correct ...
SRIRACCHA reporter
CRISPR

Finding nucleic acids with SHERLOCK and DETECTR

Alyssa Cecchetelli April 16, 2020

Originally published Aug 30, 2018 and updated April 16, 2020. Figure 1: Comparison of SHERLOCK and DETECTR nucleic acid detection methods. Sensitive and specific nucleic acid detection is crucial for clinical diagnostics, genotyping, and biotechnological advancements. Many ...
Cartoon depictions of SHERLOCK and DETECTR nucleic acid detection methods. SHERLOCK can be used to detect dsDNA or RNA. The material is amplified using RPA (for dsDNA, producing more dsDNA) or RT-RPA (for RNA, producing cDNA). Either way, T7 transcription then produces RNA from the amplified material. A target RNA sequence is specifically recognized by Cas13, which then promiscuously cleaves nearby RNA reporters, freeing a fluorescent marker from a linked quencher. DETECTR is used to detect DNA. The material is amplified using RPA, and a target DNA sequence is specifically recognized by Cas12a, which then promiscuously cleaves nearby ssDNA reporters, freeing a fluorescent marker from a linked quencher.
Plasmid Tags

Proximity Labeling: A Powerful Tool for Protein Complex Purification and Proteomic Mapping

Alyssa Cecchetelli December 2, 2019

There are approximately 2-4 million proteins per cubic micron in bacteria, yeast, and mammalian cells (Milo, 2013). The number of interactions between these proteins is hard to imagine yet alone study.
Proximity-labeling-BioID-APEX-comparison
Fluorescent Proteins

HA Frankenbody, a New Imaging Tool to Visualize Single Molecules and Nascent Peptides

Alyssa Cecchetelli October 10, 2019

Part stable scaffold, part epitope binding region, all fused to a fluorescent protein. “Frankenbody,” like the infamous frankenstein, was constructed by grafting different parts together. By combining two optimized elements of an antibody probe, scientists can now more easily ...
HA frankenbody

Sharing science just got easier... Subscribe to our blog

Subscribe
Addgene