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.
We often think of DNA as inert. It generally stays put, which makes it easy to locate in a genome. But there is a type of mobile DNA, called a transposon, that’s a bit hyperactive and likes to jump around from one location in the genome to another. This jumping is what caught ...
When you think of antibodies, you probably think of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). mAbs have been around since 1975 thanks to the Noble prize winning work of Milstein and Köhler who developed hybridoma technology. But what about single chain fragment variables (scFvs)? scFvs ...
You've done the research, analyzed your data, and made your tables and figures. Now it's time to write. Sometimes, it's hard to get those words out and onto the screen and transform your work into a paper or a grant. Here’s a list of tools and resources that might help make ...
We’re excited to welcome Julie Cicalese to the Addgene Board of Directors. Cicalese served as the Chief Human Resource Officer for Harvard Medical School. The addition of Cicalese to the Board of Directors brings human resources experience and insight to the now 13 member board ...
I didn’t plan to get a master’s degree. I wanted to be a scientist and you need a PhD to be a scientist, or so I thought. So I entered a molecular and cellular biology PhD program in 2011, which I left four years later with a master’s. At the time my degree felt like a ...
Your next cool experiment requires some AAV. Where do you start? Plasmids of course! You just need three plasmids to start making the AAVs you need for your experiment: the packaging plasmid which contains the AAV structural and packaging genes, the adenoviral helper plasmid ...
Optogenetics is a neuroscience method that lets you fire neurons with the flick of a light switch. Neurons are not typically persuaded to fire when light is shined on them, but the expression of light-gated ion channels such as channelrhodopsins (ChRs) makes them ...
Adeno-associated virus (AAV) has many features which make it a great viral vector, but its packaging capacity is limited to ~4.7kb, or roughly half the packaging limits of lentiviral and adenoviral vectors. While many transgene will fit within this limit, some like prime ...
