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In 2016, I was put in charge of the biggest project I’d seen in my already long tenure at Addgene. I would work with our research team and software engineers to update our Lab Inventory Management System (LIMS) to accommodate our new viral services. After a month or so of meetings, I began to notice something: even though our scientists and engineers were attending the same meetings and hearing the same words, they were leaving these meetings with different interpretations of what we discussed and decided. I needed to a) figure out the sources of miscommunication and b) find practical solutions. 

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 times to remove non-specific proteins, and then elute YFP. 

Option #2: Opto-Nanobodies (OptoNBs) purification

You skip adding a tag to YFP and instead use OptoNBs. You fill a column with OptoNB coated beads and wrap the column with blue LED lights. When you switch off the lights, OptoNBs bind YFP and non-specific proteins flow through. To elute YFP, you turn on the blue lights.

Which option do you choose? 

In 2008 the Quake Lab at Stanford University became interested in exploring biological dark matter – large tracts of the microbial tree of life that remained unexplored. Using new single-cell sequencing approaches, the lab was able to eliminate the need for axenic (pure) laboratory cultures to study these microbes. From 16S rRNA sequencing, hot springs were known to be diversity hotspots containing abundant biological dark matter and so the lab organized a sampling trip to Yellowstone National Park (YNP).

This post was contributed by Deborah Sweet, Vice President of Editorial at Cell Press.

Almost everyone who works in a lab struggles with reproducibility at some point.

Usually it comes up when a researcher decides on a new project and begins by trying to reproduce someone else’s result. Then, they hit trouble. The experiment won’t work. Even if it does, they don’t get the same result. So, then they end up investing time that they thought would be moving forward instead trying just to get going. It’s like being stuck in jail in Monopoly—you keep rolling the dice and not moving while all your friends are racing around the board. Eventually, you get lucky and manage to escape, but you’ve lost a lot of time.

In January 2016 we first published a blog post titled: Which Cas9 Do I Choose for My CRISPR Experiment? The three years flew by, but since then, scientists have adapted CRISPR nucleases for many more specific research needs. In this update, we will focus on the most recent advances and how some of these variants may be appropriate for your specific research question.