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Darrell Kotton is the director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Boston University Medical School. Darrell’s research focuses on the lungs, and, among other projects, using stem cells to develop in vitro models for lung disease. Darrell strives to promote open source biology in his own lab, at the Center for Regenerative Medicine, and within the biomedical research community. Along these lines, Darrell recently joined the Addgene Board of Directors where he hopes to help keep us focused on our core mission to promote scientific sharing. Listen to learn more about Darrell, his research, and his focus on open science.

Research tackling questions in the fields of Cancer, Inflammation and Immunity, as well as various combinations thereof (so called “Immuno-Oncology”) is exploding. Researchers are increasingly able to harness the body’s immune system to fight progressing cancers. It was inspiring to participate in the 2017 Cell Symposium on Cancer, Inflammation and Immunity and learn more about “... recent findings in basic immunology, cancer-immune cell interactions, cancer immunotherapy, as well as new approaches to reprogramming tumor-associated inflammation for therapeutic benefit ”as stated by the organizers.

In meetings, in surveys, on Twitter - there is one thing we've heard over and over from our users: "Please, please improve your plasmid maps!" After thoughtful design, vetting, and tweaking, we’re excited to announce that our plasmid and sequence displays are now powered by GSL Biotech's SnapGene Server Software. With the backing of SnapGene’s sequence viewer software and extensive feature library, our updated plasmid and sequence displays are now much easier to interpret and analyze at a glance. For a quick look at just how much things have improved, check out the example below. Our old map is on the left while the SnapGene powered map is on the right (click here to see the new map in action). Read on to learn more about the improvements we’ve implemented and how they’ll make it easier for you to find the plasmids you need. We'll be monitoring and improving the maps further after this initial launch so stay tuned for more updates.

Imagine being able to determine whether two proteins are within 10 nanometers of each other, or measure the tension in the helical structure of spider silk, or the activity of a protein in a synapse. What kinds of tools enable us to measure these properties, and what fascinating experiments could push these tools even further? All of these things can be done using FRET! Read on to find out more about this amazing imaging technique and find further tips for using FRET in your experiments here.

What are scientists up to on Twitter? Prior to writing this post, my interest in Twitter was fleeting. I’ve had an account for three years and have only tweeted 6 times: #fail. I’d hoped to use Twitter professionally to network, learn more about alternative careers for scientists, and share cool science. Unfortunately, it never clicked for me. Recently my interest was renewed in part due to FOMO  but mostly because of this article: “A systematic identification and analysis of scientists on Twitter.” This paper addresses the following questions about scientists on Twitter: who are they? What do they share? And how they are connected? Here are the highlights written as 8 tweetable facts.

Note: The images used in this post were created using data from or modified from Ke et al. 2017.