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This post was contributed by guest blogger, Gary McDowell, executive director of Future of Research.

On December 1st 2016, many postdocs working more than 40 hours per week could expect to see their salary raised to at least a new legal minimum of $47,476 per year, under updates to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). This was due to the threshold at which salaried workers receive overtime payment for working more than 40 hours per week increasing from $23,660 to $47,476 per year. This post discusses how a nationwide injunction against the FLSA is affecting universities' decisions to alter postdoc salaries - in some cases reversing these decisions entirely.

This post was contributed by guest bloggers Alissa Lance-Byrne and Alex Chavez, researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

CRISPR/Cas9 technology has revolutionized the fields of molecular biology and bioengineering, as it has facilitated the development of a simple and scalable means of making targeted genetic edits. Cas9 is a DNA binding protein that can be directed to virtually any genetic locus when complexed with an appropriately designed small RNA, or guide RNA (gRNA). The gRNA conventionally contains a 20-nucleotide sequence that is complementary to the target site, or protospacer, in the genome. Native Cas9 has two catalytic domains, each of which cleaves one strand of DNA upon binding the protospacer. The resulting double strand break (DSB) stimulates DNA repair mechanisms that can be exploited to either inactivate a gene or introduce a desired genetic alteration.

Listen to Our Podcast Intervew with Alex Chavez

In July 2016, we launched our Viral Service and began delivering ready-to-use lentivirus and adeno-associated virus (AAV) to scientists around the world. We began with only a few inventory items offered domestically, but by the end of 2016, we expanded our viral inventory to 25 lentiviruses and 25 AAVs. These viruses have been distributed in over 200 packages to more than 20 countries. With this initial success, we will continue to provide and expand this diverse and useful collection of tools so that researchers around the world can accelerate their work. After all, as we like to sayat Addgene, productivity is infectious.

Curious which viruses researchers have found the most useful so far? We crunched the numbers on our Viral Service (and then we crunched them again) to find the most requested lentivirus and AAV of 2016.

The top viruses of 2016 were (drumroll please)...

UPDATE (2/2017): THE TRAVEL AWARD IS NOW CLOSED - READ ABOUT THE 2017 AWARDEES HERE

To commemorate their innumerable contributions to the development and use of fluorescent protein tools and their dedication to scientific sharing, Addgene is opening applications for the Michael Davidson and Roger Tsien Commemorative Travel Awards. These $2,000 USD awards will be open to any masters students, PhD students, or postdocs traveling to an academic conference in 2017 who can demonstrate that fluorescent proteins have or will have an impact on their research.

Every quarter we highlight a subset of the new plasmids in the repository through our hot plasmids articles. These brief articles highlight the main features and applications of a partiular plasmid or set of plasmids. We hope that these articles make it easier for you to find and use the plasmids you need. You can find all the hot plasmids from 2016 below. With over 45,000 plasmids, we can't write posts for every great plasmid that comes into the repository, but be sure to let us know if you'd like to write about your plasmids in a future blog post. No time to read? Listen to our hot plasmids segment on the Addgene Podcast.