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From Addgene Book Club to our on-site book swap/library, reading is part of the culture here at Addgene. Since it’s National Book Month, we’ve asked some Addgenies to share their favorite books - both scientific and not - to inspire you to read a little more this October.

Picture this: you’re a busy scientist anxiously awaiting the arrival of the newest plasmid you requested from Addgene...the plasmid that will help you run that last additional experiment requested by Reviewer #3. But why isn’t the plasmid here yet? A quick look at your order status on addgene.org identifies the hold-up. Your Material Transfer Agreement is stuck in “pending.” Fear not, there are many ways we’re trying to make MTA turnaround faster with technology transfer offices (TTOs). The latest of these efforts is the Golden Stopwatch Award to celebrate exemplary TTOs.

With a collection of over 70,000 plasmids, kits, and viral service items we employ dozens of pieces of energy-intensive lab equipment on a daily basis. By the beginning of September all will be powered by 100% renewable electricity!

This is the last post in a blog series on sustainable practices in the lab, where I’ll list some easy but effective habits you can incorporate to reduce your lab consumption and increase your lab sustainability. For my other posts on lab sustainability, check out my Recycling and Innovations posts.

Making small changes in your daily habits can feel ineffective or unimportant. With so many big contributors to the sustainability problem, how can one little change make a difference? Individual changes to our behavior can lead to cultural shifts that can have bigger impacts. For example, if you joined an office where everyone used a mug or reusable water bottle, you’d probably bring in a mug or reusable water bottle instead of buying yourself a big stack of plastic cups. By initiating little changes in ourselves, we can both influence others to change their behavior and we become more aware of our own consumption.

Addgene recently moved to our brand new location, with more space to grow and help scientists share resources in new ways. Along with a new location comes the need for new conference room names. The Addgenie’s favorite conference room naming scheme? Gene names! This is not surprising for Addgene. But the names we chose were not just any gene names. Now, we have meetings in rooms such as Groucho, Sonic Hedgehog, Sleeping Beauty, Cookie Monster, Spaghetti Squash, Tinman, and Bagpipe.

How does a gene get its name? Often times, a gene gets its name based on what happens to an organism when a gene/protein is depleted in a knockout experiment. Certain scientific communities have a little more leeway in what they can name a gene and many of the interesting ones come from the fly community. Not surprising, this is where most of our conference room names originated from.

Let’s take a look at some of the stories behind the names. We also have many plasmids in our repository that you can use to study these genes!