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In this heyday of molecular biology, many scientists do a lot of DNA work but never get to actually manipulate the organism they study (unless if you count normal human interaction for all of us studying human genes in test tubes and gels). As a freshman in college I studied development and evolution of histone genes in Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, the spiny purple sea urchin. It’s not a standard model organism, but it was easy to harvest eggs and sperm, mix them in a tank, and observe the beauty of embryo development in real time. I was already a biology geek, but this formative experience nailed down my plan to become a research scientist. I recently was invited to attend the first Principal Investigator meeting of the NSF EDGE (Enabling Discovery Through Genomic Tools) Program and I met scientists from 21 different labs who clearly also share this wonder of the organism.  

Addgene has so much to celebrate! As we enter this new growth phase of the organization and the expansion of our impact, I’d like to take a moment and honor all of the success we have achieved and the opportunities we have for the future. At Addgene we will never ever stop planning, perfecting, and learning, but there are a lot of things we actually don’t have to worry about and that is something to recognize!

When Jessica Sacher, a microbiologist from the University of Alberta, saw that scientists were using Twitter to find phages to treat an antibiotic resistant bacterial infection, she shared that tweet with Jan Zheng, a UX designer that she knew. “We had actually met at a lindy hop swing dance event,” Zheng says (networking can happen anywhere!). The pair quickly teamed up to create Phage Directory in a whirlwind three days in November 2017.

15 years of plasmid sharing has certainly taken us on many adventures...From moving office locations three times, to opening our UK office in 2014, to starting our viral vector service in 2016...we’re excited to help scientists share their reagents with the scientific community.

Last Wednesday we worked with the Harvard GSAS Science Policy Group to organize a Minisymposium on Reproducibility. The minisymposium focused on solutions to reproducibility issues in the biological sciences and featured speakers from academia, industry, nonprofits, and publishing. The livestream video from the event can be found below along with a description of the program beneath it. You can jump to the different time stamps in the description to watch any sections you’re particularly interested in, but I’d recommend watching the whole livestream for a more holistic understand of reproducibility issues and their potential solutions.

Prior to this event, I gave my own talk on reproducibility at Addgene and here I summarize what I learned both in preparation for my talk and at the minisymposium. You can find a variety of additional resources and information about organizations promoting reproducibility in this booklet (which was also handed out at the event).