Speaking of Mol Bio

Join us for an insightful conversation with  Dr. Nadav Ahituv , a leader in human genetics and gene regulation at UCSF. He shares his personal journey from scoliosis patient to genetic researcher, exploring the mysteries of  non-coding DNA , massively parallel reporter assays, and  CRISPR-based therapeutic innovations. We dive into his lab’s diverse projects, from decoding bat wing development and...

With prior Mol Bio Minutes episodes covering DNA form migration and staining considerations for nucleic acid gel electrophoresis, we tie it all together with this great set of overall tips, tricks and resources for the topic.  Anyone that’s ever run a gel has undoubtedly produced gels with smeared, faint or poorly separated bands. What causes these and how can you avoid them?  Well, Aistė Polikait...

It could be argued that biology has always boiled down to chemistry, and that chemistry has always boiled down to physics. However, not many would deny that the fields of biology and chemistry are overlapping more than ever, with both leveraging computing methods, also more than ever.  This conversation with Dr. Ramesh Jha, Technical Staff Member at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), crosses b...

You can run the perfect agarose gel to separate your nucleic acid fragments but if you don’t stain and image the gel properly, it’s all for not.  In this second installment of Mol Bio Minutes we take a look at the staining considerations for nucleic acid gel electrophoresis with Paulius Palaima, Product Manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific. He covers the range of stains and staining approaches avai...

Topics and terms such as biosafety, biosecurity, containment, and contamination are things most of us have heard of and think about at some level, but with the pace of molecular biology moving faster than ever, these are topics with implications that are reaching farther than ever. We’re joined by Dr. Ryan Burnette and Dr. Lauren Richardson from Merrick and company for this episode, and they’re ac...

Agarose gel electrophoresis is a staple method in almost all biology and biochemistry lab where separation and analysis of nucleic acids is needed. In this Mol Bio Minutes mini episode Augustė Užuotaitė, Scientist III at Thermo Fisher Scientific, covers the basics of electrophoresis with a spotlight on how different forms of DNA migrate differently in agarose gel electrophoresis. In less than 10 q...

Obesity is one of the most pressing health challenges of our time, with genetic and molecular factors playing a crucial role in how our bodies regulate weight. In this season opener, we explore the science behind obesity, focusing on how hormones, genetics, and brain circuits influence feeding behavior and body weight. Join us for a fascinating discussion about the interplay between molecular biol...

The start of Season 3 is just around the corner, slated to start in January 2025. What’s the new season hold in store you might ask? Steve assures us he’ll be back hosting Season 3 and teases at topics that are coming. These include biosecurity, bioengineering, polymer degradation, genetics of obesity, CROs and how they utilize mol bio, platelet biology, and epitranscriptomics. As if that were not...

We’re joined in this episode by Dr. Sarah Barry, Reader in Chemical Biology at King’s College London. Sarah started with an interest in biochemistry, went into organic chemistry because it was more concrete, and now applies her chemist’s approach to understanding and manipulating biosynthesis of natural products for important areas of research, including antibiotics. This insightful conversation g...

The history of fermented foods like beer, bread, and other foods can be traced back thousands of years to ancient civilizations in China and Egypt. This ancient technology was originally used to preserve foods when refrigeration was not an option. While less common in modern industrialized civilizations, we’re now realizing that fermented foods play a major role in gut microbiome diversity, which...

While some of us knew a good bit about mRNA prior to 2020, we all got a crash course on mRNA technology and its prophylactic and therapeutic potential as a result of the COVID pandemic and subsequent SARS CoV-2 vaccine development. In fact, most of us have now received at least one mRNA vaccine at this point. Our guest for this episode, Dr. Christian Cobaugh, Co-founder and CEO of Vernal Bioscienc...

There are all sorts of molecular tests to tell if you’re infected with something specific, but what do you use when you’re not sure what you might have? You might use a thermometer as a first step, but wouldn’t it be nice if that thermometer was a bit more high tech? In this episode we meet Dr. Nick Meyerson, CEO and co-founder of Darwin Biosciences, who’s team is working to develop the “molecular...

Plastics are a modern miracle of science that have helped deliver both convenience and life-saving solutions. However, we must now grapple with the challenge of immense amounts of plastics in our waste streams and environment. How do we best deconstruct plastics to reusable or more bio-friendly molecules? This is the exact challenge being addressed by the work of Dr. Elizabeth (Izzy) Bell and her...

Most scientists start their education and careers with a vision of working in the lab to discover great things and drive innovation. However, we don’t all end up loving the actual lab work portion of science. What non-lab career options exist to utilize molecular biology knowledge and skills? Well, according to our guest, Jason Amsbaugh, Founder and CEO of Samba Scientific, the career options are...

While the end product is quite different, brewing beer is not all that different than many other bioproduction processes used in the lab and industry. Both require skills, experience, and the right QC/QA methods to control and monitor the starting materials and the entire process, all the way to that bottle of suds you might be thirsty for. Steve and Gabriel talk with Kelly Tretter, a microbiologi...

When you buy chicken or turkey from the grocery store, you might not give it much thought, but there is an entire network of people working to ensure the health of the animals in our food supply chain and your health. In this episode, we talk with an unsung hero, Beverly Wood, supervisor of the molecular diagnostics lab at the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, who wor...

Contract Research Organizations (CROs) are a resource that most scientists know about but relatively few have first-hand, internal experience with. In this episode our hosts speak with Saboor Hekmaty, Director of Laboratory Operations at Avrok Biosciences, who pulls back the curtain to illuminate what CROs do, and the skills required for them to be successful in supporting diverse projects for the...

Doing something complex and meaningful in a new way requires thinking and acting a bit differently. This is the case with how Dr. Joey Azofeifa, from Arpeggio Bio, is using systems biology to discover new drug candidates. Join us in this Season 2 kickoff episode where we dive headlong into transcriptomics, systems biology, machine learning, and learn how they’re being used to innovate drug discove...

We start the second season of this series with an update on what you can expect from new episodes, which start to drop soon. Your host, Steve Lewis, shares details on changes you can expect as the series evolves. One change will be a broadening of application topics to be covered, as this season will include episodes discussing transcriptomics in biopharma, the use of molecular biology by CROs, br...

In this episode of Speaking of Mol Bio, we speak with Dr. Mandovi Chatterjee about single cell analysis. Dr. Chatterjee is the Director of Single Cell Core at Harvard University Medical School. She has spent her career at the exploring and mastering a wide variety of single cell methods . In conversation with Dr. Chatterjee, our hosts dive into the more technical aspects of this ever-evolving fiel...

  In this episode, the hosts have an intriguing discussion with Dr. Ben Sun, Head of Biomarker Genetics at Biogen.  Dr. Sun holds an MD/PhD from the University of Cambridge, providing a view and perspective on data from both research and clinical perspectives. The advantage of his unique background is that it provides a balanced perspective on large-scale population data and genomic data sets used...

Dr. Stan Roux, Professor of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Texas – Austin, has had a long and successful career based on his fascination with plants and his desire to understand plant biology. He’s spent his career exploring the effect of apyrase on root systems, crop yields, and plant nutrient uptake. We get into Stan’s unlikely career path and how a chance conversation with a colleag...

In this episode, Gabriel and Steve welcome a colleague of theirs, Dr. Doris Beylkin, to share her depth of knowledge and perspective on the CRISPR cell engineering topic. While Doris is a  Global Market Development Manager today, she has over 10 years of experience supporting customers in planning, troubleshooting, and analyzing gene modulation and gene editing experiments. In this regard, she’s s...

This discussion with Dr. Johan Skog covers a lot of ground while staying super approachable.  The Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Exosome Diagnostics, starts by sharing basics about exosomes and tells us about how he’s translated his curiosity for the vesicles from tumor stem cells into his current role where he’s helped develop the world’s first exosome-based cancer diagnostic test. The c...

It’s been 40 years since extracellular vesicles, or exosomes, were first connected to the way cells communicate and transfer information. Since then, researchers have studied what part they play in the normal physiology of a cell. There has also been an expanding amount of work in the role that exosomes can play in therapeutics and diagnostics of a wide range of diseases.  Jim West, CEO of Clara B...