Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) is making a big announcement today about stems, the biggest they say in their almost decade-long existence. Last night I speculated/predicted some possible announcements. Today I’m betting they will announce the discovery of a novel factor called Betatrophin. More on Betatrophin in a minute, but first why do I think […]
What is Betatrophin & why is Harvard so excited about it? Read More »
A few days ago I had a long, very enjoyable phone conversation with the father of the mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) field, Dr. Arnold Caplan. Dr. Caplan is Professor of Biology, Director Skeletal Research Center at Case Western. He coined the phrase “mesenchymal stem cell” in the late 1980s. I’m going to break the interview
Insightful interview with Arnold Caplan: Part 1: MSC history, nomenclature, & properties Read More »
Yesterday I managed to get to see a fabulous talk by Dr. Edison Liu, President and CEO of The Jackson Laboratory in Maine. I was able to squeeze it in, in between working on my R01 proposal and preparing for teaching histo to the med students here at UC Davis Med School. Dr. Liu was
Chromatin/Genomics/Transcription Tools ChIP grade antibodies MOTIF enrichment tools for DNA analysis GREAT (Stanford) CEAS HOMER MEME ENCODE Promoter Array On-line Analysis Online Tiling Array Analysis ChIP-Seq data on-line Analysis Plant Tools Transfac UC Davis Genome Center Methylation tools Yeast tools Fly ChIP-chip database General Science Tools Blast Search Genomic Blast Search ENSEMBL Blat Search
Handy BioMed Science Tools Read More »
Obtaining research grant funding is a critical part of science, but the process seems to be getting more challenging each year. Funding rates are decreasing. Applicant frustration is increasing and many grant applicants tell me they feel confused about the differences between funded and unfunded proposals. The largest funder of biomedical research in the U.S.
Interview with NIGMS Director, Jeremy Berg, part 1: grant advice, meritocracy Read More »
UPDATED I think all politicians, before taking office, and every 5 years after taking office, should be required to take a basic biology class. Why? A clear understanding of biological processes is becoming more and more important in politics these days. At the same time we are seeing an increasing number of politicians making critical
The case for required Bio 101 courses for politicians: Rep. Todd Akin Read More »
All science, whether biology or physics, whether microscopic or at the solar system level, is about experiments. Sometimes we as a society forget that. In fact, experiments are at the heart of investigations as diverse as studying cells to exploring space to medical treatments. For NASA, the last week has been a tale of two
NASA’s wickedly up & down week: broader lessons about science & medicine Read More »
I wish I had a T-shirt like the one at right below that I made up. I already hate the Higgs Boson and I’m not even sure it exists. Neither are the scientists who today reported they might have discovered it to much fanfare. Today’s hysteria and hype is based on the reported, kinda maybe sort of
Higgs hysteria & faster-than-light debacle reveal today’s voodoo Physics Read More »
Two articles in today’s New York Times got me thinking about how science can be pursued privately or publicly. I believe that getting that mix of public and private science right will directly determine the fate of humanity. In a pop-science NYT piece, James Gorman writes about how people may in the not so distant
Lessons from The Hunger Games about balancing science: public versus private Read More »
Humans have big brains, right? In fact, they are downright supersized. But is that always such a good thing? As it turns out, no. Size matters, but bigger is not always better for brains at least. When I was in high school, my biology teacher had us do the requisite frog dissection and offered extra
When it comes to brains, bigger is not always better Read More »