In Focus

DNA and mRNA transfection in the modern lab

If you work in a lab, whether you are researching the cutting edge of cell and gene therapy development or running a simple molecular binding screen, the chances are you have done some ...

Cytokines in immunotherapy

Cytokines are a large group of bioactive small molecule proteins synthesized and secreted by immune and non-immune cells. There are various types of cytokines that belong to different ...

Epitope binning

Therapeutic monoclonal antibody development is growing significantly in the biopharmaceutical industry. However, for monoclonal antibodies to play a beneficial role in developing new ...

Organoids for cancer research

In the last decade, organoid technology has transitioned from an exciting prospect in basic research to a paradigm-shifting phenomenon that has shaped policy and changed the face of ...

Single-cell spatial proteomics

Single-cell and spatial techniques have evolved in leaps and bounds over the last decade, spreading from genomics into each omic realm. The latest developments for spatial techniques in ...

Next-generation antibody therapeutics

The success of monoclonal antibodies as therapeutic modalities and improvements in antibody engineering technology have led to the further development of antibodies over the last few ...

Pathogen surveillance with nanopore sequencing

Pathogen surveillance is the process of constantly monitoring pathogens and analyzing their genetic material. By analyzing the genetic makeup of pathogens, scientists can track their ...

Characterizing organoids

Our understanding of human health and disease has advanced in recent years, in part due to ground-breaking work using in vitro 3D cell culture models, such as single and multicellular ...

Single-cell analysis with nanopore sequencing

The study of genomic and transcriptomic information at the single-cell level has provided novel insights into various research areas, particularly cancer research. Traditional ...

Surface plasmon resonance

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technology has become an essential tool for researchers in drug discovery, protein engineering and beyond. By monitoring the real-time shift in ...

Mycoplasma contamination in the lab

Mycoplasmas are a genus of bacteria that can contaminate cell cultures when preventative measures are not taken. They are antibiotic resistant and can penetrate sterilizing-grade ...

iPSCs for cell and gene therapies

Since Shinya Yamanaka (Kyoto University, Japan) detailed the process through which somatic cells can be reprogrammed to a pluripotent stem-cell state, the applications of these induced ...

Preparing 3D cell cultures

Our understanding of the development of organs, the pathogenesis and progression of diseases and the impact of therapeutics on tissues has advanced in recent years with the help of in ...

CAR-T and CAR-NK cell therapies

Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) are modular synthetic molecules that redirect immune cell cytotoxicity toward tumor cells expressing a specific antigen. In this In Focus, sponsored by ...

Multiplex immunofluorescence for cancer research

As our attempts to develop more targeted and effective drugs continue, the need to better understand the protective and confounding effect of the tumor microenvironment grows. The study ...

Integrating organ-on-a-chip

Organ-on-a-chip (OOC) technologies, also known as microphysiological systems (MPS), allow researchers to culture physiologically relevant combinations of primary human cells together in ...

Long-read sequencing for metagenomics

As the field of microbiomics grows, the approaches with which to investigate these communities are expanding. One example of this is the trend away from the individual analysis of ...

Gene expression analysis

Gene expression analysis is used to measure mRNA expression for particular genes of interest either within the same sample or between samples. It provides an insight into how different ...

Automation

Automation has become more common in labs across the world, thanks to technological developments seen in recent decades. Automation can be beneficial for various reasons, including ...

Sequencing for conservation

Currently, more than 42,000 species of animals, plants and fungi around the world are threatened with extinction. These species need intensive conservation efforts to prevent their ...

Cell-line development

Cell-line development (CLD) is an important step in the production of biopharmaceuticals for the treatment of different diseases. At this stage in the process, the cell line and clone ...

Multiplex PCR

PCR is a well-established technique, and over the past decade, it has been adapted to quantify RNA and DNA quicker and more accurately. Multiplex PCR technologies have been developed to ...

Microbiome profiling

The rise of microbiome research has been well documented and the range of fields impacted by this growing field of study spans from agricultural sciences and mental health. As the ...

The development of organoids

Developments in biological research have made it possible to create the physiology and architecture of human organs in extraordinary detail in the form of organoids. Organoids are ...

Single domain antibodies

Single domain antibodies (sdAbs), also known as VHH antibodies or nanobodies™, are small antigen-binding fragments derived from camelids that have a single monomeric variable antibody ...

Comprehensive genomic profiling

In cancer research, investigations into the genomic profiles of tumors have enabled clinical labs to identify mutations driving cancers. As technology advances and methods improve, we ...

Applied 3D cell cultures

3D cell cultures better simulate the conditions within a living organism and are playing a vital role in reducing our use of animal models; this initiative has gained significant ...

HPV, epigenetics and cancer

In many regions of the world, HPV and its association with cervical cancer is a well-known but rarely considered issue, especially after the rollout of the HPV vaccine in the late ...

Bioinformatics workflows

The declining cost and increasing accessibility of next-generation sequencing (NGS) have led to the permeation of these techniques throughout the life sciences. The sequencing data ...

Cell-free nucleic acids

In any human’s bodily fluids, including blood, urine, saliva or feces, there are small segments of DNA and RNA present independent of cells. These cell-free nucleic acids (cfNAs) ...

Modeling disease: organ-on-a-chip technologies

Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is an aggressive type of fatty liver disease that is linked to metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes. NASH incidence is rising rapidly ...

Microbiome data

The gut microbiome plays a critical role in human health. To better understand this role, thousands of fecal samples are sequenced every month by labs across the globe, and along with ...

Epigenetics and Aging

The average age of populations around the world is on the rise. While this reflects the tremendous strides that humanity has taken in the health sciences, it leads to a new crop of ...

Single-cell sequencing

The advent of single-cell sequencing has revolutionized the genomics and transcriptomics space, allowing researchers to delve deeper into cell properties like gene expression than ...

Spatial biology

Since the completion of the Human Genome Project, the development and advancement of sequence analysis techniques have been staggering. Acceleration in sequencing times, the rapid ...

Detecting cell proliferation

Cell proliferation is the rapid expansion of a cell population due to growth and division. Accurate measurement of proliferation is crucial in the measurement of cell health. It can be ...

Sanger sequencing

Sanger sequencing has been the powerhouse of DNA sequencing since it was invented by Frederick Sanger in 1977, a creation for which he won his second Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1980. ...

DNA methylation oxford nanopore in focus

Human whole-genome sequencing

The rise of whole-genome sequencing over the last decade, and its subsequent increase in prevalence throughout basic and clinical research, has been well documented. Frequently, the ...

Neuroscience

One of the key research challenges in neuroscience involves study of the blood-brain barrier and discovery of its role in the pathology of diseases of the central nervous system (CNS). ...

Introducing NGS primer extension target enrichment

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) revolutionized the life sciences and has given rise to fields such as clinical sequencing, advanced our understanding of genome-typing and gene ...

Advanced proteomic analysis

The impressive speed of development in the realm of genomic techniques has dramatically expanded our understanding of disease risk and highlighted key indications for the biology behind ...

The evolution of PCR

qPCR is a well-established and relatively straight-forward diagnostic method that, as the most accurate method of testing available, has been used extensively during the course of the ...

Western blotting

Western blotting forms the bedrock of many protein studies, with the technique cited in 9% of all protein related papers. The technique had its 40th birthday in 2019, an event that was ...

Developing molecular therapeutics

Molecular-based therapeutics are growing in prevalence due to the advantages that they present, for instance, the longer lasting, more targeted impact of their activity. In the ...

Advances in HPLC

High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is a popular and well-established technique that is used to separate, identify and quantify each component in a sample. The technique has ...

Infectious disease sample collection

Infectious disease research is an essential component of human society that has been thrown into the spotlight by the COVID-19 pandemic. This research is enabled by a diverse array of ...

Realizing precision medicine with whole-genome sequencing

When techniques for whole-genome sequencing (WGS) first gained prominence, they revitalized the field of genomics, launching global efforts such as the 100,000 Genomes Project and ...

Environmental sequencing for COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, sequencing has been used extensively to study the genome of the virus, trace the origins of infections and examine the alterations in novel variants. One ...

Reproducibility in microbiomics

The field of microbiomics has expanded rapidly over the past decade, making its way into studies of human health, disease, the environment, agriculture, and many others. Worldwide ...

COVID-19 diagnostics

As we begin 2021, vaccines providing immunity to COVID-19 are beginning to be rolled out and it feels as though hope is on the horizon. However, vaccine programs will take time to ...

Reproducibility

Reproducibility is a topic that has been much discussed, debated and repeated over the last decade as the scale of the ‘reproducibility crisis’ has become apparent. In recent years, ...

Neuroscience

This In Focus will bring to light the science behind imaging the brain, both in patient neuroimaging and brain tissue samples. Focusing on both ends of the spectrum, we will discuss the ...

Big data

With our increasing capabilities in research techniques and tools comes an inevitable increase in the amount of data and the complexity of datasets. This in turn brings about the need ...

RNA Sequencing for Cancer Research

The capabilities of RNA sequencing, such as the insight into global transcriptional events, coding mRNA transcripts and RNA species profiles, have allowed RNA Sequencing to grow into a ...

DNA Sequencing

DNA sequencing has developed in leaps and bounds since the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003. This In Focus feature will include: hot tips for next-generation sequencing ...