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Capture Protein Expression Changes Over Time in Living Cells
August 23rd, 2018
Immunocytochemistry (ICC) as a basic cell imaging technique has been engrained into every cell biologist’s repertoire. Fluorescently labeled antibodies added onto fixed cells help visualize protein expression in the cells. While traditional ICC yields information on protein localization i.e. where the protein of interest is expressed, a big caveat remains – it is unable to capture protein expression changes over time, the ‘when’ of cellular dynamics.
View articleThe Immune System Reacts to Neurological Stress: Catching Killer T Cells Live in Action
April 6th, 2018
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have long suffered a bad rap. An overdose of ROS is detrimental and causes a state of oxidative stress. But eliminating them isn’t the answer either as our bodies need ROS for basic survival. Moreover, ROS are essential to immune system function, and act to combat perceived threats to the body. However, a lot is unknown about the role of ROS signaling in immune responses, especially in a diseased state.
View articleInterview: Overcoming Challenges of Assays of Complex Cellular Models with Real-Time Live-Cell Analysis
December 5th, 2017
Insights from industry — An interview with Dan Appledorn, Director of US Biology R&D, & Tim Dale, Director of Biology, managing European R&D Operations at Sartorius. Conducted by James Ives, MPsych.
View articleMeasure Nothing to Measure Something...
December 15th, 2016
…my former boss used to say to me. Not sure whether he was intentionally trying to confuse, but it took a while and several rounds of explanation for me to finally get his point. He referred specifically to work on developing new high-throughput methods for measuring cell behaviour. Not an easy task but something he and colleagues had proven highly successful at.
View articleBeware the Specification Trap
November 3rd, 2016
Comparing the specifications of things is a powerful approach to help us to decide what to buy. Bigger, smaller, faster, simpler – if you have the spec data at your fingertips decision making is easy, right? Well, only if the data is objective and trustworthy, and only if you know exactly what parameters are important to you and how to weight them. And how do you score more subjective things like usability and aesthetics? Obvious points I know, but there’s more to this than meets the eye…
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