High-Throughput Sequencing

Fuzzy Sequencing: Sometimes close enough is good enough

DNA is coded by 4 bases, but no one said that's how we have to sequence it. Ready to have your mind bent?

Oncology

Nerve cells transfer their mitochondria to cancer cells

Just when you thought cancer couldn't get any crazier...neurons can directly transfer their power producing mitochondria to tumor cells

Microbiology

The microbiome has more to do with traditional ecology than you might think

Studying the microbiome is really just a lesson in ecology!

DNA

The most beautiful experiment in biology

Watson and Crick solved the structure of DNA and everyone lived happily ever after, right? Wrong. That was just the opening argument.

Weekly Reading List

Weekly Reading List: July 7, 2025

’We couldn’t live without it’: the UCSC Genome Browser turns 25After a quarter of a century, the website remains an essential tool for navigating the genome and understanding its structure, function and clinical impact.NatureMichael EisensteinThe Percentage of Tasks AI Agents Are Currently Failing At May Spell Trouble for

Transcriptomics

STAMP brings us non-destructive single-cell profiling without the sequencing

No sequencer needed: Imaging based single-cell multiomics

Microbiomics

So, you want to learn more about your microbiome?

Microbiomes are complicated and if you want to understand them you better start with good data

DNA

What did Watson and Crick actually discover?

History is written by victors, and that statement couldn't be more true than it is in the case of Watson and Crick's 'discovery' of the DNA double helix.

Weekly Reading List

Weekly Reading List: June 30,2025

Palm Beach Gardens Man wants to revive disgraced Theranos brandA local inventor is trying to make a name for himself in a rather unusual way.WPECMike MagnoliEric Green was the first institute director forced out of NIH. He still hasn’t been told whyEric Green said the process leading to

Genetics

Loss of Y could be helping to make tumors in men more aggressive

Who needs a Y chromosome anyway? Losing it could be making tumors in men more aggressive

Proteins

Amino acids? We don't need more stinking amino acids...or do we?

Genetic code expansion might be the coolest thing in Omics that you've never heard of.

DNA

Linus Pauling got the 3D structure of DNA wrong

The kaleidoscopic image below is the triple helix Linus Pauling proposed as the structure of DNA in February 1953. Here's why he got it so wrong:

Weekly Reading List

Weekly Reading List: June, 23 2025

Gene therapy faces fresh uncertainty as two more top FDA officials departThe reported dismissal of high-ranking CBER officials Nicole Verdun and Rachael Anatol resurfaced lingering concerns about how gene therapies will be regulated under new FDA leadership.BioPharma DiveBen FidlerFDA blocks new clinical trials that ship cells from US

CRISPR

CRISPR-Associated Transposases (CASTs) make large DNA insertions in Human cells a reality

Tired of only being able to use CRISPR to make small edits? CASTs are here to change that!

Proteomics

The basics of Proteasomes, Lysosomes, and the therapeutics that can target them!

PROTACs and LYTACs: How therapeutics can take advantage of proteomic garbage men.

DNA

A DNA diffraction pattern that was lost to history

Elwyn Beighton and William Astbury generated a nearly flawless diffraction of B-DNA in 1951, a full year ahead of Franklin and Gosling. They never shared or published it.

Weekly Reading List

Weekly Reading List: June 16, 2025

Time for Congress to save American science … and the nationWe believe the best hope for saving science and, perhaps, saving our form of democracy, is convincing at least a couple dozen Republican members of Congress that it’s up to them—that the stakes require exercising the prerogatives of the

Microbiology

Real-Time monitoring of hospital pathogens pays dividends

Hospital genomic surveillance of pathogens stops outbreaks, prevents deaths and saves a bunch of money.

Oncology

Structural variant based MRD testing is coming to an oncologist near you

Structural Variants: What are they good for? MRD testing, actually.

DNA

A Pile of Pennies

The first 3D structure of DNA was published in 1938. It was generated by Florence Bell, a scientist you need to know.

Weekly Reading List

Weekly Reading List: June 9, 2025

Scientists worry about possible publishing banHHS secretary Kennedy says the US might launch alternatives to leading medical journalsAmerican Chemical SocietyDalmeet Singh Chawla, special to C&ENEfficient mRNA delivery to resting T cells to reverse HIV latency - Nature CommunicationsResting T cells are difficult to manipulate, and are a reservoir for

Genomics

The genetics of pregnancy loss

10-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Genetics is helping us to explain why that is!

Proteomics

Proteins! Nom Nom Nom Nom.

Single-cell and spatial proteomics - a more refined future.

DNA

The 2D structure of DNA was solved by someone you've probably never heard of before

Watson and Crick were the first to describe the structure of the DNA double helix. Their major contribution to science was, at its core, a synthesis of all of the best data available at the time.

Weekly Reading List

Weekly Reading List: June 2, 2025

Rare ‘ambidextrous’ protein breaks rules of handednessMost proteins are left-handed, but scientists have found an ancient molecule that works in both mirror-image forms.NatureEwen CallawayEuropean Sperm Donor Passes on Cancer Predisposition Variant to at Least 23 ChildrenA donor to a European sperm bank has transmitted a likely pathogenic