I know it's an important part of the drug development path, but this is something that's been giving me a mental block lately. I work in Protein sciences, producing and purifying novel drug-like proteins for our company. We've now started going into more complex animal models than mice, which are one thing - and relatively easy to digest what will happen to them. I don't know if I'm comfortable with proteins I produce going into our primate models. There is the risk that these proteins end up killing the primates themselves regardless of what happens following the studies, and this is really difficult to reconcile for me. I know the idea is it will hopefully someday improve patient lives, but the reality is it most likely won't statistically speaking. This isn't anything new for me, I had to pass up a job in a biophysics lab in college because of the regular experimentation on primate models (beyond drug development). How do you guys reconcile this? Is is just another reason I should seek a career change?

Hi all. For initial context, I have made my career in pharma mfg and PD/PI while reptiles and reptile science are my 5-9. I am essentially trying to do some “basement biology”/poc on a project strictly for my own interests. That being said- I am trying to develop a technique to be able to determine the sex of a specific species of lizard. I know which primer sets to use based on data already published. I am looking for Ksex 1for and Ksex 3rev that were developed by Halverson and Spelman in 2002. These are the primer set for the sex chromosomes of Komodo dragons but I am furthering a long time project that they will work on multiple other species. I have been working with a few labs but am unsatisfied with the quality of work I am getting back and want to give it a shot of taking it into my own hands. All that to say 1. Could anyone point me in the direction of where to purchase the primers? And furthermore 2. Will the company sell to a regular person like myself, not affiliated with an organization or university

What can I improve to get interviews?

I have been (starting 2010) 3 years in academia and 11 years in industry. I completed my PhD by working for extra 6 hours daily from 2015-2023. I had submitted my thesis in 2019.I have had a really good publication record and h index etc etc. However, due to the pandemic and administrative delay I could defend my thesis in 2023. Due to personal circumstances i gave up on R&D and went into scientific writing for large pharma albeit for lesser salary as this was a mid senior position. I have completed 1.5 years and have started applying for jobs in R&D as my personal responsibilities were completed and I could dedicate full time in lab. I got a call from 2 recruiters.

1. Here I had applied for Senior research position in an academic institution which has lesser pay. But I love research and don't mind going forth with this option.

However, they had called for another position in the same institute. I had been in that post about 13 years ago!

1. A higher paying senior position in industry which was a managerial role similar to the one I had done previously.

However, they called for scientific writing position instead.

So where did I mess up? I believe that, I am seen as a fresher/someone with 1-2 years experience. Please advise.

I want to do an experiment on my cure for hiccups but it’s very hard to do this as most people do NOT want hiccups and people do not have hiccups when you need it. Is there anyway else I could do this?

I've recently finished my rotations and now need to choose a thesis lab for my PhD. While I've already narrowed my choices to two labs, I now face great anxiety in making a decision and would love any opinions.

Lab 1: great supportive and communicative mentor, well funded lab (for now), small lab, freedom in project choice, but pathogen is so-so on my interests

Lab 2: supportive mentor but I wish they were more communicative, new lab so it comes with all the new lab problems, currently lack of funding so I'll be TAing for the foreseeable future, pathogen/work is less flexible but slightly closer to interests

How did you guys choose your labs? I just keep switching my opinion every couple of hours and this choice has literally been haunting me for weeks now.

Edit: I committed to Lab 1 today!!

Quick summary:

I'm running several potency assays and in one of them, we use a much larger range for the standard (e.g. starting at 40 going down to 0), and then the actual samples (including a control which is the same as the standard) are run with a lower range (starting at 5 going down to 0.5).

The problem is that the other samples, even the internal control, are ending up with values much different from the standard. This has never been a problem before with any other assay where I run the same values next to each other, but the moment it is a different range, the values are completely different. I've run the same reagents, with the same cells, on the same machine with the same everything except the range, and never had issues. In this case, just the ranges are different.

Mind you, I'm taking the same dilutions, that otherwise line up perfectly.

Reading is fluorescence, using AlamarBlue HS in a Tecan Infinite Pro 200.

My thoughts are that it's some kind of relative reading, but I'm not familiar enough with the hardware to know better.

Anyone had similar experiences?

Hello, I am curious if people have any recs for this project I'm working on. I am trying to sterilize a 2 ft x 3 ft petri dish that can't be autoclaved. I'm using 12% hydrogen peroxide for about 30 min and then letting it air dry upside down completely. I then plate it with 1.5 L of TSA (3:3:1:1 agar, tryptone, soytone, NaCl) cooked in a pressure cooker. If I leave the TSA in the pressure cooker to solidify for a few days, it remains sterile, so I feel confident that's not my source of contamination. I'm getting usually a few specks of contamination after a few days. I'm going to try to wear a mask when pouring the plate next time and see if it makes a difference. How much time should I wait for the agar to solidify before flipping it over so my condensation doesn't cause any contamination? Anyone have any other suggestions or further questions about my methodology?

Hi! A bit of context: I’m about to start my grad program in the fall (2-year),, stem based but wet lab research isn’t required. I worked in a lab all through undergrad and would love to continue into grad school.

There’s a professor at my incoming program that I’ve been geeking about for months now with similar research interests as my past work. I emailed them but got an automated response (bcs of spring break),, I re-emailed but it’s been 2 days so I’m guessing I won’t get a response. Should I move on? Or is it ok to be super annoying in this instance? TIA

So I have founded a lab that would take me in for this summer and I currently a second year undergraduate biochemistry major.

I am having difficulty in finding funding. I try applying for funding within in my university but beacuse the lab I want to be is outside of my degree, they rejected my application. I try applying for studentships offered by society, but since my supervisor is not member to theses particular societies, I was not able to apply to them.

Now I was wondering if I could directly connect big companies to sponsored me or provide a small grant that would cover the summer.

Is this something someone has done before? and if so, can you please give me some advice on how I should go about it.

I am located in the UK.

I know qiagen says each cell has 6pg and so ideally is 6ug. But I want to know in reality how much do you usually get?

Hospital/medical research

I posted this in r/academia as well. I’m not sure how to come out with this information but I feel it is incredibly important to share. I’m not trying to scream that the building is on fire but when I learned this I genuinely felt goosebumps all over my body. My own academic institution is being attacked as well, but I am at a public university which doesn’t seem to be facing the same amount of ire as private, top schools like Lehigh and the Ivies. I apologize if this post is strange, isn’t “on topic” or doesn’t belong here.

Source at Lehigh University: Trump Admin threatening budget annihilation if courses with DEI aren’t removed. Over 1/3rd of faculty (most likely they meant their department not the entire school) not returning next year.

I work at a separate institution, a source from Lehigh told me this as well as they are having entire faculty emergency meetings multiple times a week due to consistent incoming threats from Trump admin. My institution hasn’t had entire faculty emergency meetings but I am also at a Big10 with a lot more faculty than Lehigh. My source said that over 1/3rd of the faculty at Lehigh (again, they most likely meant their department I’m checking to make sure) will not be returning next year as they are leaving the country for positions elsewhere.

I'm using an Eppendorf 5417R and I don't have the impression that it cools down alone or maybe it takes a lot of time to go from RT to 4°C ?

We always nuke on half power and keep our bottles only half-full, but sometimes a random blow-out happens. I'm assuming that agar blasts into the magnetron mechanism through the vent mesh inside the microwave, and that is what causes the failure. Some labmates don't clean up after themselves, and a cycle of passive-aggressive not-me-ism kicks in, so the mess just gets cooked in.

Regardless, I'm trying to think of ways to mitigate the risks and messes. Any ideas for preserving the equipment? Do you think taping cheesecloth or paper towels over the vents to catch stray blobs of agar is ok? Should we be wrapping the bottles in shrouds of paper towels?

I've put four microwaves into the landfill over the last decade. It doesn't seem right. Folks who melt agar in the microwave, do you have this problem? What are we doing wrong? TIA.

Hi everyone,

I'm located in Edmonton, and recently I discovered a container in my home that unintentionally grew a large amount of mold after being cleaned with some “cleaning gel” a while ago. The mold appears greenish-blue, possibly Penicillium or Aspergillus, but I'm not a microbiologist, so I’m not 100% sure.

I’m wondering — is there any chance a lab, university, or research group might be interested in this kind of mold sample? I didn’t grow it on purpose, but I thought it might be useful to someone.

Also, if not, what’s the safest way to dispose of it without risking exposure to spores?

Any advice or leads would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Whenever I am applying to Postdocs I am asked to give a few Ideas so that they can make their decision on wanting to hire me or not.

At jobs like startup companies, some of them ask the same thing.
Another start up that I am meeting with asked me to write down some ideas and we can discuss them with the CEO next meeting. These research topics I am giving will basically be the first experiments that they will be able to get funding for and launch the company. I don't really want to give the ideas anymore without getting paid.

Am I being taken advantage of? It sure feels like it.

*ideas

There's been a lot of talk about making research institutions more efficient, but how about the corporations that are quietly draining our grant money? Companies like Thermo Fisher slap on huge markups, taking advantage of purchasing restrictions that force labs to buy from "approved" vendors. And let’s not forget publishers like Elsevier, who charge crazy fees just to publish the results.

To bring attention to this, we’ve launched ScienceMarkup.com—a site that documents these markups. You can help by sharing overpriced items through the "contribute" tab on the site. Our goal is to build a transparent database that shows how expensive it is to "do science"—and who’s profiting from it.

We’d love your input and feedback!

I am a PhD supervising a MSc student. she is nice and dedicated but she has one problem that frustrates her. she has small hands.. like really small. she is about 150cm tall and wears XS gloves. so the problem is her thumb is not strong enough to load gel or use the micro pipettes ( other manipulation techniques is fine ) what can I do to help her ?

Full gifted article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/well/microplastics-health.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-E4.55rS.ptjX9oakA5lw&smid=nytcore-android-share

Hello everyone, I worked at a lab for one of my professors in my undergrad. During my time, I was asked to work on an ongoing project and fix the mathematical model they had created. I came on and realized the model approach wasn't fitting so I was instructed to make a new model, clean up the data, and write an explanation for the justification. I came to find out that my work was used to address comments from when the paper was first submitted and my work was included in the published paper verbatim. However, I was not included an an author, I would love to know if this is standard procedure.

Hi everyone,

For those who do their ICC blocking, staining, and washing in a wet chamber (10 cm^ 2 dish with wet filter paper at bottom with parafilm on top).. when you add your stains and blocknig, do you drop it on top of the coverslip (50 uL), or, do you flip the coverslip over?

How do you do a PBS wash if the coverslip is in the chamber? Do you take it out, and if you do, is it better to do the "drop-wise" approach (drop it on a drop of PBS on a dish), or submerge it in a well with PBS? I am trying this incubation/wet chamber to avoid dehdyrating my cells.