Blogs

Who is the microscopic answer to the Blue Man group? Find out in this week's blog post!

Well, they sure weren't cute little carrot colonies.

There was a serious dichotomy to this week's work. Everything either turned out fabulously or fell flat on its face. Let's start with Cell Culturing:

The carrots look like an entirely successful experiment in growing mold and bacteria, so it was back to the drawing board on that one. And I'm seriously mourning my lovingly-tended CHO cells. I have a feeling that next week I'll be doing the Chinese hamster ovary... Read more

Our NSF ATE grant project was featured in the October International Innovations magazine.

Training Food Safety Technicians :

http://www.research-europe.com/magazine/REGIONAL/NA17/index.html Read more

Documenting life on the job at Biotechnology Careers.org

by Hallie Golden

An average day during Elizabeth Stahl's internship meant documenting the fermentation process. During the lifetime of an individual "Ferm," she takes samples every 12 hours, with the first two getting a yeast count, and determing each sample's pH, Brix reading, NIR readings and temperature. Stahl also ran the ion exchange (IC) everyday to determine sulfate levels in the 200 proof and final ethanol product. In between testing fermentation and product, she collected samples to check the levels of solids.

A... Read more

Just kidding. We're too nerdy to be this coordinated. Allison and Holly are just good sports.

Along with the hoodies, jeans and wind-tousled hair, the autumn weather has brought a slew of new classes:

Molecular Biology I:

This past week in Mo Bio we worked on learning to set up restriction digests. While I was initially intimidated by the calculations, I warmed up when I realized how "logic puzzle-esque" it really is. We also whipped some competent Escherichia coli JM109 cells, by taking a sample from a mid-log phase suspension culture, spinning those puppies... Read more

Hello again! I bet you thought I forgot my login. (I did.)

Wow! What a difference a year makes. It's fall in school again and I'm still plugging away, only from Las Vegas now. It was so hard to say goodbye to Portland, the people and animals that I love there but this where I need to be now. I'm excited to see what adventures UNLV has in store for me.

Classes have begun and I am finding my way through a new campus and a new schedule. What I mean by finding my... Read more

Learn about Bio-Link's Course in a Box program and how it can help you develop new courses more quickly.

by Hallie Golden

New on the job at a biotech company that's developing novel therapies for treatment of pancreatic diseases, you're given a vial of human embryonic stem cells. Your boss asks you to use them to generate primitive endoderm (a special type of tissue) from them and devise a method to determine how well your method worked (the efficiency of your directed differentiation).

Piece of cake, right? Well, not exactly.

On day seven you return to... Read more

Madison College student blogger Mandy Hunter is back on-line and raring to go! No bull! Mandy ponders what it means to be called a "scientist" and shares her summer internship experience working in the barns and learning how to collect semen.

I can't believe I just started the third and final year of my program (you can take the Biotechnology Laboratory Technician program in two years, but I opted for the three year plan, largely because I have my hands full with a veritable gaggle of progeny). All summer long I thought "Only nineteen credits to go! This is... Read more

Bio-Link faculty are an exceptionally creative group. If there is a niche in the bioscience world, there seems to be a Bio-Link program ready to develop a certificate designed to fill it.

Bio-Link programs have developed 10 different two year degrees and 22 certificates. The degree page has short summaries for each of these with links to descriptions. The program data page shows a quick count of the programs that offer these degrees, along with links to tables showing all the programs that offer that degree.

At... Read more

This week I'm going to talk about what I've been doing with the sediment samples we took from Boiling Springs Lake at Lassen Volcanic National Park . Then, I'll divulge the latest news about my forthcoming adventures!

Remember this? It's the sediment collected from Boiling Springs Lake in July.

Since the sediment had a chance to settle the first thing I did was decant the... Read more

This week, Jenn tells us about her pet viruses, dissects a publication, tells us what not to do with SDS-PAGE gels, and shares a bit of job-hunting advice. Enjoy!

I'm beginning to wonder if I have some scar tissue on the part of my brain that helps me know my own strength. I may or may not have broken three (OMG 3) pieces of short glass while attempting to run SDS-PAGE protein gels (ahem) in the last week. I swear I'm not a brute! I never broke any short glass at PCC . However, I can... Read more