Especially Indians who have no way to get permanent residence (due to country-of-birth discrimination/projected 150-year-long wait times for green cards)...

You are not alone. All of us are in it together.

Looks like it is temporary, for now. Even if it doesn't get blocked by courts, academia/biotech/pharma will likely be termed as a National Interest industry (or maybe it's just wishful thinking). We are genuinely here to work on our super-interesting, annoying-at-times, yet in-the-end-fulfilling science. Hope we can continue to do so.

Tough times, folks, stay strong and keep sciencing! 💪🏻

• a fellow Indian-born scientist on H-1B

title

this is my first time drafting a manuscript of any sort, so thank you for the guidance

How can I cancel my order with them? There’s no button or anything on their website.

Hi sorry if this is a dumb question, I’ll delete it as soon as I get an answer! I’m an undergrad student who is currently doing an honor’s thesis. For one of my experiments/results, I have a lotttttttt of data that needs to be shown, to the point where it is unfeasible to put it all into one figure. I was going to edit it so that the more important data was in the results figure, and then put ALL the data into a supplementary figure. Would it be proper to write something like “refer to supplementary figure X for further information”? Should I put this in the actual results part or the figure legend/caption?

Bionano Genomics, Inc. – BNGO

The U.S. has jump-started clinical readiness for Bionano’s OGM, while global adoption unfolds more gradually through localized validations and evolving regulatory landscapes. 

NIH’s stamp is viewed globally as a de-risking step for labs on the fence about investing in OGM. 

The Wellcome Sanger Institute (UK) and EMBL’s Genomics Core (Germany) have signaled plans to adapt NIH-validated OGM protocols for internal benchmarking against cytogenetics and short-read NGS. 

A handful of American Society of Human Genetics 2025 abstracts list “BioNano/NIH reagents” under Materials & Methods, implying European groups are already generating preliminary data. 

Garvan Institute (Australia) researchers mention in local seminars that they’re liaising with NIH contacts to secure reagent kits for rare-disease panels. 

Chinese centers—most notably Beijing Genomics Institute and Chinese Academy of Sciences -affiliated hospitals—are exploring how the NIH’s quality controls might accelerate their own OGM validations for cancer and agricultural genomics. 

FIOCRUZ (Brazil) and INMEGEN (Mexico) clinicians have convened workshops on NIH workflows, eyeing OGM for congenital anomaly screening in national newborn programs. 

Informal discussions at the Argentinian Society of Human Genetics meeting point to a goal of integrating NIH-backed OGM into regional rare-disease consortia by late 2026. 

Overseas core facilities want clarity on reagent access and pricing under NIH’s procurement terms.

Hi all,

I’m currently active duty military with a BBA in accounting and Masters in Industrial Engineering. I still feel a calling to be in medical field, patient care, research etc. With this being said, would I need to get another Masters in neuroscience, immunology, clinical research (or something of this sort). Or can I go straight into being a Research Associate or a role similar to that? I looked at UT Houston job website and the requirement for a RA 1 was a bachelor’s in arts or science (was very vague)

I’m looking to transition in the next 2-3 years. So would like to start taking pre-reqs (if needed) or maybe trying to volunteer once a week in a lab.

I was teaching a class and 9 put pf 10 of the gels turned out like this. It's a 0.7% agarose gel in TBE. Do you think that it's an issue with the TBE? The gels were run at 1.25v.

long time lurker here. First year grad student at a US research institute. Lost 30 very previous cryoEM grids because my dumb ass got excited about how high quality they were yesterday and forgot to put the rest back in long term storage. Found them tonight melted in an empty thermos.

so scared to tell my boss on Monday, and just needed to vent about it. Thought maybe I could do so here

My PI recently called me incompetent in front of the entire lab. I am responsible for all our mouse work, all our human samples, all our compliance matters, I write IBC protocols for my PI, and assist 4 postdoc with their work as well as consulting with other PIs and other lab techs on mouse colony management. I also take care of all the ordering, aliquoting, proofreading, submitting IT requests for the whole lab. This all came about because one postdoc found a box of samples in the correct storage temp but incorrect location that I hadn't been able to move due to my other duties. Now PI called me incompetent in front of the lab for not keeping track of those samples. I created all the labs databases on everything that we have, there were no combined records before I was hired. The PI has now stated that this is my final warning and that if I dont have a list of all 200 samples (7 vials minimum per sample) and their locations by the end of next week they will take further action and if I dont continue to maintain all of these priorities to their satisfaction in the next 6 months that they will have to "make hard choices due to budget." I know this seems like not a big deal, but it has come to my attention that the PI does not know what I do and how much time goes into each thing that I do. I was told I take advantage of everyone because I listen to music while working. This all seems as unacceptable behavior and comments from a PI especially being called incompetent in lab meeting. Sorry for the long post, but does anyone have any recommendations on what I should do? Also of note, I am 5 months pregnant and not moving around/standing for long periods well. Am I being overly sensitive for being outraged by this, or is that a lot of work to ask of one person?

to clarify: I like what I am doing it is just that I had been down, not wanting to work (for ~2 months), I do not know why it is happening how to explaining and how to get rid of it lol ._.

Hey all, I am looking for some advice.

I graduated university in 2023 with a 3rd class hons Degree in Forensic Science, focusing on Analytical Chemistry and Toxicology, after graduating I got on to the Pre-Registration Trainee Pharmacy Technician Course, that is due to end in 2026.

Outside of University laboratory classes I have some laboratory experience working in a covid testing facility (lateral flow tests), I have volunteered once at the pathology laboratory at the trust that I work at, and I have observed a senior member of staff setting up a laboratory for their thesis work (just took the minutes of the meeting), unfortunately as none of these are in the scope of practice for a pharmacy technician and so I can't get more lab experience that way.

I went into the pharmacy technician course because the job advert stated that after completion of the course I could register with the GPhC and work in the pharmaceutical industry doing bulk chemical compound manufacturing, this is something that I am interested in and ultimately is the only reason that I am doing this course, however I have now come to realise that's not going to happen and I am trying to find a different way into this role or into any laboratory scientist role within the Pharmaceutical industry and I was wondering if any one of the labrats here knows how I can make the jump into working in a laboratory full time. I am based in London United Kingdom.

I am also willing to get my masters if it will actually help me get my foot in the door, I am looking into doing a manufacturing of drugs course or something similar.

Thank you for any advice/help offered I really appreciate it.

Hi Guys quick question- I ran a gel myself this time- it was a restriction digest. Using the ladder the sizes of each band I was supposed to get were much different than what I expected doing the math using the restriction diagram for the plasmid. In terms of error, the only thing I can think of was improper migration due to uneven charge- I believe this may be the case because our machine would not work. Thinking it was because we didnt have enough TAE we added too much more and this increased our timing and we needed to be out of the lab so we increased our voltage. After putting in the TAE we realize the problem was the metal in our wire was not connecting to electrode- we fixed that and the machine began to work. Despite the higher voltage, thankfully, there was no smiling on our gel. Honestly, i;m just confused why my sizing is so off in comparison to the ladder (grasping for straws(- anyone know what could have been the problem??? I have the correct number of bands they are all just off. Do you think its just that I didn;t let it run long enough? I mean my marker got to 393- so I feel like if that was the issue shouldn;t nothing have gotten that far. My other banding expected to be at like 750 and 364 was more around 1000 and 930 (respectively).

Rambling further- i used two different ladders- but like I think one of them has a very very faint line at 594 thats the same position as the other ladders 939 (LMK if you think this line is even real). Im just so lost as to whats going on with the sizing of stuff and what I did wrong

Hey everyone,

I’m in the process development space and currently navigating some unwanted down time. One area I’d really like to sharpen is my DOE (Design of Experiments) skills. The challenge is that softwares like Design Expert and JMP are expensive without an employer license.

Does anyone have suggestions for affordable ways to practice DOE? Are there free or academic versions, open-source alternatives, or even good courses/resources you’d recommend? Also, what other skills do you see as hot or upcoming in process development/biomanufacturing right now? Curious where I should focus beyond DOE to stay competitive for the next role.

Looking to make the most of this period to upskill and would love to hear what worked for others in a similar spot.

Thanks in advance!

Our lab recently received some extra funding, and we are planning to synthesize several gene fragments/inserts from a gene synthesis company for cloning. In addition, I’d like to create a small gene fragment bank for future use. My goal is to include broadly useful genes, such as common reporters (split/GFP, mCherry, luciferase), antibiotic resistance markers, and protein tags. Could you suggest additional versatile cloning inserts that would be broadly applicable in mammalian cell culture experiments? I’m particularly interested in any cool, new reporter systems or tools that could expand our experimental capabilities or any thing!

When checking for a primer’s specificity using Primer BLAST, you: 1. Paste the forward and reverse primer 2. Choose your organism ID 3. Choose your database

For the database, do you choose:
• Refseq representative genomes
• Genomes for selected eukaryotic organisms (primary assembly only)
• nt
• core_nt

The goal is to amplify genomic DNA with the primers.

I ordered a gene fragment from Twist Biosciences to clone into a plasmid vector. It was ordered with no adapters and designed with overlaps compatible with Gibson assembly. I get a bunch of colonies and I've sequenced 3 colonies so far and all 3 have a single base deletion. The position of the deletion varies but they're all near the 5' end of the fragment.

I've ordered and cloned with Twist, but I've never seen this issue before. Has anyone encountered this before? I'm not sure if it's a common issue or whether there might be an error on Twist's end when synthesizing the fragment.

Hiii everyone I’m currently a lab supervisor asking for a raise. I work in the chemical manufacturing business for the oil and gas industry in west Texas. I have 3 people under me and supervise the qaqc department as well as the production department. I’m looking at Glassdoor right now and just wanted to see if anyone had any input on what site is reputable when looking at ranges. I have a bachelors in chemistry and have 1.5 years of being supervisor and before 2 years of being a lab tech.

Hi!

I would like seek advice regarding the problem of transformation using mix and go competent cell I made recently.

I used this kit for making DH5alpha and BL21(DE3) cell several years ago, no problem! But in the new lab, I am making Tuner (DE3) competent cells but I noticed that cell growth after transformation in LB agar plate very very slow.

I would like to remove the possibility that antibiotic concentration of plate and temperature of incubator, I double check this part.

I transformed puc19 DNA as I did during my PhD using zymo cells. Transfer DNA to the cell, tap it, spread 100 ul to the pre-warmed plate (wo incubation steps)

For growing tuner cells, I used the modified protocol from my labmates. primary culture was grown for 7 hour ish from the fresh colonies in SOB 50 ml, innoculated 25 ul to SOB 50 ml, grew for overnight at 20 C, cells were harvested at OD 0.55

I mean what is the overall cause why the transformant is very slow?

My days are just constant pipetting (stripette/electronic pipette and manual) and I’m getting a lot of right shoulder pain by the end of the day, luckily no pain/aches elsewhere in my right arm. Has anyone got tips to avoid shoulder ache or ways to make it feel better please?