Sigma BioBlogs

Our Biomolecules team has expanded their offering of bioactive small molecules!!  To celebrate we are giving one lucky twitter hunter an opportunity to win an Apple^® iPad 2 or a Motorola^® Xoom!  The 2011-2012 Bioactive Small Molecules catalog is your window into the largest and most diverse collection of inhibitors, activators, modulators, and approved drugs.

Our bioactive small molecule collection has expanded to over 3,500 allowing you to control protein targets and cellular functions.  Search for small molecules by gene or protein target using our Your Favorite Gene tool.

Do you already know your compound or want to do a structure search? Use our dedicated bioactive small molecule search.  Also, check out our Pfizer drugs and small molecule tools.

To get your clues, follow us on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/YourFaveGene or follow the hashtag #goldcatalog.  We will give clues to the location of the bioactive small molecules Golden Catalog around the area near the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando.

If you find the Golden catalog**, bring it to the Sigma Life Science booth (#1810) in the exhibitor’s hall and you will have your choice of a of a Motorola Xoom OR an iPad 2!

**Winner must present a valid 2011 AACR attendee badge.  Exhibitors and guests are not eligible to win.

Do you subscribe to Biowire?  It’s a publication that Sigma Life Science started putting out in 2010.

Visit the Fall 2010 issue, where David Smoller explains how Zinc Finger Nucleases are changing the world of genome editing, and we interview Dr. Dana Caroll, an originator of the technology.

In Winter of 2011, Biowire focused on knockout rats as a more effective pre-clinical model when compared to the mouse.  We also interview Dr. Reid Hayward to learn how knockout rats are changing the way he studies the physiology of chemotherapy patients.

Subscribe now! The Spring issue is now at the printers, and will be ready in time for AACR 2011.  We’ll be talking about our award winning knockout cell lines and Custom Cell engineering service.  We’ll have a surprise interview with a researcher who has been doing amazing things with high throughput screening!

Inspired by Science Online 2011 and in preparation for my talk at Bioconference Live on Monday, I put together the following Twitter basics for scientists.

The world of Twitter is a big place, and it isn’t easy in the beginning to find your interests.  Here are a few pointers in the right direction.   Check out, “What is Twitter and Why Scientists Need to Use It” by Craig McClain if you aren’t sure Twitter will be useful.

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Tip #1  – Use twitter as a human news feed

A few of my scientist friends use Twitter solely to receive information. One remarked “If I can see that a story appears several times from different sources, I’ll know that’s one I want to read.”  Here are some people to follow for starters.

• Start with the major funding agencies.   NSF, NIHforfunding, HHMINews are some starters.
• To find more scientists who share your interests, use SciencePond.com.
• Use Twitter lists to group Tweeters into the right categories.  Follow other people’s lists as well.
• Follow @BoraZ, (thanks to Pascale Lane for the tip!) He is the most celebrated online science communicator for a reason!  Bora and Anton Zuiker host the annual Science Online conference to discuss ways to improve science communications.
• And here are a couple to follow for fun: @PHDcomics, @ScienceComedian

Tip #2 - Ask questions!

Find the right people to talk to, and you have just expanded the # of minds at your disposal.  A simple example is the question

I chose to start with asking this question to the #scio11 community.  I got responses from Twitter experts, science writers, and others who have been using Twitter since it’s inception.  They all provided me with great materials and information that I used to create this blog.

Tip #3 – Seek and ye shall find.

Use Twitter search, and search the things you are most interested in learning about.  Then follow people that are interesting to you, and post comments and/or questions to posts you see on the topic.

Tweet to the world that you are learning about Twitter…I suggest one of your first tweets look something like this “Hello #scio11!  I’m a scientist who is new to Twitter. I work on ____.”

Tip #4 – Learn the language

RT’s, HT’s, @Wherebiobegins, #hashtag

There are some simple shortcuts and rules that make Twitter such an efficient communication tool.

Here are the basics:

• RT means “ReTweet”, or that the tweet came from another source on Twitter.   If you get some information from another Tweeter and change it, you can also use “/via @Wherebiobegins” at the tail end of the tweet.
• @Wherebiobegins – Twitter links the letters after the “@” symbol to http:/twitter.com/wherebiobegins
• #biomarkers Putting “#” in front of a word creates a link to all tweets with that phrase, or a hashtag.  Hashtags group tweets that have something in common.

@DrCraigMc goes more in depth on ways to tweet and on much more in his article “What is Twitter and Why Scientists Need to Use it.”

Tip #5 – Ask #scio11 for input/help

There are a number of passionate science writers, journalists, bloggers, and communicators currently using Twitter.  They meet annually in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina for Science Online and are always willing to answer questions tweeted to #scio11.

Tip #6 –Talk to Ocean Scientists: Fun and functional use of social networking

I want to point out the ocean science network Southern Fried Science.  They have created a highly functional scientist community and actively discuss findings, and news from across their disciplines.  Arthropod studies, Cephalopods,  Sharks, and Dogfish are just a few of the blogs that exist on ocean science.

They also use their blogs as an opportunity to educate each other and the public on their field, like this article explaining that crayfish have a light sensitive neuron on the underside of their tail.   Follow #DSN (short for Deep Sea news) to follow the conversation.  If you tweet a question about ocean science with “#DSN” in the tweet, I guarantee you will get an answer.

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Let me know how it goes with Twitter by tweeting to me at @Wherebiobegins!

Learn more about Twitter, LinkedIn, Science communities, and even Facebook for Science on Monday March 21 at 5pm ET during Bioconference Live.

Happy Tweeting!!

Students, teachers and the scientific community are coming together to address the question: How will your Bio shape the future?

Tell us!  Visit www.sigmabiogrant.com to enter the Sigma Biogrant Video Challenge!

Scientists, researchers, life science professionals – you know the power of Bio and the effect it has had on your life.  Team up with a student you know to inspire and inform their project.  Help us to shape the next generation of life scientists.

The next generation consists of teenagers who dream of science.  They see the diagram of a cell in high school bio and say “I want to know how THAT works”.

They watch frog’s eggs develop into tadpoles right before their eyes, and get excited by bread mold.

So to the science teens we say, start dreaming.  Let us know how a grant could help your lab.

Learn more about the Sigma Biogrant Video Challenge from Sigma Life Science Vice President of R&D, Patrick Sullivan.

Knockout models for disease have been limited mostly to mice, which may not accurately reflect the physiology in humans. Advances in genetic engineering have extended the species available, enabling the creation of targeted knockouts in rats, rabbits, zebrafish, and swine.

Dr. Edward Weinstein

During the Society of Toxicology meeting, March 6-10,  Dr. Edward Weinstein will discuss genetic engineering technologies used to develop more relevant translational animal models, including the newly developed p53, Mdr1a, Mrp1, Mrp2, and Bcrp knockout rat models.

Session Objectives:

• Learn about current state-of-the-art genetic engineering methodologies
• Obtain an overview of new animal models for ADME/Toxicology

Ricardo Reis of the Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto

The last two winters, our Your Favorite Gene team has held a Holiday Gene contest. Our 2010 winner is Ricardo Reis, from Portugal.

Where did your bio begin?

My bio began in my first year of Medical School at Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto. It is located in the city of Oporto, in the northern part of Portugal.  The Molecular and Cell Biology lab opened one-year vacancies for an extra-credit internship at their lab.   I was keen on research, so I applied and got one of the vacancies. After the year and the extra-credit,  I was invited to stay.  So, to my great pleasure, I became a member of that team.  It is thanks to them that I still do research in biological sciences.

What inspired you to become a biologist?

I am training to be a physician, and I think that research in biosciences should be a compulsory part of every medical doctor’s curriculum.

I love the complexity of biological systems and their unpredictability.   I think it is this challenge that keeps me going, searching for answers.  Indeed, for me, research is always about the passion for knowledge.

Tell us about your research.

I am currently studying the post-translational modifications – (PTMs) of a homeodomain transcription factor which is crucial for the development of nociceptive afferents and their 2nd order relay neurons in the Central Nervous System (CNS).
It is subject to a number of PTMs which may impact its ability to bind to other proteins and activate its transcriptional program. Although my focus is mainly on the PTMs, we are also trying to unravel its partners and devise efficient assays to measure its transcriptional activity.

Do you plan to tend to patients as a physician and continue your research?

That is certainly a future goal and that’s where I like to picture myself in 5-years time.  However, I am well aware of the demands of being both, and I am afraid that one of them will be preponderant.  I don’t know which one I’ll be:  either a PHYSICIAN-researcher or a physician-RESEARCHER.

What genes won the contest?

For Christmas- SNTA 1 – syntrophin alpha 1…or Santa

ADAM7 – protease, or the inital seven members of the Addam’s family (halloween themed)

We are proud to let you know that you can now get a CompoZr Knockout Zinc Finger Nuclease to permanently knockout any gene in the human genome.

We are so knockout happy, that we found fighting genes.  Knockout APOLLO just like ROCK(y)1.

Or you could go for some old classic genes like  P53,  or Interleukin 1.

ANY gene in the human genome is part of our line of over 20,000 CompoZr Knockout ZFNs.

Each is functionally validated, ready for immediate transfection, and you can generate a knockout cell line in as little as 4 weeks.

CompoZr Knockouts are here! Learn more!

To celebrate…we have a short video to show you that not all knockouts are bad…

Learn more here from Dr. Dana Carroll of the University of Utah

Welcome to the second in our blog series on Dr. Reid Hayward of the University of Northern Colorado.

As we mentioned in our first blog, Dr. Hayward is using rat models to study the protective effect of exercise on chemotherapy patients.

One of the side effects of chemotherapeutic treatment with doxorubicin is cardiotoxicity, limiting the effectiveness of drugs by weakening the patient before the treatment can eliminate the cancer. In the use of doxorubicin, cardiotoxicity has taken the form of a weakened heart, with the heart chambers enlarged, and the walls thinned.  Physical activity has been shown to preserve the morphology of the heart during doxorubicin treatment giving the cancer patients a better chance of recovery.

In this video, Dr. Hayward talks about his lab’s findings around doxorubicin’s effects on heart morphology.

This is the first in our series of blogs about Dr. Reid Hayward of the University of Northern Colorado .  Dr. Hayward works with the Rocky Mountain Cancer Rehabilitation Institute (RMCRI) to investigate the protective cardiac effects of exercise on chemotherapy patients who are undergoing clinical treatment at the RMCRI.   The RMCRI has shown that chemotherapy patients who exercise endure the cardiac stress of doxyrubicin and other anthracycline chemotherapeutic agents much better than those who do not have exercise as a part of their treatment plan.

As Dr. Hayward says, “The RMCRI subjects are humans, mine are rats.”  His lab  studies the effects of doxorubicin (DOX) on the cardiovascular system of rats, to investigate what systems, and what molecular components are at work as exercise increases the odds of survival for the patients of RMCRI.

Dr. Hayward investigates morphology and physiology and most recently started to look at the molecular basis for this rehabilitation by studying the effects of exercise on multi-drug resistant protein knockout rats from SAGE™ Labs .

Here’s what we’ve been hearing:

• If an antibody doesn’t work, I want a refund
• I want more data for an antibody before I buy it
• I can’t find the antibody I need.

Our antibody team has your answers!

With our Bioguarantee, you will have peace of mind in your antibody purchase. If you need extra data to support your antibody research, we have Prestige Antibodies ® powered by Atlas Antibodies, providing immunohistochemistry, Western Blot, and immunofluorescence, data for 10,000 antibodies to human targets taken from the Human Protein Atlas Project.

And, now with over 40,000 primary antibodies derived from a variety of species, we are sure to have the antibody you need. Find your antibody today or just browse our collection with the Antibody Explorer Search Tool You can also search by the gene or biological system you work with, using Your Favorite Gene.

Hear more about these solutions from Tracey Harshberger, Antibody Product Manager for Sigma Life Science.