Technical Bulletin

Although multicellular organisms are made up of many cell types, all with essentially identical genomes, cells rarely interconvert between cell types. Once a cell acquires a specific cell fate, it generally does not assume the phenotype of an alternate cell type.... Read More ›

Loss-of-function screening using shRNA libraries is a powerful way to identify genes involved in almost any biological process. Over the past decade, shRNA screens, both in vivo and in cell culture systems, have generated many important discoveries... Read More ›

In the early days of engineered animal models, simple knockout and transgenic mice were used to examine gene function. Researchers began to dissect the roles of individual genes by studying phenotypes of mice lacking or overexpressing specific genes... Read More ›

Optogenenetics refers to a family of techniques which allow modulation of biological processes using light. Over the past 12 years, optogenetics has revolutionized neuroscience and is now expanding to impact many fields of biology. There are now... Read More ›

Nuclease-mediated genome editing, using TALEN or CRISPR/Cas9, has exploded onto the scene in recent years, with hundreds of research papers and patents being published. These technologies hold great promise for treating a wide range of diseases by... Read More ›

A major goal of synthetic biology is to design and build digital genetic circuits inside cells, effectively programming cellular functions. Achieved this could allow living cells to be engineered to perform decision-making tasks, similar to computer... Read More ›