In ‘Meet some code-breakers of noncoding RNAs,’ the technology feature in the February issue of Nature Methods, we speak with a few scientists about the path ahead in methods for characterize the noncoding RNAs. Read more
Here at Nature Methods, we were quite excited yesterday to wake up to the news that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry had been awarded to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson for their seminal developments in cryo-electron microscopy (better known as cryo-EM) which now enable high-resolution biomolecule structure determination. This is a technique we have been watching closely since 2013, when the first papers (including one of our own) realizing the capability of near-atomic-resolution structure determination with cryo-EM were published. Read more
As glycoscience advances, labs will increasingly want to ask questions about glycosylation sites on a protein or the structure of a sugar, says Raja Mazumder, a bioinformatician at George Washington University. They might ask for example: are there glycosyltransferases that are expressed in liver but not in the heart, or, which ones are overexpressed by a factor of three in more than two cancers. Such questions require infrastructure building, he says, because right now there is no mechanism to allow such queries. But he and others are building such capabilities. Mazumder along with William York at the University of Georgia are starting to build a glycoscience informatics portal. Read more
Tuning reagents, software, or equipment is all in a day’s work in the lab. Building instruments from scratch, however, is a task more typical for physicists who might 3D print or machine the parts they need and then assemble them into the instrument they want. They might construct an instrument for a specific experiment or develop a design that helps hundreds of labs. That model could go on to be modified and hacked in a variety of ways. Read more
When proponents of Do-it-yourself Biology explain their motivation for getting involved in the movement they often resort to colorful imagery. Take for example Patrick D’haeseleer who helps organize the Counter Culture Labs in the San Francisco Bay Area. He asks, “When the first village tamed fire, the neighboring village was freaking out. Should only the village elders be allowed to make fire or should we teach everybody?” “Any new technology has risk, but it behooves us to have all citizens know how these technologies work and what the risks are. “ he continues, “ the technology needs to be democratized because it will dominate the 21th century.” … Read more
Comparing methods in a fair and informative manner is often not straightforward. Benchmark data sets, thoughtfully applied metrics and clear reporting can help. Read this month’s editorial here. Read more