Speaking of Mol Bio

In this episode of Speaking of Mol Bio, Dr. Beth Webb takes us deep into the world of platelets, often misunderstood components of blood that punch far above their weight in both physiological and pathological processes. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leeds, Dr. Webb explores how endothelial signals influence platelet activity, and how these anucleate cell fragments play roles not only in clotting, but also in immune responses, inflammation, and diseases like cardiovascular disorders and COVID-19.

Beth unpacks the technical challenges of isolating and analyzing platelets—particularly in RNA sequencing and qPCR—while stressing the...

In this Mol Bio Minutes episode, Laurynas Alijošius shares a personal story that every molecular biologist can relate to—running PCR, cloning, and sequencing, only to discover frustrating errors in the DNA. 

This episode dives deep into PCR accuracy and why it matters for everything from sequencing to cloning and long-read library prep. Laurynas breaks down the major contributors to PCR error, including the fidelity of DNA polymerase, primer design flaws, template impurities, and suboptimal cycling conditions. He then offers a range of solutions—like switching to high-fidelity enzymes, using ready-to-go master mixes, and optimizing magnesium ion co...

In this episode of Speaking of Mol Bio, Dr. Cath Moore of the Australian Genome Research Facility (AGRF) discusses how molecular biology technologies are helping to shape Australia’s scientific landscape—from clinical genomics and conservation to bioremediation and agriculture. With over 20 years of experience in both academia and industry, Dr. Moore reflects on the remarkable evolution of genomic tools, from Sanger sequencing to high-resolution spatial multiomics.

She unpacks AGRF’s mission to democratize access to emerging technologies and highlights its role as an early adopter of platforms that help scientists translate academic research into real-world impact. Topics...

In this Mol Bio Minutes episode, Laurynas Alijošius breaks down how to run fast PCR to save time and increase lab efficiency. He explains how to choose the right thermal cycler with fast ramp speeds, select low-volume and thin-walled PCR plastics, and use engineered DNA polymerases that offer rapid elongation and hot-start capability. Laurynas also covers practical tips for optimizing reaction components, shortening cycling protocols, and reducing waste. Whether you’re aiming to finish your experiment before dinner or streamline your workflow long-term, this episode delivers everything you need to master the art of fast PCR.

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This episode teaches that innovation is born at the intersection of curiosity and persistence. Dr. Gudrun Stengel, co-founder and CEO of Alida Biosciences, reveals how her startup is transforming the landscape of RNA research through a novel technology called proximity barcoding. Dr. Stengel’s story exemplifies the power of entrepreneurial spirit in driving scientific discovery, offering a glimpse into how one idea can reshape an entire field.

At Alida Biosciences, Dr. Stengel and her team are pioneering new tools for detecting RNA modifications, a largely unexplored realm of epigenetics. Using their proximity barcoding platform, researchers can read mult...

Sustainability in the lab isn't just a trend—it's a responsibility. In this quick but powerful Mol Bio Minutes episode, sustainability expert Sune Lund Sporring shares actionable tips to reduce energy use, manage lab waste, and transition to greener materials like Thermo Fisher’s Sustain Series bio-based plastics.

Discover the difference between bio-based and biodegradable, why second-generation feedstocks are a game-changer, and how to make low-impact changes without compromising performance. Learn how small shifts—like using aluminum beads instead of water in a bath or switching to carbon-reduced plastics—can significantly cut your lab’s carbon footprint. And rememb...

Join us for an insightful conversation with Dr. Nadav Ahituv, a leader in human genetics and gene regulation at UCSF. He shares his personal journey from scoliosis patient to genetic researcher, exploring the mysteries of non-coding DNA, massively parallel reporter assays, and CRISPR-based therapeutic innovations.

We dive into his lab’s diverse projects, from decoding bat wing development and diet adaptation to tackling complex diseases like scoliosis and cancer through gene modulation. Learn how cloning is used alongside technologies like AI, genome-wide sequencing, and CRISPR to revolutionize our understanding of regulatory elements and shape the future of preci...

With prior Mol Bio Minutes episodes covering DNA form migration and staining considerations for nucleic acid gel electrophoresis, we tie it all together with this great set of overall tips, tricks and resources for the topic. 

Anyone that’s ever run a gel has undoubtedly produced gels with smeared, faint or poorly separated bands. What causes these and how can you avoid them?  Well, Aistė Polikaitytė, Scientist at Thermo Fisher Scientific is here to cover the likely causes and troubleshooting tips to help avoid the most common gel issues. She touches on how much sample to load, the im...

It could be argued that biology has always boiled down to chemistry, and that chemistry has always boiled down to physics. However, not many would deny that the fields of biology and chemistry are overlapping more than ever, with both leveraging computing methods, also more than ever. 

This conversation with Dr. Ramesh Jha, Technical Staff Member at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), crosses biology, chemistry, and computing methods. The work of his biome team at LANL uses computational tools to inform the design of enzymes that are produced via PCR-based cloning and then expressed in microbes. They u...

You can run the perfect agarose gel to separate your nucleic acid fragments but if you don’t stain and image the gel properly, it’s all for not. 

In this second installment of Mol Bio Minutes we take a look at the staining considerations for nucleic acid gel electrophoresis with Paulius Palaima, Product Manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific. He covers the range of stains and staining approaches available while calling out pros, cons and considerations for each. How these recommendations change, depending on your sample, is also covered in this approachable but informative episode. 

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Topics and terms such as biosafety, biosecurity, containment, and contamination are things most of us have heard of and think about at some level, but with the pace of molecular biology moving faster than ever, these are topics with implications that are reaching farther than ever. We’re joined by Dr. Ryan Burnette and Dr. Lauren Richardson from Merrick and company for this episode, and they’re ace communicators that help walk us through the expanding horizon and implications of these topics.

This conversation starts on the basic topics, like what biocontainment is and what’s needed for ea...

Agarose gel electrophoresis is a staple method in almost all biology and biochemistry lab where separation and analysis of nucleic acids is needed. In this Mol Bio Minutes mini episode Augustė Užuotaitė, Scientist III at Thermo Fisher Scientific, covers the basics of electrophoresis with a spotlight on how different forms of DNA migrate differently in agarose gel electrophoresis.

In less than 10 quick minutes, you’ll learn about the many factors that affect DNA migration rate. Augustė reviews how DNA size, sequence, and conformation all affect migration rate, and she gives some beautifully simple examples to help it all m...

Obesity is one of the most pressing health challenges of our time, with genetic and molecular factors playing a crucial role in how our bodies regulate weight. In this season opener, we explore the science behind obesity, focusing on how hormones, genetics, and brain circuits influence feeding behavior and body weight. Join us for a fascinating discussion about the interplay between molecular biology and real-world health outcomes.

Our guest, Dr. Giles Yeo, is a professor of molecular neuroendocrinology at the University of Cambridge and an expert in the genetics of obesity. With decades of research experience, Dr...

The start of Season 3 is just around the corner, slated to start in January 2025. What’s the new season hold in store you might ask?

Steve assures us he’ll be back hosting Season 3 and teases at topics that are coming. These include biosecurity, bioengineering, polymer degradation, genetics of obesity, CROs and how they utilize mol bio, platelet biology, and epitranscriptomics.

As if that were not enough to get you excited about the new season, Steve also teases on the inclusion of Mol Bio Minutes mini episodes in the upcoming season. These short but oh, so h...

We’re joined in this episode by Dr. Sarah Barry, Reader in Chemical Biology at King’s College London. Sarah started with an interest in biochemistry, went into organic chemistry because it was more concrete, and now applies her chemist’s approach to understanding and manipulating biosynthesis of natural products for important areas of research, including antibiotics.

This insightful conversation gives a peek into the mind of a chemical biologist’s way of thinking about and approaching challenges that span biology and chemistry. We learn about the historical challenges of discovering and synthesizing natural products, but we then hea...

The history of fermented foods like beer, bread, and other foods can be traced back thousands of years to ancient civilizations in China and Egypt. This ancient technology was originally used to preserve foods when refrigeration was not an option. While less common in modern industrialized civilizations, we’re now realizing that fermented foods play a major role in gut microbiome diversity, which is a biomarker for overall health.

Join our conversation with Dr. John Leech, Technologist at Teagasc in County Cork, Ireland to learn all about the history and how cutting-edge technologies are being applied to re...

While some of us knew a good bit about mRNA prior to 2020, we all got a crash course on mRNA technology and its prophylactic and therapeutic potential as a result of the COVID pandemic and subsequent SARS CoV-2 vaccine development. In fact, most of us have now received at least one mRNA vaccine at this point.

Our guest for this episode, Dr. Christian Cobaugh, Co-founder and CEO of Vernal Biosciences, was a passionate believer in mRNA medicines well before the pandemic. Join us to hear his story and his passion for this technology. He walks us through...

There are all sorts of molecular tests to tell if you’re infected with something specific, but what do you use when you’re not sure what you might have? You might use a thermometer as a first step, but wouldn’t it be nice if that thermometer was a bit more high tech?

In this episode we meet Dr. Nick Meyerson, CEO and co-founder of Darwin Biosciences, who’s team is working to develop the “molecular thermometer of the future.” We hear about how this physicist transitioned into molecular biology and then latched onto saliva as a sample of...

Plastics are a modern miracle of science that have helped deliver both convenience and life-saving solutions. However, we must now grapple with the challenge of immense amounts of plastics in our waste streams and environment. How do we best deconstruct plastics to reusable or more bio-friendly molecules? This is the exact challenge being addressed by the work of Dr. Elizabeth (Izzy) Bell and her team at the National Renewable Energy Lab.

Our conversation with Izzy showcases her ability to summarize complex topics very concisely and understandably, which she says is a skill that is critically important in...

Most scientists start their education and careers with a vision of working in the lab to discover great things and drive innovation. However, we don’t all end up loving the actual lab work portion of science. What non-lab career options exist to utilize molecular biology knowledge and skills? Well, according to our guest, Jason Amsbaugh, Founder and CEO of Samba Scientific, the career options are far more plentiful than you may think.

Scientific marketing, according to Jason, is one such role that is all about understanding the science, first and foremost, but it’s also about effe...

While the end product is quite different, brewing beer is not all that different than many other bioproduction processes used in the lab and industry. Both require skills, experience, and the right QC/QA methods to control and monitor the starting materials and the entire process, all the way to that bottle of suds you might be thirsty for.

Steve and Gabriel talk with Kelly Tretter, a microbiologist with more than 30 years of experience in the brewing industry, to discuss brewing at the molecular level. The passion of all three for beer is evident in the conversation...

When you buy chicken or turkey from the grocery store, you might not give it much thought, but there is an entire network of people working to ensure the health of the animals in our food supply chain and your health. In this episode, we talk with an unsung hero, Beverly Wood, supervisor of the molecular diagnostics lab at the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, who works tirelessly to ensure the health and safety of poultry and livestock animals in our food supply chain.

Our conversation delves into the types of samples and volume...

Contract Research Organizations (CROs) are a resource that most scientists know about but relatively few have first-hand, internal experience with. In this episode our hosts speak with Saboor Hekmaty, Director of Laboratory Operations at Avrok Biosciences, who pulls back the curtain to illuminate what CROs do, and the skills required for them to be successful in supporting diverse projects for their customers.

We hear about the work Saboor and their team do in biospecimen processing, biobanking, clinical studies, and lots of sample analysis, all tailored to meet the unique needs of the challenges they face each day.<...

Doing something complex and meaningful in a new way requires thinking and acting a bit differently. This is the case with how Dr. Joey Azofeifa, from Arpeggio Bio, is using systems biology to discover new drug candidates.

Join us in this Season 2 kickoff episode where we dive headlong into transcriptomics, systems biology, machine learning, and learn how they’re being used to innovate drug discovery. We learn about 3’-end mRNA barcoding and in-cell reverse transcription methods that allow the pooling of up to 1,536 samples so that only a single library preparation is required while still allowing the deco...

We start the second season of this series with an update on what you can expect from new episodes, which start to drop soon.

Your host, Steve Lewis, shares details on changes you can expect as the series evolves. One change will be a broadening of application topics to be covered, as this season will include episodes discussing transcriptomics in biopharma, the use of molecular biology by CROs, brewing, food testing, food production, biosecurity, and non-bench careers that use molecular biology. Steve reassures that all episodes, however, are squarely focused on the role that molecular biology plays...

In this episode of Speaking of Mol Bio, we speak with Dr. Mandovi Chatterjee about single cell analysis. Dr. Chatterjee is the Director of Single Cell Core at Harvard University Medical School. She has spent her career at the exploring and mastering a wide variety of single cell methods . In conversation with Dr. Chatterjee, our hosts dive into the more technical aspects of this ever-evolving field. We also learn an interesting analogy to better understand the difference between bulk and single cell RNA sequencing. Subscribe to get future episodes as they drop and if you like what you’re hearing we...

In this episode, the hosts have an intriguing discussion with Dr. Ben Sun, Head of Biomarker Genetics at Biogen.  Dr. Sun holds an MD/PhD from the University of Cambridge, providing a view and perspective on data from both research and clinical perspectives. The advantage of his unique background is that it provides a balanced perspective on large-scale population data and genomic data sets used to train computational models for predicting and informing clinical treatment.  The conversation touches on the fundamental science as well as the integration of in silico, in vitro, and in vivo methods. Ben als...

Dr. Stan Roux, Professor of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Texas – Austin, has had a long and successful career based on his fascination with plants and his desire to understand plant biology. He’s spent his career exploring the effect of apyrase on root systems, crop yields, and plant nutrient uptake. We get into Stan’s unlikely career path and how a chance conversation with a colleague at a conference led to his 25 years of collaboration with NASA and experiments on space missions to help understand the effect of gravity on plant development that could inform how plants are cu...

In this episode, Gabriel and Steve welcome a colleague of theirs, Dr. Doris Beylkin, to share her depth of knowledge and perspective on the CRISPR cell engineering topic. While Doris is a 

Global Market Development Manager today, she has over 10 years of experience supporting customers in planning, troubleshooting, and analyzing gene modulation and gene editing experiments. In this regard, she’s seen and it all, and has pearls of wisdom and insight to share on the topic. The discussion covers CRISPR basics all the way through to the evolution of modern gene editing and bioethics considerations. Doris and...

This discussion with Dr. Johan Skog covers a lot of ground while staying super approachable. 

The Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Exosome Diagnostics, starts by sharing basics about exosomes and tells us about how he’s translated his curiosity for the vesicles from tumor stem cells into his current role where he’s helped develop the world’s first exosome-based cancer diagnostic test. The conversation delves into the variations in exosomes populations, the value of using multiple biomarkers in diagnostics, the role that isolation and purification play in using exosomes for diagnostics, and why some cancers are bet...

It’s been 40 years since extracellular vesicles, or exosomes, were first connected to the way cells communicate and transfer information. Since then, researchers have studied what part they play in the normal physiology of a cell. There has also been an expanding amount of work in the role that exosomes can play in therapeutics and diagnostics of a wide range of diseases.  Jim West, CEO of Clara Biotech, joins us to share his perspective on research and innovation using exosomes as well as life in a biotech startup. He provides great insights into where this technology is today, the cha...

Multi-omics is a great example of how the scientific community is thinking larger and using complementary methods to gather deeper information to understand biology and inform medicine.  Proteomics is just one of the -omes of multi-omics but it’s the one that Steve Williams, Chief Medical Officer at SomaLogic, has over 30 years’ experience in. Steve joins us to share his story and insights on how protein biology complements genetic profiling to enable measurement of thousands of biomarkers to produce personalized data that has the potential to change the way diseases are identified and treated. Join us to meet this inter...

In this episode, we talk with Chris Whelan about the data behind science.  Chris is the Director of Neuroscience, Data Science & Digital Health for Research and Development at The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, as well as the Chair of the UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics project. He connects the dots between genomics and proteomics and clarifies how omics can be used to understand disease biology to inform drug development to treat disease. The conversation touches on the challenges of defining and collecting a comprehensive biomarker panel, and he also delves into the role of data science and the im...

Since it’s discovery, CRISPR Cas9 gene editing technology has blossomed and boomed.  It’s moved from a highly technical niche technique to one that is arguably mainstream and being applied to countless challenges in applied biology. In this episode we talk with Travis Hardcastle, who previously worked in R&D to develop gene editing products and is now a Product Manager for Engineered Cell Lines at Synthego. Travis helps explain the basics of gene editing and how it’s being applied to cell line engineering and provides a well-informed perspective on the past, present, and future of the CRISPR...

Experience the Speaking of Mol Bio podcast in its extended video format for a more immersive journey, while also ensuring accessibility with downloadable transcripts for each episode.

Watch now at thermofisher.com/podcast-video

A short trailer to introduce the Speaking of Mol Bio co-hosts and get their take on what the series is all about.  You'll hear about the four topics covered in this first season and what you can expect from upcoming episodes.  We're busy in prost-production to get you episodes live ASAP but this can help hold you over until their ready.

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