NEBinspired® Blog

NEBinspired is a science blog designed to share inspirational stories about trends in the life sciences, lab tips to help you save time, and life lessons to reflect on. Browse our collection of science stories, or filter to find a topic that you are passionate about. From groundbreaking discoveries to sustainable lab techniques and helpful online tools that will aid your experimental design, we have something for everyone. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for, not to worry – simply send us a message about topics you would like to see covered.

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High Molecular Weight (HMW) DNA Extraction – minimizing a bottleneck for emerging long read sequencing applications

Posted on Tuesday, February 16, 2021 By Joanne Gibson, Ph.D.

Extracting high quality, high molecular weight (HMW) DNA can be so time-consuming that it causes a bottleneck for the emerging, exciting downstream applications that require long DNA molecules as an input. Read about how scientists are addressing this bottleneck and how they are using the long read data to reveal a wealth of genomic information.

Topic: What is Trending in Science

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Harvesting improved methylome sequencing accuracy

Posted on Monday, December 14, 2020 By Nicole Kelesoglu

Plant epigenetics research is an attractive approach to enhance crops, rooted to accurate methylome analysis in a complex context. The performance of the Enzymatic Methyl-seq method merits replacing bisulfite conversion for high resolution plant methylation studies. Recently a team from the University of California Los Angeles took this leading-edge epigenomics method to task, comparing it to Whole Genome Bisulfite Sequencing (WGBS) results with Arabidopsis thaliana samples. Discover how researchers can improve studies of any eukaryotic methylome and you might become an EM-seq convert.

Topic: What is Trending in Science

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Research lab safety during COVID-19

Posted on Thursday, November 19, 2020 By Lydia Morrison

Adjusting to SARS-CoV-2 working conditions in research labs takes some getting used to. Find help tips and printable signage to remind lab members to practice COVID-19 safety guidelines in this blog post.

Topic: Tips for the lab

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Bacterial art - incubating creativity in the lab

Posted on Wednesday, October 21, 2020 By Joanne Gibson, Ph.D.

Read about how science and art have become increasingly compartmentalized over time due to a focus on specialization. As a result, scientists communicate with scientists, and artists communicate with artists. Yet, there are parallels in the creative process and spirit behind both the scientific and artistic endeavors, and they are both studies and interpretations of the world around us. Using bacterial art, one lab at New England Biolabs encourages a mutualistic relationship between science and art, allowing the two cultures to inform and enrich each other.

Topic: Art and science

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SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR workflow research to advance clinical testing

Posted on Monday, October 5, 2020 By Nicole Kelesoglu

Creating streamlined workflows for COVID-19 testing remains a key step in solving the public health crisis. What sort of features will help make these tests more accessible and useful for clinicians? Let's consider that question with a look at the challenges set by the NIH RADx Initiative, the value of qPCR-based SARS-CoV-2 tests, new options from New England Biolabs for saliva samples and plug and play automation, and the recent call for a new testing paradigm.

Topic: What is Trending in Science

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