An MBoC Favorite: A guide to simple and informative binding assays

An MBoC Favorite: A guide to simple and informative binding assays

This MBoC Technical Perspective (Pollard, 2010) was sorely needed. The author had been grousing about this for some time and conveying it in various quarters. One occasion was the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Physiology Course. He had given a typically fine lecture, during which he had stunned the students by asking whether they knew the equilibrium association constants for an...

A Guide to Simple and Informative Binding Assays

The aim of binding assays is to measure interactions between two molecules, such as a protein binding another protein, a small molecule, or a nucleic acid. Hard work is required to prepare reagents, but flaws in the design of many binding experiments limit the information obtained. In particular many experiments fail to measure the affinity of the reactants for each other. This essay describes ...

An MBoC Favorite: Creativity and graduate education

I dare say that a total of 72 graduate school and medical school classes over the past 31/2 years, since beginning the M.D.-Ph.D., Program has rendered me qualified to comment on upper-level science education. During that time I have been taught by every technique ever invented, and my performance has been evaluated in every way imaginable. The good news is that, for the most part, my teachers ...

Take advantage of time in your experiments: a guide to simple, informative kinetics assays

Understanding virtually any process in cellular and molecular biology depends on knowledge of the rates of the biochemical reactions, so it is regrettable that few cellular and molecular biologists take advantage of kinetics experiments in their work. Fortunately, the kinetics experiments that are most useful for understanding cellular systems are within reach for everyone whose research would ...

An MBoC Favorite: The historic covers selected by Joseph Gall that graced MBoC from 1992 to 1996