MIDSCI and Janji

We are SO super excited to announce that MIDSCI is working with Janji to plan our July facebook contest. Their goal "Run for another" is off to a running start and we are honored to support a local organization that is Paying it Forward! Stay tuned to the contest announcement later this month to win Janji Apparel and be part of this movement to give back to Haiti and Kenya!

Social media and science (Part 1)

The world of scientific research has been rapidly changing in the way it disseminates scientific information, with decreased reliance on print journals and a dramatic increase in the usage of online resources.  In addition to supplying articles online, publishers have turned to social media, defined as websites and applications amenable for interaction and communication amongst users, to actively entice the scientific audience.  Various science journals as well as organizations have been assessed for how they use social media and their effectiveness. 

The Science and PLoS series of journals illustrate this recent foray into social media, with the latter being arguably more creative at using it.  A perusal of the Science website reveals links to Facebook and Twitter, where the use of these social media sites focuses on news, articles, and job listings.  On Facebook, the majority of space is dedicated to posts with links to new issues of Science that are out or various interesting articles.  These updates should entice more people to read or be aware of the articles, but one can say that the information on Facebook is no more than what one would have gotten by scanning the Science website say, once a week, and a better job could have been done on Facebook for it to complement the main website.  On Twitter, there are also links to articles, many of which are the same as the content on Facebook.  Additionally, there are quick news updates of more general science as well as a few posts of other information related to the magazine or publisher, such as a mention of proposal submission for an AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) symposium, job listings related to the magazine, and contests for publication of an essay in the magazine.  

Upon analysis, it is clear that PLoS (Public Library of Science), the publisher of the PLoS journals, utilizes social media mainly to increase its visibility and self-promote.  Like the Science journals, it also uses Facebook and Twitter.  Its posts on Facebook and Twitter overlap in content, namely quick mentions of new blog stories, podcasts, or journal articles.  It is clever that PLoS uses Facebook and Twitter to promote its other social media outlets, namely its blogs and podcasts, because people who have already embraced the Facebook and Twitter trends are probably the most likely to check out additional social media content.  There are also re-tweets of news stories from magazines such as Wired that cite PLoS articles, another way to self-promote.  Additionally, there are a number of tweets touching on open access, such as how people could help the Federal Research Public Access Act, links to blogs not connected to PLoS that advocate for open access, etc.  As everything PLoS publishes is open-access, it is not a surprise to see the passionate support for the sharing of research on social media sites, which have been built on user interaction and communication.  PLoS also uses LinkedIn.  An interesting resource on this site is a helpful subgroup called "Meet PLoS," which is for those who want to connect with PLoS at conferences. 

Journals such as the Science and PLoS series have made admirable effort in trying to connect with the audience by social media, but are anything that they are doing working?  Discussing this topic amongst colleagues at Washington University reveals the consensus that if students are not already on social media, then they are generally unaware of journals' use of Facebook and Twitter.  If they do know of it, they still would not choose to keep up with journals through these social media outlets because it would be too much of a hassle to set up an account and learn how to use the websites just for updates from journals, most of them about new issues being released.  Perhaps new graduate students would be curious enough to sign up for updates, but older students who have been in a field long enough to know which handful of journals are relevant to their work and know when new issues of them are released simply do not need these updates.  For those casually interested in science but not in the field, the Facebook and Twitter updates would be helpful to keep up with the headlines and read snippets of research.  What would be much more helpful for students actually in the field would be updates about conferences and job opportunities, which are not the focus of what the journals are promoting on their social media sites.  If journals want to be a resource and a reason for students to follow them, then this is an avenue they should pursue.

Besides journals, there are organizations that could fill this hole and provide information about conferences or jobs.  Two of them were assessed for their use of social media to disseminate this information: FASEB and AAI.  FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) is a coalition of biomedical societies and researchers that advocates for science progress and education.  Their role in sponsoring scientific conferences is directly relevant for graduate students.  FASEB utilizes Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  Its Facebook and Twitter updates complement each other with links to its job center as well as job posts by other companies (Procter and Gamble for instance) in additional to interesting polls and news snippets.  On LinkedIn, one can send InMail to employees with job titles students are interested in for job inquiries and career questions, all in all making FASEB's use of social media very helpful for students seeking jobs.  AAI (American Association of Immunologists) is an association of scientists in the immunology field that publishes the Journal of Immunology as well as organizes scientific meetings, all activities that are directly relevant to students hoping to publish well and attend conferences to learn and network.  Its use of Facebook has benefits for students who pay attention; for instance there are notices about travel grants, links to apply for the AAI Public Policy Fellows Program, and mentions of speakers attending the AAI conference. 

Use of social media allows scientists all over the world to obtain information from other scientists and connect instantaneously.  While browsing Facebook looking at friends' profiles, we can at the same time see links to interesting science articles and discuss them with people from a different country, or notice local job postings and follow up on them.  Getting updates from Twitter can even be instructive, allowing us to not only get updates from friends we know, but to also keep up with our favorite science blogs written by people we have never met.  MIDSCI is contributing towards this social media revolution, actively promoting networking and connectivity in science.  For instance, MIDSCI uses Facebook to post stories from The New York Times or NPR to facilitate comments and discussions from scientists worldwide.  It offers people the chance to test new products from vendors supplying free trial kits to connect curious customers with companies manufacturing revolutionary products.  It sees the importance of doing all this in order to ultimately make it easier for science to progress; we are no longer limited to seeking help or discussing science with labs down the hall or across campus but rather, global resources are at our fingertips.

Congrats to Nicole Christianson from Vanderbilt for being the May backpack winner of the month. MIDSCI Toni will be delivering your gift to you!

In Person: Consulting for Career Enhancement - Science Careers - Biotech, Pharmaceutical, Faculty, Postdoc jobs on Science Careers

Such a great group started by Wash U. To all you Ph.D. candidates who want to learn what else you can do with your degree, read this article. Great going Keryn, Maximiliaan, Paul and the rest of the BALSA team!: http://bit.ly/JLJCen: In Person: Consulting for Career Enhancement - Science Careers - Biotech, Pharmaceutical, Faculty, Postdoc jobs on Science Careers

Laboratory plasticware – damaging to our experiments?

On one of my kitchen shelves sits a plastic food container discolored a reddish-orange from previously storing leftover spaghetti, a stain which no amount of washing can seem to fade it the slightest. From this, it is evident that plastics do interact with food products and the evidence is clearly visible in every kitchen around the nation.  Those of us in the lab use plastic tubes, flasks, and plates to store reagents or grow cells; even though the interaction between the plastic and our samples may not leave such a noticeable mark, it is still reasonable to think that some interaction occurs, potentially leaving contaminants in our samples and affecting our experimental results.  In fact, researchers have studied the effects that laboratory plasticware have, and the findings though troubling is extremely eye opening.

In a 2008 Science paper, researchers found diHEMDA and oleamide in water and DMSO/methanol, respectively, after these fluids were used to rinse plastic tubes.  Both were then shown to have an inhibitory effect on an enzyme, human monoamine oxidase-B. And, DMSO rinsed through plastic tubes could even inhibit GABA_A receptor-ligand binding due to the ability of oleamide to bind to the receptor¹.  In an even more recent story, Nature News reported in 2010 that plastic tubes release compounds that increase absorbance readings of the samples.  Mass spectrometry confirmed an increase of chemicals from the plastic leaching into the samples after tubes were heated (which can occur from innocuous activities such as centrifuging for longer periods of time) or when inorganic solvents were used².

Remarks made in a Nature News article and readers' comments on the website indicate just how prevalent the problem of contaminants from plastics is³. For instance, from the Nature News website, Yarek Rivers comments, "We had this very problem in our own lab, when chemicals leaching from plastic tubes increased the UV absorbance of our samples, and confounding nucleic acid quantitation.  Even very simple assays can be significantly impacted by these effects."  Additionally, it may not be safe to assume that experiments are equally designed and executed as long as both control and experimental samples undergo the same treatment or growth conditions in the plastic because the interaction with plastics can be variable.

A Nature reader, William Wustenberg suggested there is "wide variation in quantity and character of the leachables in supposedly identical materials" and "exposure of plastics to other compounds from processing, packaging, handling and storage can make a profound difference in the leachable profiles."  To prevent confounding or non-reproducible results, an idea would be to research what kind of chemicals could leach out of certain products, with information made widely available to researchers of course.  In support of this idea, Andrew Holt's lab, which authored the Science paper discussed above, found that colored microcentrifuge tubes seemed to be a source of contaminants affecting his experiments, with clear tubes eliminating the problem. 

Leading Tissue Culture plastic manufacturer TPP is fully aware of the interaction between cells in culture and their plastic environments that potentially dictate growth, propagation and senescence. They firmly declare the absence of any additives into the polypropylene manufacturing process and the use of only virgin plastics in the resin⁴. Other TC manufacturers also detail the effects of laboratory reagents on different types of plastic (polystyrene, polycarbonate, etc.) that could be very helpful for researchers⁵.  For instance, it cautions researchers that oxidizing acids attack polystyrene plastic whereas there is no effect on polytetrafluorethylene products.  A survey of additional laboratory plasticware providers reveals that companies are generally aware of this issue, and some have taken measures to provide more information about this issue.  One of the leaders in plastic bottle manufacturing informs customers on their website that "common additives [in the plastic] include stabilizers like BHT; lubricants like calcium or zinc stearates, colorants."  Additionally, "there may also be some monomer of the plastic available for extraction in the final molded product."  However, they reassure customers by saying that the "extractables typically occur in very low concentrations (ppm or ppb)," and that "even though a plastic contains an additive, it may not be extractable in a particular fluid" due to the requirements of being soluble in the fluid and being present on the surface of the plastic. 

Based on the information provided on the companies' websites, there are also plasticware manufacturers that go further, making an effort to decrease the interference of plastic with our samples.  TPP does this by "using ultrapure raw-material that is certified to be free of chemical softeners and additives."  Laboratory tips manufactured by Sorenson Bioscience also do not contain additives such as silicone, which had been used in the past to prevent DNA and protein binding to the plastic but was later shown to denature DNA. Rather, Sorenson’s method of preventing sample binding is to use a well studied and proven method called Low-Binding Surface Technology that involves bonding a proprietary polymer to the inside of the tip to create a hydrophobic surface, thereby decreasing the surface tension that promotes the sticking of DNA and proteins⁶. The polymer is not affected by chemicals or solvents present in samples, and there is no leaching of contaminants into the sample and interference with the experiment.  Perfect for quantitative assays, these low-binding surface products would solve problems of inaccurate measurements of protein or nucleic acid concentration, as mentioned by Nature reader Yarek Rivers. In blinded tests performed by an independent laboratory, these Sorenson Low Binding Tips as well as other manufacturers' conventional tips were used to pipet DNA or protein solutions and then washed with water.  The water, containing DNA or protein that had bound to the tip, was analyzed by spectrophotometry. Results from these tests confirmed that the tips work as advertised; the averaged absorbance values from 8 experiments revealed that Sorenson's Low Binding Tips have significantly decreased DNA or protein binding.  As a final example, Axygen's Maxymum Recovery products use an ultra-smooth mold and a modified polypropylene resin, with no chemical additives involved as well, to achieve a smooth pipette tip surface devoid of occlusions and cavities, thereby eliminating samples from sticking to the tips⁷. 

Current approaches to prevent the interaction of plastics with nucleic acids and proteins rely on unique and well researched technologies to aid something as simple as liquid handling in a laboratory as well as something as complex as growing primary cells isolated from adult tissue. Thus, there needs to be ongoing communication between the scientist community and the plastic manufacturing industry to aid efficient dissemination of information about which plastic products are most appropriate for certain types of samples.  Both scientists and manufacturers are ultimately working towards a common goal – ensuring the validity of ground-breaking findings and improving the reproducibility of data which must be repeated by different individuals and labs – and therefore ought to work together to achieve it.

REFERENCE LIST

1           McDonald, G. R. et al. Bioactive contaminants leach from disposable laboratory plasticware. Science 322 (2008).

2          Katsnelson, A. Plastics hamper DNA assays. Nature (2012). <http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100423/full/news.2010.200.html%3E.

3          Cressey, D. Why plastic isn't always fantastic. Nature (2008). <http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081106/full/news.2008.1212.html%3E.

4          FAQ, <http://www.tpp.ch/page/faq/index.php>.

5          Characteristics of Corning® Plasticware, <http://catalog2.corning.com/Lifesciences/media/pdf/CLS_AN_108_CharacteristicsPlastic.pdf> (2012).

6          Low-binding surface technology, <http://sorensonbioscience.com/lowbinding.cfm> (2012).

7          Maxymum recovery plastics, <http://de.vwr-cmd.com/ex/downloads/life_science/biomarke/0609/BioMarke_03.pdf> (2006).

Shrinking labs’ carbon footprint focus of sustainability competition | Newsroom | Washington University in St. Louis

Shrinking labs’ carbon footprint focus of sustainability competition | Newsroom | Washington University in St. Louis

April Winner

Congratulations to our April backpack winner Debbie Blackburn of Isto Technologies. Pete will be delivering your prize!