Michelle Clay, PhD

Getting to sequence the #bluesoup at @seqcoast might be the high point of my entire career! 🧬🧪🦠

@manishtanks @pochekailov Not for things like bead cleanups - the Sergii racks have a slot to slide a magnet in and out, so you don't have to move the tubes back and forth between magnet vs regular racks.

@pochekailov Works just as good btw

Using Sergii lab supplies racks to vortex all tubes at once. Only with Sergii lab supplies racks. Vertical integration, baby!

@ATinyGreenCell Happy birthday! Nasturtium is my (current) favorite.

It's my birthday today and all I want is to know what your favorite flower is. Please share a pic or comment below. I'll reveal mine at end of day. 🌺

Stop by to chat about your research goals and learn more about how we can help. Help me out and take some taffy and a notebook - I do NOT want to lug it on my return flight! 😮‍💨

We're sponsoring the University of Maryland's Molecular and Cellular Biology Department Retreat! Visit our table to: •Grab saltwater taffy and a notebook! •Ask about prepaid Insights Vouchers to preserve spending power of expiring grant funds •Get expert sequencing advice

Don't have time to meet now? You can email questions to scientists@seqcoast.com, or get a quote on our website. We'd be delighted to work with you on your next big genomics project! 🧬

In a single E. coli, about 25 percent of all proteins use metals (like zinc, iron, copper, magnesium, etc) to do their chemistries. And yet, incredibly, fewer than ONE FREE METAL ION is present per cell on average. There are, in other words, basically no loose metal ions floating around a cell. As soon as metal comes in, it gets wrapped up in a protein. This is presumably because even a small amount of free metals can be toxic. A single unbuffered copper ion, say, can generate hydroxyl radicals that damage DNA. Bacteria have evolved all kinds of strategies to keep metal ion concentrations at a perfect level; enough for their proteins but not too much to be toxic. They have metal-sensing transcription factors like CueR, for example, that become active after binding to copper and then switch on genes that detoxify the copper ions in the cell. They also express efflux pumps that can dump loose ions from the cell. Anyway, I heard about this recently from Markus Covert and just thought it was really interesting.

5/ Quoting Mike Love: “A smaller p-value is not more interesting.” “We should focus on effect sizes.” He’s right.

Registration for MMPC 2025 opens today! We can’t wait to see you in St. Charles, IL, for the first MMPC hosted by Loyola University Chicago! mmpconference2025.com/registration

I got hit by some rather sudden and extreme financial hardship so if anyone is in need of remote wetlab contract research, strictly BSL1, do let me know. Currently scrambling for gigs. Plant, Bacterial, Archaeal Bioeng Custom Lab Hardware Turn Key Genetic Design Please RT 💚

I wrote about how population stratification in genetic analyses led to a decade of false findings and almost certainly continues to bias emerging results. But we are starting to have statistical tools to sniff it out. A 🧵:

@Artonmyeyes @ATinyGreenCell I know you mean well, but Angelina Fanny Hesse was not just a housewife. She was a scientific illustrator and a microbiologist in her own right. The fact that she wasn’t compensated or recognized at the time doesn’t take away from her very real contributions to science.

@ATinyGreenCell Without denying Marie curie contribution, I think people keep posting about her more when it is about women in science. Barbara McClintock, Blackburn should be mentioned more frequently too. Remember, who inspire the use of agar in media? A housewife.

Most tech bros have no idea who this woman was

Great interview w/ @ATinyGreenCell by @AsimovPress. He's doing "DIY Bio" and making a living out of it. I know someone else in NY who has a basement lab where he genetically engineers plants and silk worms. It takes a LOT of study and work, but monetarily the barrier is low!

🚨 The Department of Microbiology & Cell Biology at Montana State University invites applications for an Assistant Professor tenure-track faculty position in the field of environmental microbiology. Happy to answer any questions! jobs.montana.edu/postings/45680

Today we published a deeply personal story about a genetic disease, a surgery, a round of IVF, a child. Here is the opening section: "We paused outside the unit, hand in hand. “We could go home, you know,” I said, glancing at my husband, Chris. We might have been buying a car or questioning whether to sit through a movie. Instead, after more than a year of planning, weeks of daily injections, transvaginal ultrasounds, and an egg retrieval, we stood at the cusp of starting a family. After a final look and squeeze of the hand, we entered. The waiting area was cold and uninviting. A handful of plasticky chairs with hard armrests occupied a dim corner beside a water dispenser and small, generic plants. Two heavy-looking doors read: “Medical procedures beyond this point.” A check-in desk sat behind a pane of frosted glass. Peeking through a cloud-shaped cutout, I saw staff in blue surgical head covers and scrubs dipping in and out of cramped patient bays. They were attending to others who, like us, hoped to bring a child into the world. We were led to our own curtained bay, where I changed into a thin hospital gown and oversized grippy socks. Chris pulled a white, disposable suit over his street clothes, as if he were about to begin a shift at a food plant. The reproductive endocrinologist stepped in and, without preamble, handed me a four-by-six-inch photo. It sent a jolt through my body as I focused on the image of a floating cluster of cells. If all went well, those cells, grown in a petri dish and implanted into my body, would become a warm, wriggling infant. The endocrinologist explained how she would thread a catheter through my cervix, push a gush of saline through its tip, and eject a five-day-old blastocyst into my uterus. We take the consent form and sign on the line, agreeing to the embryo transfer, hoping for an outcome we might otherwise have initiated in a moment of private intimacy. There was nothing stopping us from conceiving naturally, but we never tried. We couldn’t risk passing on the insidious cancer gene I’d inherited." Link: press.asimov.com/articles/famil…

It's not too late to cash in on your good luck! ☘️💰🧬 See details below to save on your next NGS project:

You're in luck! 17% off orders >$1000 from SeqCoast Genomics! Instructions below 👀👇

Francis Collins and a team of researchers identified the cystic fibrosis gene over 30 years ago, and because of people like him I’m alive today with kids of my own (and able to enjoy a weekend trip to my favorite place on earth… Alta… and am healthy enough to enjoy it).

Sometimes vaccine efficacy is subtle Sometimes it isn't

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