From detecting probiotic organisms in fermented foods to assessing soil health, microbiome profiling is a critical component of research and development in food, beverage, agricultural, health, and environmental science. Microbiome profiling typically relies on DNA metabarcoding – where a region of the microbe genome that is highly variable between species is used as a means…
Fungal Contamination: The Challenge While fungi make significant contributions in many industries, their presence isn’t always welcome—particularly in propagation or micropropagation of plants in greenhouses or laboratories. When fungal contamination or disease occurs, selecting an appropriate antifungal compound is the next step. With so many antifungals available, and differences in susceptibility between strains and organisms,…
At Proxima our motto is “Perfecting the Art of Good Science”, but one of the perks of working at a biotech company with as many varied projects and capabilities as Proxima means we also get to enjoy the art IN good science. That’s why we’ve chosen to share some of the interesting images we’ve collected…
The word ‘domestication’ conjures images of dogs, cats, cows, and other pets and farmyard animals, descendants of wild ancestors from thousands of years ago. Surprisingly, the humble yeast that ferments your beer and leavens your bread is also a domesticated organism: a little critter by the name of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, also known as Brewer’s or…
Plasmid vectors are ubiquitous in modern biological research and are produced in quantity by culture and subsequent extraction and purification from the bacterial host E. coli. This post outlines how to properly culture plasmid-hosing E. coli to ensure consistently high yields of plasmid vectors. Plasmid vectors are an essential, ubiquitous, and powerful tool in modern…
Plasmid vectors are key to modern biological research but can be prone to misidentification and loss through a variety of laboratory mishaps. This post outlines some easy steps you can take to confidently recover lost or misidentified plasmid vectors. Plasmid vectors are an essential, ubiquitous, and powerful tool in modern life science research, yet they…
