Author: Promega

Adventure in Belize

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Today’s blog post is written by guest blogger, Josh Agate, Manager, Global CRM.

Picture from airplane approaching Ambergis Caye
Approaching Ambergis Caye.

Adventure is relative. Most people are looking for new adventures in life, and those can range from planning where to go on vacation to starting a new job. What each person looks for in an adventure and the level of thrill they seek is different. When I learned that Promega had awarded me a trip to a destination of my choice with my family for my job performance, I was excited to plan this new adventure with my wife and two daughters (ages 4 and 6). We decided on a trip to Belize.

The trip required two commercial flights, followed by a puddle jumper flight (with hand-written boarding passes), and a 30 minute boat ride before we arrived at our hotel on the island of Ambergris Caye.  This island, off the northern coast of Belize, would provide the backdrop for our family’s greatest adventure to date. The trip to get to the island wasn’t tedious travel for them; it was a wild ride that included a plane that held 12 people, flying over crystal clear waters and a boat trip, where our hair flew wildly as we were sprayed with ocean mist. Continue reading “Adventure in Belize”

Promega Travel Award Blog: An Excursion to Croatia

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Dubrovnik, the Pearl of the Adriatic
Dubrovnik, the Pearl of the Adriatic

We invite you to travel with Bettina Bazzini-Lapin, Scientific Client Specialist, who was awarded a Promega Travel Award for sales performance and used her award to travel to Croatia and Italy. In this blog, she describes her travels.

Croatia is an Eastern European country that sits on the Adriatic Sea directly across from Italy. It has more than one thousand islands, and a third of the country is covered by forest. It is known for its beautiful Dalmatian coast line. One of the main sites for travelers to visit is the coastal city of Dubrovnik, known as the Pearl of the Adriatic. This is where my adventure began. Continue reading “Promega Travel Award Blog: An Excursion to Croatia”

Honoring Caregivers

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This blog post is contributed by guest blogger Diana Clark, Benefits Manager, Promega Corporation

November is National Family Caregivers Month, first proclaimed by President Clinton in 1997, the proclamation has been renewed by every U.S. President since. When President Obama proclaimed this designation in 2012, he commented, “The unselfish devotion of family caregivers affirms the importance of respecting the dignity of life in all stages and underscores the importance of the family unit.”

Hearing these words, I felt even prouder to be a part of the Promega family. You see, we are already in the process of rolling out Caregiver Leave for 2018. Caregiver Leave will provide Promega employees with an additional three weeks of paid time off annually to care for a sick parent, spouse or child, or to welcome a new child into their family via birth, adoption or foster placement. Continue reading “Honoring Caregivers”

One Year Later: Living Organ Donor & Recipient Share Their Story

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Jim and John one year later.
John Van Herwynen, Promega Senior Production Scientist, and Jim Stevens, Product Finishing Project Coordinator, on the Promega Madison campus one year after John donated one of his kidneys to Jim.

This article was jointly written by science writer, Nicole Sandler, and Corporate Affairs Communication Specialist, Karen Burkhartzmeyer.

One year ago, on September 14, 2016, two people once connected only through the common denominator of their workplace began sharing a bond that very few people ever experience. That was the day that Jim Stevens, Product Finishing Project Coordinator at Promega Madison, received a kidney from living donor John Van Herwynen, a Promega Senior Production Scientist. The last year, full of emotional successes but also some challenging setbacks, is one that has transformed both of their lives. Organ donor and organ recipient are marking today’s important milestone by sharing their remarkable story. Continue reading “One Year Later: Living Organ Donor & Recipient Share Their Story”

Promega Third Party Forensic-Grade Certification

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Promega has become the first major forensic manufacturer to achieve third party certification of the published ISO 18385 standard to minimize the risk of human DNA contamination in products used to collect, store and analyze biological material for forensic purposes.

On February 2, 2016, ISO 18385:2016 was published as the first international standard specific to the forensic manufacturing community. Since the standard was published, companies have begun to self-declare that they comply with the ISO standard. Some companies have gone a step further and reached out to Certification Bodies to provide an unbiased and independent assessment their compliance to ISO18385 through a third-party audit.

When consumers see an ‘ISO 18385 Forensic Grade’ labeled product, it should inspire confidence that the product was produced in accordance with a minimum set of criteria common to all manufacturers.

So what are you actually getting in a Forensic Grade labeled product? Continue reading “Promega Third Party Forensic-Grade Certification”

All Aglow in the Ocean Deep

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Fascinating bioluminescent organisms floating on dark waters of the ocean. Polychaete tomopteris.

Today’s blog comes to you from the Promega North America Branch Office.

In nature, the ability to “glow” is actually quite common. Bioluminescence, the chemical reaction involving the molecule luciferin, is a useful adaptation for many lifeforms. Fireflies, mushrooms and creatures of the ocean deep use their internal lightshows to cope with a variety of situations. Used for hunting, communicating, ridding cells of oxygen, and simply surviving in the darkness of the ocean depths, bioluminescence is one of nature’s more flashy, and advantageous traits.

In new research published in April in the journal Scientific Reports, MBARI researchers Séverine Martini and Steve Haddock found that three-quarters of all sea animals make their own light.  The study reviewed 17 years of video from Monterey Bay, Calif in oceans that descended to 2.5 miles, to determine the commonality of bioluminescence in the deep waters.

Martini and Haddock’s observations concluded that 76 percent off all observed animals produced some light, including 97 to 99.7 cnidarians (jellyfish), half of fish, and most polychaetes (worms), cephalopods (squid), and crustaceans (shrimp).

Most of us are familiar with the fabled anglerfish, the menacing deep-sea creature known for attracting ignorant prey with a glowing lure attached to their head. As you descend below 200 meters, where light no longer penetrates, you will be surprised at the unexpected color display of the oceans’ sea life. Bioluminescence is not simply an exotic phenomenon, but an important ecological trait that the oceans’ sea creatures have wholeheartedly adopted to cope with complete darkness.

Continue reading “All Aglow in the Ocean Deep”

Three Factors That Can Hurt Your Assay Results

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Each luminescent assay plate represents precious time, effort and resources. Did you know that there are three things about your detection instrument that can impact how much useful information you get from each plate?  Instruments with poor sensitivity may cause you to miss low-level samples that could be the “hit” you are looking for.  Instruments with a narrow detection range limit the accuracy or reproducibility you needed to repeat your work.  Finally, instruments that let the signal from bright wells spill into adjacent wells allow crosstalk to occur and skew experimental results, costing you time and leading to failed or repeated experiments.

Continue reading “Three Factors That Can Hurt Your Assay Results”

Bones: Improved Technology is Bringing Loved Ones Home

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21537407 - archeology, human bones

Today’s Promega Connections blog is written by guest blogger Rachel H. Oefelein, QA Manager/Senior DNA Analyst at DNA Labs International. 

Shakespeare said, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”  This is continually true in the case of unidentified remains throughout the United States.  The action of a person going missing or the events leading to an individual’s demise are frequently the memory that haunts a town or the media for years to come. However, for each such case, somewhere lies a set of skeletal remains not yet found, or just as tragic, recovered but still unidentified.  The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) estimates approximately 40,000 sets of unidentified skeletal remains linger in morgues around the country or that have been cremated and buried as Jane and John Does.

Many crime labs do not have protocols in place for the extraction of DNA from skeletal remains or have outdated protocols for bone extraction that are not sensitive enough for poor quality bones. Bones are often recovered from harsh environments and have been exposed to extreme heat, time, acidic soil, swamp, chemicals treatment, etc. These harsh environmental conditions degrade the DNA present in the remains which further complicates the already difficult procedure of releasing the DNA in cells buried deep within the bone matrix. Another challenge is that cases often involve recovery of skeletal remains in areas with animal activity, water recoveries and scenes involving explosions or fires; these case types may require re-association of dozens if not hundreds of bones and bone fragments.

Continue reading “Bones: Improved Technology is Bringing Loved Ones Home”

On the Road with the Biotechnology Field Trips Program

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BFT-a

The On the Road (OTR) BTC Institute Biotechnology Field Trips (BFT) program is rolling right along!  We are doing our best to brave the winter weather to take hands-on science activities all over the state of Wisconsin.

The BTC Institute BFT program served over 3,400 students last year, most of them here at the BTC in Fitchburg.  That said, each year the OTR part of the program is growing in order to serve schools that cannot travel here for various reasons, such as distance, bus costs and the need to minimize out-of-school time.

Continue reading “On the Road with the Biotechnology Field Trips Program”

Travelogue Galapagos Part II: An Incredible Experience in Paradise

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In 2014, Promega created a special incentive to reward field science consultants who help the scientific community take advantage of our on-site stocking program. The winners had to meet ambitious criteria to receive 2 round-trip tickets to anywhere in the world, a week of paid vacation and spending money. Our four winners will share photos and stories about their journeys on the Promega Connections Blog.

Today’s travelogue is Part II of the adventures of Amy Parman, a regional sales manager, who used her award to travel to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands.

Day 7: Urbina Bay, Isabela Island & Punta Mangle, Fernandina Island – Today was another early morning wake up, this time to the soothing strains of Journey. We had a quick breakfast and jumped in the dinghy for an exploratory ride. We passed a tree full of so many pelicans covering the branches that they looked as though they could be fruit, ripe for the picking. Our dinghy slowly passed many more sea turtles, golden cownose rays, small eagle rays, marine iguanas and Sally Lightfoot crabs (stunningly red against the black lava).

We also came across several sea lions sleeping away the morning in a comfy mangrove branch bed. More striated herons were perched in the mangroves hunting fish below and three playful sea lion pups swam right up to our feet dangling over the dinghy as if to say, “jump out and play with us.” Bayron said they are likely around ten months old and their mother has left them in the protected bay while she goes out to fish.

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Sea lion pup in Urbina Bay, Isabela Island.

After the ride, we had a chance to snorkel for a couple of hours and did, in fact, swim right along with a very fast and playful sea lion. The sea lions were pretty big, and seemed even more so when we were in the water with them. It was quite the experience to have him dart all around us while we swam. Marine iguanas were also swimming with us and clinging to the lava eating seaweed off the rocks about eight feet deep. There were loads of fish all around and by now we’ve had a few shark sightings among the group. Interestingly, the shark species around the Galapagos, while numerous, do not regard humans as a food source. It has become a tour goal to find as many as we can and, while a challenge, we do catch glimpses of the hammerheads and reef sharks that are never too far away. Continue reading “Travelogue Galapagos Part II: An Incredible Experience in Paradise”