Promega Highlights Innovative Work with Brazil Young Researcher Award

In late May 2022, Promega invited the nine finalists for the Promega Brazil Young Researcher Award to present their work at a Student Research Symposium on the Promega Madison campus. The Brazil Young Researcher Award program was created to acknowledge exceptional work by Brazilian students utilizing Promega products in their research. These student researchers were […]

Promega Sourcing Over 20% of Global Electricity from Renewable Sources

Last summer, we announced our most ambitious sustainability goals ever. This year, as part of our annual reporting, we are proud to share that over 20% of our global electricity is supplied by renewable sources. This represents a ten-fold increase in our renewable energy usage over the past three years.

Celebrating the Work of Women Scientists on the 100th Anniversary of Rosalind Franklin’s Birth

Photo 51 is the now-famous X-ray diffraction picture that allowed Watson and Crick to crystalize centuries work of scientific study (from Mendel to Chargaff) into a viable structural model that explained how DNA could serve as the material of the gene. The photo was painstakingly produced by Dr. Rosalind Franklin, a contemporary of Watson and […]

NanoLuc: Tiny Tag with a Big Impact

Synthetic biology—genetically engineering an organism to do or make something useful—is the central goal of the iGEM competition each year. After teams conquer the challenge of cloning their gene, the next hurdle is demonstrating that the engineered gene is expressing the desired protein (and possibly quantifying the level of expression), which they may do using […]

Combatting Gun Violence with Synthetic Biology

Imagine you are a high school student living in a community devastated by gun violence and death. In the U.S., this could be one of many communities, but it happens to be Baltimore which had 301 deaths due to gun violence in 2017 (with a per capita rate well above other large cities). Then imagine […]

How To Make Medicine on Mars

Today NASA’s InSight lander will touch down on Mars. InSight, which launched on May 5, is NASA’s first Mars landing since the Curiosity rover in 2012. The lander will begin a two-year mission to study Mars’ deep interior, gathering data that will help scientists understand the formation of rocky planets, including Earth. While every spacecraft […]

Virtual Reality Is Changing How We Experience Science

The South Pole was exactly as I expected—snowy and barren, apart from the giant research station in front of me. Suddenly, I got a notification in my communication system that there was a strong signal coming from the sky. I looked up and changed the visual display settings of my goggles to find stunning views […]

Building a Career in Science: Academia or Industry?

If you’re a student in a research lab, discussing career options with your PI can be a tricky topic to navigate. Whether real or perceived, many students feel they cannot bring up the subject of a career in industry with their PI because they will lose credibility as a serious researcher. In labs where thinking […]

In a Perfect World, Bacteria Wins

Last month, several of my Promega colleagues and I attended the 2018 iGEM Giant Jamboree in Boston, MA. This annual event is the culmination of the International Genetically Engineered Machines competition, in which 350+ teams of high school, undergraduate and graduate students use synthetic biology to solve a problem they see in the world. The […]