The Impact of Positive Self-Talk: A Next-Level Story

Posted on by Promega

Today’s blog is written by Malynn Utzinger, Director of Integrative Practices, and Tim Weitzel, ESI Architect.

Last month in this series, we posed to you that the most important decision you’ll ever make is the one about how to respond to the circumstances of your life – the story you tell yourself when the rough patches of life show up. Because of our brains’ wiring, we tend to spin self-defensive and blaming stories as a first line of defense until we learn to pause, check in with ourselves, and cultivate a narrative of more generative possibilities.
This month, we promised you a next-level story that shows the outer impact that happened when one person changed his self-talk.

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How A Change in Immune Cell Metabolism Contributes to Severe COVID-19

Posted on by Johanna Lee
Illustration of energy metablism in cell.

There is still a lot we don’t know about COVID-19 and the virus, SARS-CoV-2, that caused the pandemic and changed the way we live. But there are two things we do know about the disease: 1) Patients with diabetes and high blood glucose levels are more likely to develop severe COVID-19 symptoms with higher mortality.  2) Patients that experience an uncontrolled inflammatory response, called the cytokine storm, also develop more severe COVID-19 symptoms. The fact that both high glucose levels and an exaggerated immune response drive severe disease suggests that the two may be linked. But how? The answer may lie in the metabolism of immune cells in the lungs of COVID-19 patients, according to a recent study published in Cell Metabolism.

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Identifying the Ancestor of a Domesticated Animal Using Whole-Genome Sequencing

Posted on by Sara Klink

What animal can be found around the globe that outnumbers humans three to one? Gallus gallus domesticus, the humble chicken. The human appetite for eggs and lean meat drive demand for this feathered bird, resulting in a poultry population of over 20 billion.

Controversy over the origin of the domestic chicken (when, where and which species) have lead some researchers to look for that information in the genomes of contemporary chicken breeds and wild jungle fowl, the candidates from which chickens were derived. By sequencing over 600 genomes from Asian domestic poultry as well as 160 genomes from all four wild jungle fowl species and the five red jungle fowl subspecies, Wang et al. wanted to understand and identify the relationships and relatedness among these species and derive where domesticated chickens first arose.

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XpressAmp™ Direct Amplification: Simplified and Accelerated Time to qPCR Results

Posted on by Natalie Larsen

As the SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic continues to rage across the United States and around the globe, the demand for COVID‐19 testing is increasing. The vast majority of the COVID-19 assays use RT‐qPCR to detect the viral RNA in patient samples such as nasopharyngeal swabs, which are collected and stored in viral or universal transport media (VTM/UTM). The general workflow for these COVID‐19 assays can be broken down as follows:

  1. Collect and store patient samples
  2. Ship samples to testing laboratory
  3. Extract RNA from samples
  4. Amplify and analyze samples

While many companies who manufacture the products that are used in these steps have been able to adapt and significantly increase their production capacities, there are still gaps between the supply of these products and the global test demand. Both the sample collection and storage step and the RNA extraction/purification step have a tendency to bottleneck and experience supply constraints. One way to address these bottlenecks and expand production capacity for these in‐demand products is to evaluate the viability of skipping a step in the workflow, without hindering the ability to detect viral RNA from samples.

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More muscle from eggs? Proteo-lipid complex may help prevent age-associated loss of muscle-mass

Posted on by Gary Kobs

In older people, low muscle mass is strongly associated with reduced functional capacity and an increased risk of disability. Myostatin is a negative regulator of muscle growth and has become an important target for pharmaceutical companies designing therapeutics to address age-associated muscle loss.

Anti-myostatin drugs increase muscle size and strength in preclinical studies. Fortetropin is a proteo-lipid complex made from fertilized egg yolk and shows anti-myostatin activity. When Fortetropin is provided as a supplement, lowered circulating myostatin levels are observed both in rodents and in young men. Fortetropin in combination with resistance exercise also lowers myostatin and increased lean body mass.

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Answers to the Most Common Questions from “Battling the Novel Coronavirus” Online Event

Posted on by Promega

This post was written by guest blogger, Nitin Kapoor, from our Promega India branch office.

The COVID-19 crisis has led to substantial worldwide efforts to develop drug treatments and vaccines effective against SARS-CoV-2.  Termed a novel Coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 belongs to the same family as that of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) viruses that were responsible for epidemics in 2003 and 2012 respectively (Lu et al. 2020)

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Capillary Electrophoresis On Your Benchtop

Posted on by Jordan Villanueva
Spectrum Compact CE System

Here’s the good news: The Spectrum Compact CE System is now available from Promega. 

Here’s the better news: Labs of all sizes now have the opportunity to perform Sanger sequencing and fragment analysis with a personal, benchtop instrument. 

There is no bad news. 

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What Have You Done for Your Bones Lately?

Posted on by Kari Kenefick
Image of human skeleton, bones.
The many bones in a human. Bone density measurements are typically taken of hip, lower spine and wrist. Photo By Sklmsta, licensed under CC0.

How is your work from home (WFH) exercise routine going? Have you been able to maintain some semblance of a normal exercise routine? Many of us are staying home to avoid potential SARS-CoV-2 infection.

That’s very important. But after six or so months into the pandemic, one starts to consider the impact of not getting more strenuous and varied forms of physical exercise. We frequently think of exercise and it’s effect on muscle tone and heart and lung fitness. But it goes deeper than that. Our bone health is also at risk from lack of exercise.

Bones: Your Newest Tissue
It’s no secret that our bones are tough, made of minerals like calcium and phosphorous. They help us keep upright, supporting a considerable amount of weight against the force of gravity. Bone also protects organs.

Until recently, little attention has been paid to how metabolically active bone is. Research is now revealing that bone is not simply mineralized scaffolding surrounding bone marrow. Bone is actually a tissue, with vasculature and cells with cilia and dendrites that reach through the bony scaffolding, signaling to other cells. This cellular network, influenced by hormones and other compounds produces new bone, and sometimes reabsorbs existing bone, depending on individual needs and state of health.

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More than Gazpacho: Farming the Soil to Sustain the Ecosystem

Posted on by Promega

This post was written by guest blogger, Karen Stakun, Brand Manager at Promega Corporation.

When I arrived at the garden that morning, I was completely focused on the clusters of ripe tomatoes I’d hoped to see. I was there to take photographs, and the red, ripe fruit was going to be the star of the show. In every direction, there were long rows of plants: raspberries, peppers, okra, cabbage, fennel and kale. A black pickup truck pulled up to the edge of the Promega garden and a pair of well-worn work boots landed hard on the dewy grass. Mike Daugherty introduced himself as a Master Gardener, Master Composter, and member of the Promega culinary services team.

Mike laid out black plastic crates at the end of each row of the tomato garden. There were 700 bed feet of heirloom slicers and paste tomatoes to be harvested. Seduced by the intense red, orange and yellow of the juicy tomatoes, my thoughts immediately drifted to visions of BLT’s, caprese salad and gazpacho soup. As he hand-carried 3 or 4 tomatoes at a time and laid them in the crates, Mike called my attention to all the other things that were going on around the fruit.

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