Trainees in each lab prepare short videos of relevant techniques or specialized protocols. The goal is for trainees to acquire a new skillset, where they learn how to make such videos, to share with the nucleic acid and biomaterial community. Trainees from member labs are encouraged to preview videos and engage in discussions as well as provide feedback to improve content. This will promote our program to the scientific community on a national and global level.
Please check out our NSERC Promote YouTube page to watch our latest videos!
This video gives a quick and basic introduction to Flow Cytometry techniques, which include cell analyzer and cell sorter. It will cover the fundamental mechanism of FACS and simple demonstration using Fortessa flow cytometer analyzer.
Credits: Molly Shoichet Lab
University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
This video gives an overview of DNA synthesis that includes DNA synthesis, DNA purification and DNA quantification. It will briefly cover the main steps and will show how to synthesize DNA chemically.
Credits: Alexis Vallée-Belisle Lab
University of Montréal, Montréal, Canada
This video provides helpful information on how and when to use circular dichroism (CD). CD is a very useful technique for defining the conformations of carbohydrates, proteins, or nucleic acids.
Credits: The Sleiman Lab
McGill University, Montréal, Canada
This video will get you started with tips on making and running an agarose gel to separate DNA fragments. It is a great opportunity to master the basic chemistry technique if you work with nucleic acids (DNA or RNA).
Credits: Functional Nucleic Acid Research Group
Yingfu Li Lab, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
This video gives a brief overview of Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis using Mini-PROTEAN Tetra System BioRad. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis or PAGE is a molecular technique that separates macromolecules such as proteins or nucleic acids based on their size by applying an electric field.
Credits: Wilds Research Group
Concordia University, Montréal, Canada
This video will show you everything you need to set up a Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The main steps are fully discussed and presented there. You can learn some tips and make your gel better!
Credits: Functional Nucleic Acid Research Group
Yingfu Li Lab, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
This video gives a quick step-by-step protocol for the Resazurin (phenoxazine dye) cell viability assay, also known as alamarBlue® Assay. It will cover the basic workflow performed in the tissue culture hood and provide the estimated time required to perform the assay.
Credits: McKeague Lab of Genomic Chemistry
McGill University, Montréal, Canada
A Lateral flow assay (LFA) is a paper-based platform for the detection and quantification of analytes in complex mixtures. In this video, we give a rudimentary introduction to an aptamer-based lateral flow assay. Discussed are its components, uses, mechanism and production.
Credits: The Laboratory for Aptamer Discovery and Development of Emerging Research (LADDER)
Maria DeRosa Lab, Carleton University
We mastered the skills in making and running PAGE gels. However, do you know how to visualize your data? This video will explore a detailed procedure of image processing using Amersham Typhoon gel visualizer.
Credits: Functional Nucleic Acid Research Group
Yingfu Li Lab, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
In this video, we will show and explain how to radiolabel your RNA in the lab.
Credits: Functional Nucleic Acid Research Group
Yingfu Li Lab, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
This video gives a quick overview and a general workflow on the Molecular Pendulum (MP) - a nanoscale biosensing technology for universal, continuous biomarker monitoring developed in the Kelley Lab at the University of Toronto. It covers the fundamental working mechanism of MP, preparation and functionalization of the electronic chips to anchor MPs on gold nanostructured microelectrodes, electrochemical setup for the reagentless measurements, as well as the data collection strategy to demonstrate the user-friendliness of the technology.
Credits: Kelley Laboratory
University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
This video gives a step-by-step protocol for PEG-Silane passivation of glass surfaces for single-molecule fluorescence studies.
Credits: The Cosa Group
McGill University, Montréal, Canada
In this video, we are going to go over the steps for docking using our lab’s docking software ‘Forecaster’. Docking is a computational method that is used to predict the binding site and the binding energy of a ligand to the micromolecule.
Credits: Moitessier Research Group
McGill University, Montréal, Canada
This video gives an introduction to the small molecule purification technique of flash column chromatography. It includes the selection and packing of a column with silica gel, loading of a compound onto the column and monitoring the elution of the desired species from the column.
Credits: Wilds Research Group
Concordia University, Montréal, Canada
Bio-layer interferometry is a label-free technology used to find the biomolecular interactions in real-time between two molecules of interest. This technique has significant applications in identifying properties of reaction kinetics, such as rate of association and rate of dissociation. Additionally, due to its ability to achieve real-time high-resolution data, BLI is useful in pharmaceutical research to determine the characteristics of a given drug and its binding to different targets. This video describes the principles and procedure for running a biolayer-interferometry assay.
Credits: The Shoichet Lab
University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
A single-molecule fluorescence microscopy is a powerful tool for investigating biological entities, but the good probes alone are usually far from enough to meet the experimental requirements. This video describes our strategy to improve the photostability of the probe by quenching the triplet excited states.
Credits: The Cosa Group
McGill University, Montréal, Canada
This video demonstrates how to use a UV-Vis spectrophotometer. This instrument is an important tool for studying nucleic acid base pairing interactions, including folding into complex secondary structures and binding to a complementary target sequence.
Credits: Damha Lab
McGill University, Montréal, Canada
This video will give you an overview of the field of rheology and its potential applications. You will also find a quick tutorial for using rotational rheometers, which allows the characterization of viscoelastic properties of a material (e.g., hydrogel, paste, etc.).
Credits: The Shoichet Lab
University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
This video gives a step-by-step overview on how to do a western blot for protein separation and identification.
Credits: McKeague Lab
McGill University, Montréal, Canada
This video gives a brief overview of how to determine the stability of a simple DNA nanoswitch (i.e., a DNA stem-loop) by measuring fluorescence changes at different urea concentrations. This technique was inspired by the classic protein urea denaturation experiment and was adapted to the analysis of DNA nanostructures by the lab of Vallée-Bélisle (Idili, A.; Ricci, F.; Vallée-Bélisle, A. Nucleic Acids Research, 45 (13), 2017, 7571–7580).
Credits: Alexis Vallée-Belisle Lab
University of Montréal, Montréal, Canada