Petra, who joined us in September, has finished her bachelor internship. Thanks to COVID19 and social distancing, we could not have a leaving get-together as we'd like, but Petra brought cake anyway. And left this little note: Her project did not go at all as expected (or hoped) - turns out our hypothesis was wrong!... Continue Reading →
Towards more reproducible science?
When reading scientific literature, one of my pet peeves is definitely the methods section. "Plasmid X was described here" - but it wasn't. "Protein purification was detailed in earlier work" - but you have to go through 10 sequentially cited papers to find the original source. If you're lucky, you may find what you're looking... Continue Reading →
Why and how we wrote a review during lockdown
At the end of 2019, Lisa Weixler was the first PhD student to join our lab. In Spring 2020 Jeffrey Momoh and Katja Schäringer joined. Jeff joined us for his master thesis, Katja joined our Department as PhD student and is co-supervised by us. As the lockdown hit in March, we were left wondering what... Continue Reading →
New Year’s Resolutions
Even in the middle of the still-raging SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, we think that climate is a topic we shouldn't forget. Therefore our New Year's Resolution: also in the lab less plastic, more re-use... Glass bottles instead of falcons for solutions; re-using plastics where possible. We always welcome suggestions to make our lab more sustainable!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
This year, we have closed the lab a bit earlier than usual. The Netherlands, where some of us live, are in a lockdown since the 14th, Germany followed a day later. We've frozen down our cells, we've cleaned up our benches and closed the door behind us. Hopefully we'll be back somewhere in January -... Continue Reading →
Karla’s first year as associate editor at Bioscience Reports
Some of you may know from my rants IRL or from posts on Twitter, that about a year ago I joined the editorial board of Bioscience Reports. Why rants, you may ask? And why take on extra work? Being a scientist who was offered the opportunity to join this editorial board, I thought it might... Continue Reading →
Welcome to our newest group member
Petra Toneva has joined us for her undergraduate research project and will be staying with us for half a year. First, we're going to teach her how to keep human tumour cells alive, then how to manipulate them and finally how to analyse them. Then she'll be good to roam around the labs on her... Continue Reading →
So, what do you actually DO?
Do you know that moment? When you are meeting your new boyfriends' parents, or are at this neighbourhood party. They all know you're a scientist, but now they would like to know what you actually DO. You may start to sweat a little, because how do you explain all the intricacies of - enter your... Continue Reading →
Life slowly returns to the new normal?
Life in Germany is slowly returning to the new normal. With Autumn looming ahead - who knows how long this will last? So we made use of the current loosened measures to go for some after work drinks!
Recent publications
The first fruits from our lab are now available online: a review we wrote about the ADP-ribosylhydrolases MACROD1, MACROD2 and TARG1. This was a nice collaborative effort with Dr. Chris Cooper at the University of Huddersfield. We wrote this review, as we felt that a number of studies addressing these proteins rely on antibodies which... Continue Reading →
