This article was written by Valencia College. The photos and text in this article are used with permission from Valencia College, Florida.
From the moment Naia Kasik walks through the doors of Applied Ingenuity Diagnostics, she knows exactly what she has to do as she comes face-to-face with the COVID-19 virus. She puts on her personal protective equipment, her lab coat, glasses, gloves and an N-95 mask before she sits down to begin a series of testing procedures with RNA/DNA sequences. ... Read more
My journey into biotechnology began accidentally; more of a plan B after my initial goals seemed less in line with my physical limitations following a work injury. Ultimately discovering that I enjoy the field, I turned my attention to it fully and became determined to do my best. Part of the curriculum for my AAS program was the completion of ... Read more
We recently updated Biotech-Careers.org to identify biotechnology companies that have career and (or) internship pages. Almost half (over 3900) of the nearly 8000 companies in the database have one or more "Careers" pages on their websites as of today (June 9, 2020). A company's "careers" page(s) often describe a company's team, culture, and provide links to available jobs. A much ... Read more
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Ending the SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 pandemic requires that we have robust diagnostic tests, effective antiviral drugs, and a vaccine. The front line is testing. As learned in the last post [1] , molecular diagnostic tests are the best way to identify active COVID-19 infections, and ... Read more
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The numbers of diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2 are exploding.* These tests detect either viral RNA or antibodies to virus particles. But, which is best? That, of course, depends on what question is being asked.
To help communicate how the different kinds of tests work, what they ... Read more
NAR databases since 1996. 2019 values are highlighted in red. NAR Database List
I always look forward to the Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) database issue . Typically I cover the issue in January, but I got busy, and then a pandemic broke out, so this year I'm later than usual. Through the delay viruses ... Read more
As the numbers of COVID-19 cases continue to increase, so do the numbers of companies that are working on COVID-19 tests, therapeutics, and vaccines. In early March we began tagging companies, in the Biotech-Careers.org database, that are working on COVID-19. Initially there was a small number of companies. By mid March there were 57, and today - April 6 - ... Read more
Summer is about road construction. Summer is also a good time for website construction. In that spirit, we updated Biotech Careers and added many improvements in content layout and information integration. Major updates include new layouts for content and improved ways of showing related content. Other changes and fixes improve the site's look and feel. We also improved how we ... Read more
Many biotechnology products such as insulin, industrial enzymes, foods, vitamins, and many others are produced by biomanufacturing processes that involve fermentation. Green fluorescent protein (GFP) is a common model system because it is easy to follow through the process, hence it has become the "Hello World" of biomanufacturing. Read more
