Ever thought of putting extra lab space on Craigslist? Would you trust advice from FriendFeed over a lab manual? Do you know what putting your data in “The Cloud” could do for your lab’s workflow?

These were the types of questions asked and answered at Science Online 2010, a conference in RTP designed specifically to give science researchers and bloggers a common forum. Hosted at the Sigma Xi Center between January 14-17, the conference focused on the ways new Internet technology is changing how science is done and how information is distributed.

A wide variety of topics were covered using the unconference format, where the presentations were not lectures so much as large discussion groups. The program catered to all levels techie. The novice could learn what Twitter is and how to tweet, the casual follower was presented with a variety of demos to further spark their interest, and the advanced IT gurus could learn from other members in the audience, as the conference allowed for a unique overlap of experts from academia, industry, and the blogosphere.

New Internet technology is allowing mass participation and collaboration on a scale not seen before. Blogs continue to grow in number and variety as more and more scientists and journalists use them as alternative outlets for their material. While the conference is evidence enough that the science blogosphere is here to stay, two other major areas of new Internet technology – social networking and cloud computing – are not yet as commonplace among scientists, yet offer even more potential to change how scientific research is done and shared.
Social Networking

The general consensus of the conference was that social networking has so far failed to live up to its potential for collaboration among scientists. A large variety of social networking sites have been launched specifically aimed at scientists, but thus far none has caught on. The only one that drew a partial recommendation from the crowd was Epernicus. LinkedIn, a more general networking site, got some recommendations from the crowd to use as an online address book, but no social networking website offers a community specifically tailored to scientists.

The one exception is FriendFeed. For those of you who are unaware, FriendFeed is the main competitor to Twitter. The conference showed evidence of an ongoing argument between users of each respective site reminiscent of PC vs. Mac. Scientists at the conference in general preferred FriendFeed, praising the chance for more in-depth discussion that is possible in the public discussion groups. Specifically, “The Life Scientists” group was highly recommended.

In The Cloud

When your work is “in the cloud,” everything is done and exists on the Internet. This allows for easier access across different workstations and simplifies collaboration on shared documents, among many, many things. Not surprisingly, cloud computing was pioneered and remains most popular among computer scientists. However, recent years have seen the concept catch-on everywhere it can. Google is the most well-known leader in the new technology and Google Wave specifically is the biggest attempt to bring the cloud style of working to everyone. Cloud computing is broken down into three general areas:

o SAAS: Software as a Service (e.g. Basecamp)
o IAAS: Infrastructure as a Service (e.g. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud)
o PAAS: Platform as a Service (e.g. PayPal)

For scientists these new technologies open up many new possibilities for analysis and collaboration. The casual armchair scientist, by using the cloud, can now access datasets and computing power that can match all but the largest research institutions. Even for members of such research institutions, the cloud provides an attractive plan B for outsourcing work that might be more difficult to accomplish within an existing administrative structure.

Cloud computing offers a whole new way of doing things, but don’t kiss your hard drive goodbye just yet. The universal recommendations from the conference were to be sure to back-up everything that is essential and to keep private materials out of the cloud.

For all you life scientists interested in what all this new technology has in store for you, be sure to check out BioGPS, a website (http://biogps.gnf.org/) created by the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) that is devoted to compiling all existing genetic resources. If you like the looks of it, be sure to see how they’ll be “going social” in 2010 (http://biogps.blogspot.com/ – announced February 1).

etonBlog Uncategorized BioGPS, cloud computing, Eton Bioscience, friendfeed, RTP, SciOnline

The beta ends this friday and the full launch of our Houston Branch begins the upcoming Monday.  Eton Bioscience will offer its main core services of DNA Sequencing, Primer Walking, Peptide Synthesis, PCR purification, etc. As well as a same day delivery service for many of its top products from the lactate assay kits, to the revolutionary alternative to coomassie blue, BlueFast.

The medical center has a cut off time to order by 3 pm in the afternoon for sequencing, and those at places that are over 40 minutes away, like UH-Clear Lake, UTMB, etc will be a 9 am cut off time. For all products ordered that want same day delivery, they need to order by 9 am in order to qualify for a possible same day delivery, next day delivery.

If you would like to get a quote feel free to contact us: http://www.etonbio.com/quotationRequest.php

etonBlog Uncategorized Bluefast, Coomassie Blue, DNA Sequencing, DNA Sequencing Services, Eton Bio, Lactate Assay kits, Primer Walking, Protein Synthesis

We have two significant changes to our ordering process that will help us to ensure we get  your results to you the way you want them every time.

Our First Change is:

Email Address Modification

It is now possible to modify the email addresses that your DNA sequencing results will be sent to after placing your order.  To do so, click on the “Modify Order” link on your member page (just below the “Place Order” link), select the appropriate order number, and change the “Send Results to your email address?” and “Edit Email Addresses” sections as necessary.  After making your changes be sure to click the “Update Order” button at the bottom of the screen or your changes will not be saved.

Please note that modifications must be made before the sequencing data is sent to be effective.  To be safe, please modify email addresses by 5pm of the day your order is placed to assure that a customer service representative will be available to confirm your modification.  Also, results will not be resent if modifications are made to old orders.  If you would like the data from any of your previous orders resent (or sent to a different email address), please send your request to support@etonbio.com.

Our Second Change is:

The Sample Concentration Column

On our online DNA sequencing order form there is now a separate column (located between the “Sample Concentration” and “Primer Name” columns) dedicated to “Sample Size”.  Now you can easily enter unique sample size information for each reaction on your orders.  If you create orders by copying and pasting from an Excel file, please take account of the extra column to be sure your primer information (i.e. name and concentration) is located in the appropriate columns.

If you have any questions or suggestions about how to improve further feel free to call our support line, or comment below!

etonBlog Uncategorized changes, DNA Sequencing, help, ordering process

Eton Bioscience recently just released a brand new product, BlueFast. Bluefast is an excellent alternative to using coomassie blue for your SDS-Page because you can completely stain your protein in 10 minutes and you can completely remove the destain step. We have loved using it in the lab, mainly because of how much time it cuts down, and that you can start on the next step of your research so much faster.

Our sizes start at 100 ml, which is $30. However, if you would like to try it out, we have a 50ml trial version.
Which you can definitely try out in three different ways:

Join our facebook page and comment on the wall that you want to try BlueFast:

http://facebook.com/etonbio

Twitter about wanting to try bluefast with @etonbio in the tweet.

Post about it on your blog and link below in the comments.

Feel free to contact support@etonbio.com or marketing@etonbio.com with any questions.

etonBlog Uncategorized Bluefast, Coomassie Blue, facebook, SDS-Page, Twitter

We have two new jobs showing up.

One is in North Carolina for a Part-time intro to Biotech Sales position.
Job is to learn all aspects of Biotech Sales, directly sell DNA Sequencing, Peptide
Synthesis, and new products to customers in the North Carolina region. Also aid
with market research, flyer design, customer support, etc. if you are interested please
email Richard@etonbio.com with your resume.

The other is at the Houston Branch and is a part-time lab technician position in the late afternoon.
Incudes PCR, PCR Purification, set-up, clean-up and plate purification at night. If you are interested
please email Holly@etonbio.com with your resume.

Both Positions may turn into full time positions depending on your schedule and how well you fit the team.

etonBlog Uncategorized biotech, DNA Sequencing, Houston, job opporunities., jobs, marketing, North Carolina, PCR purification, sales

Pick up times for your DNA Sequencing samples will remain the same. We have our days off listed below, but we should be working the week before and after Christmas to ensure your research keeps on track.

etonBlog Uncategorized DNA Sequencing, Holiday schedule, Pick-up times

We attended the UNC Postdoc Research Symposium done by Microbiology and Immunology this week. It lasted all day and featured a lot of wonderful speakers. David, our lab manager at the Triangle site, went there to deliver the $100 amazon giftcard for the best presentation.

This is Qian Xu of the Cotter lab

A total of sixteen presentations were broken up into three sessions by lunch and an afternoon coffee and cookie break, both provided by Fisher Scientific. The topics discussed came from all four areas of research in the Department of Microbiology and Immunolgy: immunology, microbial pathogenesis, virology, and molecular/structural/computational biology. Event MC Joshua Hall gave an unofficial award for best title of a presentation to Eton customer Dilan Weerakoon (of the Braunstein Lab) for his “Identification of in vivo exported proteins of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.”

This is Dilan from the Braunstein lab.

At the end of the event a panel of judges picked the two best presentations, with no distinction given for first or second place. VWR sponsored an iPod Nano given as a prize to Jainab Khatun of the Giddings Lab for her “Identifying Protein-Coding DNA Sequences of Human Genome by Proteo-Genomic Mapping”. Eton’s own prize of a $100 Amazon gift certificate went to Chelsea Lane of the Miller Lab for her “Contribution of the YapG Autotransporter to Plague Pathogenesis”.

We would like to thank Eric Weening of the organizing committee for contacting us with the opportunity to help out with this event. It was a pleasure to see some of the end results of our DNA sequencing and we hope to be of more help to the Microbiology and Immunology Postdoc Association in the future.

etonBlog Uncategorized DNA Sequencing, Fischer Scientific, Microbiology, Postdoc Research Symposium, Sponsor, UNC, VWR

If you work at Burnham, we sure hope you are attending the BSN poster symposium. There is a fantastic line up of events:
9-10AM Speaker breakfast for 20-30 postdocs/grad students
10-11AM Keynote lecture: Dr. Ronald Evans (Salk Institute)
11-12:30PM Short talks (10 min each + 2 min questions)
12:45-2PM Lunch at Catamaran and poster setup
2-5PM Poster symposium/vendor show
5-7PM Happy hour!

We will be there to catch up with you and you have the opportunity to say your goodbyes to Rhonda, as she will be going to medical school this spring semester.
Plus that we will be there from 2-5 supporting Burnham and attending the happy hour! We really hope to see you there.

etonBlog Uncategorized

We actually have a few employees on twitter and wanted to give a them a special shout out and give you the opportunity to follow them and see what they are up to.

@rhondaemily has been part of our daily activities since 2007 and works at the San Diego branch. She has done sample pick-up, lab work, and been a DNA Service specialist. She went to UCSD and is about to leave us soon for Medical School at the University of Miami. We will certainly miss her, but we are glad we can still keep up with her online.

@etonbiosynergy is written by Richard Tsai, who works at the North Carolina branch. He graduated from UC Irvine. He does business development and was instrumental at creating the peptide synthesis service for Eton. Richard plays a lot of sports in his spare time, specifically basketball. He also has a huge amount of passion for Biofuels, and you can often see him tweeting about it.

@tingbb Tina was born in Taipei, Taiwan. She moved to Houston at age two. She attended the University of Texas at Austin, graduating with a degree in Biology. Since graduation, she has been a lab tech in the biotech field assisting in plasmid cloning and DNA hybridization. Tina loves any activity that involves water, whether it be swimming, snorkeling, or visiting the aquarium! She recently became a part of the Eton Bioscience team and is working at the new Houston branch as a bioservice specialist.

@hollybarnes works on business development and is also a bioservice specialist. She loves working in Biotech and has a passion for anything that deals with DNA and web 2.0. In her spare time she loves cooking, home decor, and shopping. She graduated from UCSD and really enjoys working on all three branches and looks forward to Eton expanding.

etonBlog Uncategorized DNA Service, Houston, North Carolina, RTP, San Diego, Twitter

Beginning on Thursday, Nov. 19, next week, our Houston Beta goes live. Our Beta is an interactive testing period for the first month and a half of us being set up in the Houston area. We would love anyone and everyone to get involved and help us develop the bio-service branch that best serves the Houston community. All feedback: the good, the bad, and the ugly, is encouraged and even rewarded. After all the more feedback we get, the more we can tailor to the needs of the Texas community.

The Beta service is on a first come first serve basis. Once you sign up, we will send you an email regarding whether you qualify for our services. If you are not eligible, we will notify you when we will be able to start processing for you.

Our services yield the quickest results with a turnaround time of less than 24 hours, as well as Saturday morning results. We also offer excellent quality with results of up to 1000bp. Conveniently located in the Houston Medical Center, we have free pick-up of samples at 3pm daily and personal customer service. On top of this service during the beta you get the added benefit of

50% off our DNA Sequencing services
10% off our Peptide Synthesis Service

Feedback is given in different ways: through our DNA Facebook Page, Twitter, YouTube, or just by emailing support@etonbio.com.

Also, as a thank you, we will be giving away free Eton cups to the first ten people who review us on facebook and twitter (with the term @etonbio). We will also be holding a random drawing at the end of Beta to give away a $25 Starbucks gift card to the first 25 people chosen who reviewed us on each site. And one lucky winner will win a huge piece of DNA art created by MyGeneImage.

We hope you get involved and join the Beta and if you have any suggestions, feel free to comment here too.

etonBlog Uncategorized Beta Test, DNA Art, DNA Sequencing Services, facebook, feedback, Houston Branch, peptide synthesis services, Twitter, youtube