Innate immune molecular landscape following controlled human influenza virus infection @cp-cellreports.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-reports... @williamthistle.bsky.social @sindhuvangeti.bsky.social @flatironinstitute.org

For our #flowcytometry peeps, would you like to have a single fix/perm protocol that is optimised for everything? One that preserves fluorophores while allowing simultaneous TF and cytokine staining? How about 100-fold cheaper? You got it: currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

I wonder if this would make sorting pollen for isotopes and dating cheape.

My only regret is that we didn't go with the title "One buffer to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them", although "Squeaky clean staining" was a pretty good options too!

This is great!! Thanks! Those gfp proteins looking good!

My only regret is that we didn't go with the title "One buffer to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them", although "Squeaky clean staining" was a pretty good options too!

I'll guess they'll need to create some type of federal bureaucracy to oversee what States do with education funding to make sure they are using it appropriately. Perhaps we could call it the "Department of Education"?

This looks like an amazing fix and I will definitely try. The overnight transcription factor staining protocol was already a game changer and I recommend it to everyone.

Over the last 8 years, Oliver Burton has tested >1000 different fix/perm combos, and here the final verdict is: "Burton's Best Buffer": 2% formalin, 0.05% Fairy dish soap, 0.5% Tween-20, 0.1% Triton X-100. Yep, replace all of those expensive detergents with @pg.com dishwashing liquid

Interesting

Super cool

#medsky🧪 #Sciencesky #academicsky Basic Protocol: DISH SOAP PROTOCOL This protocol involves the use of a commercial product, Fairy dish soap, to faciliate preservation and permeabilization of cells for intracellular #flowcytometry assays…

This is absolutely brilliant🤩. Finding the right buffer set that you can use across most all #FACS needs… And at a fraction of cost… Love it👇🏻 Kudos to @labliston.bsky.social to dedicate time and effort to this….

I absolutely love this. >10 years ago I did my own home-made too, but didn't try that many factors, and ended up with a 1.5%formalin +0.5%Tween-20. The "magic" aspect is a nice touch 😁. I can see a logo with an Oliver's face schematic with pointy ears.....

We‘ll give it a go 😀

Simply wonderful!

Fantastic thread on budgeting from @labliston.bsky.social . Great advice for new (and not so new!) PIs. I would add awareness of how psychology impacts spending based on moving from low budget to high budget setting and vice versa....

Just take a look. The Foxp3 fix/perm kit is good for TFs, but kills endogenous GFP. The eBio preserves GFP, but is incomplete at allowing TF staining. Burton's Best Buffer is as good as the best under all conditions (except phospho-flow), and preserves dye integrity too. Plus it is dirt cheap. 🎤

I am intrigued, but now need to track down the specific soap 😂

Yes, please! Will be trying this out soon. (Well, someone in the lab will be trying this soon!).

Just added this to my “Got to test this” list!

This is a hack of epic proportions if true, and I am sure it has an equally interesting back story I hope to hear one day

For our #flowcytometry peeps, would you like to have a single fix/perm protocol that is optimised for everything? One that preserves fluorophores while allowing simultaneous TF and cytokine staining? How about 100-fold cheaper? You got it: currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Big experiment tomorrow

Our @britsocimm.bsky.social Cambridge #Immunology meeting is on next week! A great chance to meet top international speakers and home-grown talent, discussing the topic of tissue immunity: www.immunology.org/events/immun... Last chance to sign up!

Our @britsocimm.bsky.social Cambridge #Immunology meeting is on next week! A great chance to meet top international speakers and home-grown talent, discussing the topic of tissue immunity: www.immunology.org/events/immun... Last chance to sign up!

Nice work!

Once again, I am pleading with my students, literally begging them, to use a decent sized font on presentations and figures. Am I really the only one who can't read font size 4 on a figure? Please help, I'm going crazy

👇🌟thread on research budgeting, esp wetlabs. in clinical research: travel expenses + participant payments for staff/patients, adverts, NHS lab charges, maybe NHS RDN costs, blood tubes, research facilities/imaging, data storage, data access, compute, events, staff, research management, admin, SoECAT

You can also save money by cutting-costs and preventing waste. We do a low of flow cytometry, and retitrated antibodies for overnight staining, reducing costs ~100-fold while improving signal-to-noise and reproducibility currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

A lab manager can save their own salary by talking to reps and getting discounts. 30-40% discounts are common if you request quotes rather than use the university ordering system. 50%+ discounts are common for test reagents or new labs, to get you hooked on their product. Bulk buy reagents like FCS.

It is also not rare for expenses from other groups to be put on your budget - if you don't catch them, you pay for them. Also expenses from your group may be misallocated - I just had a nasty surprise of £50K that had been put on someone else's budget by mistake flipping back to me.

On to the management of your grant! You need to keep track of your spending. Remember, you are expected to not just do what you promised, but also do what reviewers want, and create preliminary data for the next grant. This means you need to under-spend on the original deliverables.

First, this means tracking the spend-rate. You may get information from your finance office. Keep in mind that this may be flawed, and even when they make mistakes, you pay for them. In the last three years, on average I've found ~£100K in mistakes per year. Try to catch them!

Great advice!

Remember to include equipment. Equipment owned by others is unreliable, e.g. we just had a centrifuge owned by the department removed from our cell culture facility without notice. Make sure you own what you need for your research (as a plus, this can typically travel with you).

Fantastic resource!

This is an absolutely exceptional thread that anyone starting their own group should read! I’d hazard that the majority of researchrs who are 2-3 grants deep would benefit too ⬇️ Thanks @labliston.bsky.social

Brilliant advice from @labliston.bsky.social on creating/managing research budgets. So helpful and useful, thank you Adrian for sharing. 🫶

For mice, transgenic lines are expensive. You'll need to budget a standing cage number of ~10 cages/strain for the entire duration of the grant. Plus imports, rederivation, genotyping, procedures, etc. This escalates rapidly with just a few strains, so think carefully what you promise.

A critical point for all new PIs - planning ahead is essential!

🧵How to write and manage your first research budgets The point of funding is to convert it into quality research. A well-spent research budget should fund the idea it was raised on, plus revision experiments, plus preliminary data for the next grant. So you need to spend, while avoiding waste.

Making the budget. Science is expensive. I include a baseline of £2000-3000/month/scientist just for plastics, chemicals, minor expenses. Then add on to this major calculated costs: mice, cell culture, core facilities, sequencing, etc.

An ideal burn-rate for your budget is ~90%. Any lower, and you are probably going too slow. At 100%, you are in for nasty surprises (see below), while above 100% is only sustainable if you have ever-escalating grant successes. So how do we create that budget and spend wisely?

What a great thread on budgeting for an academic lab!!

An absolutely golden thread on planning and executing a research budget for anyone new to grant writing, huge thanks for sharing your knowledge @labliston.bsky.social!

Interested in taking action to transform your lab culture? Join us!

🧵How to write and manage your first research budgets The point of funding is to convert it into quality research. A well-spent research budget should fund the idea it was raised on, plus revision experiments, plus preliminary data for the next grant. So you need to spend, while avoiding waste.