We dive into the world of digital PCR and cancer research with Valeria Rangel, a PhD candidate at UC Irvine. Val shares how her lab is using dPCR to uncover genetic and epigenetic factors driving acute lymphoblastic leukemia in Hispanic populations, while also reflecting on her journey into science and the power of perseverance in research.

In this episode of Absolute Gene-ius, Dr. C. Dustin Rubinstein, Director of the Advanced Genome Editing Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, shares how CRISPR and digital PCR are revolutionizing genome editing and disease research. From developing pig models for cancer studies to refining gene-editing confirmation with dPCR, he highlights the power of precise quantification and the collaborative nature of cutting-edge molecular biology.

In this Season 2 recap our hosts revisit some highlights, from using dPCR for low-cost screening in single-cell sequencing to mRNA quantification breakthroughs. They reflect on guest insights, the complementary roles of dPCR and qPCR, and their growing synergy in molecular workflows. Join the team as they celebrate another successful season and add primers for the upcoming Season 3.

We return to the topic of Poisson statistics do delve a bit deeper into how digital PCR handles topics like false positives or ow abundance and rare targets. Dave Bauer is once again our statistics and math guru that brings his easy talking ways along with a depth of experience to give real-world examples that drive the concepts home.

Parker Wilson has taken a sometimes-unpredictable path to obtain his MD and PhD degrees and establish his physician scientist career, but he’s been quick to adopt and apply the molecular genetic pathology tools that are changing his field. Join us to hear about his exciting work where he uses digital PCR and NGS methods to identify and quantify rare mutations associated with kidney disease.

Automation is key to enabling high-throughput analysis for any analytical method, and automation of digital PCR (dPCR) is now a reality. Join us for this conversation with Dr. Clarence Lee, Senior Product Manger, about how Thermo Fisher is delivering the benefits of dPCR, along with high-throughput automation that saves time and enables diverse application areas.

The use of mRNA as a vaccine platform has been mostly derisked and its speed to move from antigen discovery to drug product is impressive. However, high-purity mRNA can still be a challenge to make. Dr. Christian Cobaugh, CEO of Vernal Biosciences, is on a mission to make high-purity mRNA available to more researchers and drug developers to help realize even more potential from mRNA medicines.

We dive deep into gene therapy during this conversation with Dr. Cliff Froelich. He covers what vectors his team works with, what methods and technologies they use to monitor quality and safety, and he reminds us why it all matters. As always, you’ll get a bit of fun too!

Now that we’re 15 episodes deep into this series, and because life is forever changing, we thought we’d take a moment to reflect on where we are, how we got here, and talk about what’s to come. Witness the evolution of the series!

Curious about cell and gene therapy and the viral vectors used in these applications? If so, join us for a conversation with a couple of resident experts that shed light on these topics.

This episode gets personal quickly when our guest talks about how her husband is now benefiting from methods her and her colleagues have developed over her career in developing organ transplantation compatibility assays.

Good things come in little packages, is the theme for this episode. Join us to learn about micro RNA (miRNA) and how digital PCR is being used to understand its role is disease states.

Come get your assay on with us. If you’ve never considered how PCR assays are designed and developed, this episode will help you appreciate the skill and artistry involved.

We cross the pond for this episode, which focuses on CAR-T cell therapy. Join us to meet Raquel Munoz and learn about what she thinks will be the future of cancer research.

We open season two of Absolute Gene-ius with two guests sharing their collaborative work in reproductive biology aimed at understanding the role of RNA degradation in oocytes. They share insights on how oocytes are so unique, why they’re so important, and how better understanding them can provide insights to improve women’s health and lead to potential therapies. Join us to meet this interesting couple and hear how they’ve built a marriage in reproductive science.

Jordan and Cassie are back in the sound lab and teasing us with a glimpse into the second season of Absolute Gene-ius. Get a taste of the great dPCR research topics to come in upcoming episodes, and enjoy the fun energy that’s always baked in. 

We close this season with our hosts sharing a retrospective conversation about the start of the Absolute Gene-ius series, the wonderful guests hosted, favorite moments, and lessons learned. In addition to the season recap, Cassie and Jordan also interview each other to extract some “Cassie’s Career Corner” insights about their respective backgrounds and how they each ended up in their current roles. Join us to get to know your hosts a bit better and to reflect on this amazing inaugural season!

For this episode we host another of Thermo Fisher Scientific’s own. Dave Bauer is a PhD-educated Application Scientist specializing in qPCR and digital PCR. His knack for using analogies to explain difficult concepts helps illuminate the benefits of digital PCR and the statistical aspects of this analytical method. This is a great overview episode that also touches on specific applications such as SNP detection. We also learn about Dave’s career path, hear some valuable advice, and get a sense of how poor our intuitions can be at evaluating probabilities.

This episode features an easygoing bioinformatics expert. Our conversation with Nikhil Ram Mohan, Staff Scientist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, is an easy entry into the dry-lab work of bioinformatics and how this informs and augments wet-lab molecular biology work. He tells us about his use of digital PCR to analyze biobank samples, how his first visit to another country was his move to the U.S. for grad school, about his love of teaching, and about being a new father. Check out this interesting episode, fueled by an interesting guest! 

We once again welcome two guests to this episode where we talk about using digital PCR and other methods to study microbial life and survivability in extreme environments. Dr. Brandi Kiel Reese and Lydia Hayes-Guastella from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab at the University of South Alabama tell us all about their work collecting and analyzing samples from places remote as Antarctica and the Mariana Trench. They share what working in such unique locations is like, how samples are collected and analyzed, and what they hope to glean from such studies. As always, you’ll also get to know a bit more about them and their personal stories too!