P212121 » Sean

Labguru – Scientific Project Management

Sean — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:41:42 +0000

Recently, Labguru launched as a better way to organize your laboratory projects.

Labguru enables you to create research projects, milestones, protocols and experiments, as well as manage your tasks and events in an integrated calendar. It reminds me a bit of 37signals, tweaked toward science, which is certainly a compliment.

A nice feature is the ability to give protocols, papers, etc.. tags. This way documentation can be linked together allowing for finding instead of searching as they nicely put.

Login View:

Video Overview:

I’ve been visiting their site since launch which was about a month ago and already noticed a number of improvements. I passed on the suggestion of offering a yearly fee instead of monthly in order to reduce paperwork.

Love to hear what you think and/or if you are using any digital tools in your lab. Do you think science is headed in this direction?

ChemSource

Sean — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:28:20 +0000

Ever wanted a chemical concierge service in your pocket?

We’re going after those random sales reps that swing by your office every 3 months and ask you if you need anything.

Interested? Sign up for our newsletter for the release.

Cyber Monday Sale

Sean — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 03:08:44 +0000

Buying research chemicals and supplies should not be boring.

We’re all about having consistently low prices. However, we’ve just been approached by a couple of our suppliers that really want a Cyber Monday Sale!

Sign up for our newsletter for a complete list of the sale items.

Have an item that you would love to see on sale? Feel free to leave it in the comments!

Longest Crystallography Conference Name Ever

Sean — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:57:26 +0000

69th Annual Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference /
5th Annual Ohio Valley Crystallography Symposium

November 2-4, 2011

Cleveland, Ohio

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Program topics include both macromolecular and small molecule X-ray diffraction studies, neutron diffraction, and new developments in hardware.

Keynote speaker: Janet Smith from the University of Michigan

ANY CHARACTER HERE

A lot of other great speakers are lined up including: Barnali Chaudhuri, Leighton Coates, Tom Thompson, Andrew VanDemark and more!

Oral and poster abstracts on diverse diffraction studies will included from both established and junior investigators, with several sessions reserved for student/postdoc talks.

Abstract deadline: ~~September 30, 2011 (TODAY)~~ Check it out!

Housing deadline: October 1, 2011 so you can put this off til Saturday!

***Deadlines have been extented til October 14th!***

Help me, Help you

Sean — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:58:19 +0000

We’ve been hard at work on various aspects of P212121 one of which is adding products. It isn’t that exciting until you find the product you want at a great price.

We realize that most companies have their listings and put out a flyer or newsletter, which can be handy. However, what has worked a lot better for us is asking labs what they use then finding deals for them.

We record their purchase orders from the last year and follow up email in about a week (here’s a recent example).

The end result is that you get information that helps your lab. It also helps guide us in deciding, which items to add.

A drawback is that we may not be able to visit your lab in the near future. So if you would like us to track down the best deals on your chemicals and supplies, feel free to send us an email: purchasing at p212121.com . We haven’t come across a lab yet that we can’t save money not to mention tons of time.

A quick way to record your purchase orders if they aren’t written up is to snap pictures with your phone and send them along.

Also would you be interested in hearing more about behind the scenes stuff such as design, pricing and running a small business in general or stick to crystallographic topics?

First Crystal Structure of a GPCR Complex

Sean — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 20:17:07 +0000

Søren and colleagues just published their findings in Nature of the first high resolution crystal structure of β2 adrenergic receptor–Gs protein complex (PDB: 3SN6). This is the first published structure of a GCPR/G protein complex. G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) are a type of transmembrane proteins, which are involved in cellular transport. The roll and hence the importance of GPCRs is vast since they are involved in hormone regulation, sight, smell and immunity.

The section on crystallization was greatly appreciated since they discussed their approach and techniques and not just simply report the final condition. The crystallization process was quite involved using single particle electron microscopy, modification to simulate lysozyme and the addition of llama heavy chains.

A congratulations to all those involved in this research, it’s truly impressive.

iMolview by MolSoft

Sean — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:54:02 +0000

Crystallography on the go! Mobile is where the future is at and Molsoft is helping push it along. Molsoft recently released iMolview for the iPhone – now we have discussed mobile crystallography applications on your phone before, however this program has also been designed for the iPad. All this technology for only 99 cents – can’t wait to see what they come up with next!

Here are some amazing screen shots:

Neat video (no sound) of iMolview in action on the iPad:

Feel free to leave your thoughts on how you like the application in the comments.

Phenix Newsletter

Sean — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 01:04:22 +0000

The Phenix team has been working on producing a great newsletter. The article quality is impressive and makes me again wonder about the long term future of journals.

The latest issue (pdf) contains articles on:

Fuzzy space group symbols: H3 and H32
Visualizing the raw diffraction pattern with LABELIT
Electron density illustrations
Maximum likelihood refinement for twinned structures
TLS for dummies

Shout out to all those at the American Crystallography Association meeting this week!

sc-PDB Database For Comparing Binding Sites

Sean — Mon, 16 May 2011 04:13:47 +0000

sc-PDB database annotates more than 8500 binding sites extracted from the PBD. The database would be useful for comparing and predicting how ligands are bound to a particular protein.

Initially, the database uses basic biological Information such as the Uniprot code or protein name. This is then followed up by examining the size, shape or location of the binding site within the protein. Homologous binding sites are then combined and reported.

A recent paper has been published on the database and they have put together a nice how to guide for getting started.

Watch Naturally Obsessed Online

Sean — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 22:26:19 +0000

We were able to attain an early copy of the movie Naturally Obsessed and spread the word. For those that haven’t had the chance to watch this great documentary, you’re in for a treat. In my experience, sharing this documentary with friends and family has give them a glimpse and appreciation into what we are doing.

Enjoy the Show