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Next Generation Sequencing 101 – Part 2
Welcome back to our next generation sequencing (NGS) 101 mini-series! In Part 1, we introduced the basics of NGS and provided an overview of some of its major applications. In this follow-up, we take a look at the typical NGS workflow including tips for good sample collection and NGS library preparation.

Next Generation Sequencing 101
Next generation sequencing, or simply NGS, has completely changed the way we do biological research. Also referred to as massively parallel sequencing, NGS offers high-throughput and high-resolution methods to decipher nucleic acid sequences, which provides important clues about protein function, regulatory and signalling pathways, mechanisms of human, plant and animal disease, diagnostics, and much more.
This blog post will introduce you to the basics of NGS and provide an overview of some of its major applications.

The Typical RNAi Workflow in 5 Steps
Andrew Fire and Craig Mello won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006, just 8 years after their breakthrough discovery of RNA interference (RNAi) as a mechanism that can degrade mRNA in a sequence-specific manner (1).

Click Chemistry for Biologists!
The term “click chemistry” was coined in 1999 at the 217th American Chemical Society annual meeting by Karl Barry Sharpless, a renowned chemist and professor in the Department of Chemistry at Scripps Research Institute’s California Campus.
In a key review in 2001, Sharpless used the phrase again to describe chemical reactions that are simple and high yielding, wide in scope, create only by-products that can be removed without chromatography, are stereospecific, and can be conducted in easily removable or benign solvents (1).

Exosomes – Because Good Things Come in Small Packages
Exosomes constitute a subtype of extracellular vesicles (EVs) that are released from the cytoplasm of most mammalian cell types. Structurally, they exist as enclosed particles surrounded by a lipid bilayer and appear as round bubbles when viewed under an electron microscope.
First discovered in 1983 by researchers studying transferrin receptors, exosomes are now increasingly recognised as key players in intercellular signalling and are demonstrated to play crucial roles in regulating tumour growth, metastasis, and angiogenesis during cancer development (1, 2).

Modulate Gene Expression With CRISPRa And CRISPRi
If you’re new to CRISPR, then you might think of it as a tool to disrupt (knock out) or add (knock-in) sequences or genes of interest to the genome, but in this post, we will introduce you to two newer CRISPR applications that do something rather different.