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Science with Seraya PhD Student at Princeton |🧑🏾‍🔬Biochemistry 🧬Molecular Biology |🔬Structural Biology | CryoEM |

📩[email protected]

27/08/2026

Thanks for sending over this really fun merch MedChemExpress.

26/08/2026

Once the concentrator is prepared, the protein is added and centrifuged.

The membrane allows smaller molecules and excess buffer to pass through while retaining the protein, reducing the volume and increasing the protein concentration.

For this purification, I started with 30 mL of protein distributed across three concentrators and concentrated it down to approximately 500 µL, giving a final protein concentration of 30 mg/mL.

Next up is size exclusion chromatography, where I’ll inject the concentrated protein onto the ÄKTA system and separate the proteins based on size.

25/08/2026

After nickel purification, I use Amicon® Ultra centrifugal filters for this step. Since I’m working with a relatively large volume of protein, these concentrators work well because each unit can hold up to 15 mL at a time.

Before adding my protein, I first wash the concentrator with water and give it a quick spin. I then equilibrate the membrane using the same buffer that my protein was eluted in and centrifuge again.

This equilibration step is important because it ensures the protein stays in the same buffer conditions throughout the process. The last thing I want is to introduce an unnecessary buffer change right before concentrating the sample.

24/08/2026

The laser phase plate might be one of the most exciting advances in cryo-EM I’ve seen in a long time.

Developed by researchers at UC Berkeley and Biohub, the laser phase plate dramatically improves image contrast in cryo-EM, making it possible to visualize proteins that were previously too small or too difficult to see clearly.

By introducing phase contrast into cryo-EM, researchers can extract more information from the electron signal and potentially image a much larger portion of the proteome. 12
One of the biggest limitations in cryo-EM has been contrast. Many proteins are simply too small to generate enough signal for high-quality imaging. The laser phase plate helps overcome that challenge and could open the door to studying proteins in their native cellular environment with much greater detail.

As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about protein structure and function, it’s exciting to watch advances like this push the field forward.

Visual credits:
Cryo-EM workflow figure adapted from Lam et al. (2022).

Laser phase plate visuals courtesy of Biohub’s Making the Invisible Visible article.

24/08/2026

The laser phase plate might be one of the most exciting advances in cryo-EM I’ve seen in a long time.

Developed by researchers at UC Berkeley and Biohub, the laser phase plate dramatically improves image contrast in cryo-EM, making it possible to visualize proteins that were previously too small or too difficult to see clearly.

By introducing phase contrast into cryo-EM, researchers can extract more information from the electron signal and potentially image a much larger portion of the proteome.

One of the biggest limitations in cryo-EM has been contrast. Many proteins are simply too small to generate enough signal for high-quality imaging. The laser phase plate helps overcome that challenge and could open the door to studying proteins in their native cellular environment with much greater detail.

As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about protein structure and function, it’s exciting to watch advances like this push the field forward.

My week was filled with billions of cells and too many hours in the tissue culture room.
23/08/2026

My week was filled with billions of cells and too many hours in the tissue culture room.

23/08/2026

So many cells yet so little protein.

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