It’s not every day that you discover a new podcast series you like, and it’s not every day that you start hosting a podcast series either!  To bookend this inaugural season of Absolute Gene-ius, Jordan and Cassie interview each other to provide a retrospective look at the season and to learn more about each other and their respective career paths.

In their recap of the season, we revisit the diversity of applications that guests used digital PCR to progress, from monitoring wastewater for infectious diseases like SARS-CoV-2, to monitoring zebrafish populations to ensure research organizations around the world have reliable model organisms, to looking characterizing microbial diversity in some of the Earth’s most extreme environments.  We also get to hear about each hosts’ favorite moments, biggest surprise, what they’re proud of, and what they love most about the series they’re helping build.

Jordan and Cassie also share a bit more about their individual career paths and journey within science. We learn how Jordan parlayed a childhood connection to a Claymation elf dentist into being a published author his career in marketing life science products. We learn how Cassie’s had several jobs that led to eye-opening experiences that eventually led to her finding a home in technical marketing and communication. Don’t miss this season 1 recap to get to know your hosts a bit better and to hear about what’s coming soon!

Visit the Absolute Gene-ius page to learn more about the guest, the hosts, and the Applied Biosystems QuantStudio Absolute Q Digital PCR System.

This episode includes the following sound effects from freesound.org, licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0:

• “Sax Jazz” by alonart
• “Crowd Cheering” by SoundsExciting
• “Drum Roll, Please!” by HoBoTrails

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was discovered in 1983 by Kary Mullis and Michael Smith, who were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993. Since then, PCR has been a cornerstone method that has been a pillar of discovery and applied science. The various types of PCR are sometimes confusing, and the relative pros and cons of each method are not always clear, which is why it’s so great to have this episode's guest explain them all in a simple and clear-cut way. 

Dave Bauer, PhD, is an Application Scientist at Thermo Fisher Scientific that specializes in real time PCR (qPCR) and digital PCR (dPCR).  He has an educational background in physics, mathematics, and biology, but what’s more important is that Dave loves to help others learn and to break down a topic’s complexities to make it more understandable and approachable.  In this episode we hear Dave explain the difference between qPCR and dPCR, the importance of Poisson statistics to dPCR, dead volume, reaction chamber volume consistency, and more.  We learn how qPCR and dPCR complement each other and how they relate to sequencing methods for applications like single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) detection.  

As you’ve come to expect from Absolute Gene-ius, you also get a good sense of who Dave is and how he got to his current role. We learn about how he knew right away that academia wasn’t for him, how he ended up unexpectedly working in forensics after his PhD, and how he eventually landed in his current Application Scientist role. Dave shares some great insights and advice, including how students should care less about their degree’s name and more about what techniques they’re learning and using in their studies. 

Visit the Absolute Gene-ius page to learn more about the guest, the hosts, and the Applied Biosystems QuantStudio Absolute Q Digital PCR System.

This episode includes the following sound effects from freesound.org, licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0:

• “Sax Jazz,” by alonart
• “Balloon Pop / Christmas cracker / Confetti Cannon,” by Breviceps
• “Crowd Cheering,” by SoundsExciting

Bioinformatics is a relatively new field of science that is very interdisciplinary in nature. Its practitioners use a mixture of biology, chemistry, physics, statistics, and computer science to develop methods and software aimed at helping integrate and understand biological and other data.  

Our guest for this episode is Nikhil Ram Mohan, Staff Scientist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He describes bioinformatics as the bridge to understanding biology. We learn about his international studies and path that brought him to this current role and field of study, and then dive into some of his recent work. Here he and his team analyze biobank samples using digital PCR (dPCR) and quantitative PCR (qPCR) and compare results from the two while correlating results with additional data available for each sample to determine if SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection and quantification in blood can serve to help predict potential for patient coinfection. Their work found that dPCR was able to detect SARS-CoV-2 in samples that were negative when evaluated by qPCR and that a series of biomarkers can help predict coinfection.   

We also get to hear a bit of Nikhil’s interesting personal story, which includes his undergraduate engineering studies in India and leaving his native country for the first time when he moved to the U.S. for graduate school.  We learn how he managed changes in culture, what he loves about teaching, and about him being a new father.  

Visit the Absolute Gene-ius page to learn more about the guest, the hosts, and the Applied Biosystems QuantStudio Absolute Q Digital PCR System. 

There are very few remaining locations on Earth that are untouched by humans, and those that do remain are in very extreme environments that are difficult to access.  However, accessing and studying life in these extreme environments can provide unique insights to the biology of life. Understanding how simple organisms adapt and survive in seemingly unlivable conditions is a unique field of study with the potential to inform and affect the human condition.  

We’re joined in this episode by Dr. Brandi Kiel Reese and Lydia Hayes-Guastella from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab at the University of South Alabama. They are both geomicrobiologists that study microbial life in extreme environments like the Mariana Trench and Antarctica.  They do an excellent job of painting a picture of how extreme conditions are in these environments and how they manage to collect and preserve samples from such harsh conditions. We learn about the various methods they use to analyze the microbial samples they collect, including the use of digital PCR (dPCR) to detect and quantify transcripts that would otherwise not be detectable given how few cells they’re able to collect.   

Brandi and Lydia also share their unpredictable career path journeys, while sharing some insights and learnings from their respective experiences. We learn what they each love about their work and what qualities is takes to be successful at what they do. Once again, we’re reminded of what a small world it is, especially when you’re in a specialty field such as geomicrobiology of extreme environments.   

Visit the Absolute Gene-ius page to learn more about the guest, the hosts, and the Applied Biosystems QuantStudio Absolute Q Digital PCR System. 

This mid-season message from Cassie includes the announcement of the arrival of Jordan’s first baby, which will mean a short delay in production of the second half of the season.  We will be back soon though with more great conversations with the Gene-iuses using dPCR to progress their science.  In the meantime, we hope you’ll constructive feedback via [email protected] or in a review on whatever service you stream us through.  We also hope you’re tell a friend about us so that they can catch up on back episodes during the break. Stay curious!

Microbial consortia are groups of diverse microorganisms that have the ability to act together in a community. Such consortia are common in nature and are known to play important roles in many ecosystems but are not always well understood. Soil management and nutrient mobilization are one area where complex communities of microbes are known to be important, whether it be a naturally occurring consortium, or a man-made consortium.  

In this episode of Absolute Gene-ius Jordan and Cassie talk with Dr. Ray Ketchum form Agrinos about the microbial consortia he and his team cultivate and produce to improve plan health and increase crop yields. We learn about the challenges of fermenting mixtures of more than 20 diverse microorganisms to reproducibly make products that improve plant health and mobilize nutrients in a completely organic way. As you might expect, digital PCR plays in important role in Ray’s R&D and quality control process.  Here, they use dPCR to titer each of the species within their consortia for quality and regulatory purposes, a task that cannot be done by cell culture methods given the range of bacteria involved. 

Cassie’s career corner gets Ray sharing his full career development story from undergraduate, through grad school and postdoc positions, and into his professional career. Ray is generous in sharing his early misconceptions about miscalculations while providing advice to help other avoid similar missteps.  

Visit the Absolute Gene-ius page to learn more about the guest, the hosts, and the Applied Biosystems QuantStudio Absolute Q Digital PCR System.

The use of model organisms in science dates to ancient Greece and represents an important way humans have progressed our collective understanding of biology and disease. We’ve probably all heard of using mice, rats, or even Drosophila melanogaster (i.e., fruit flies) in the lab, but zebrafish have surged in their use as a model organism. Zebrafish are small, more cost effective to maintain, have a fast generational lifecycle, and have clear embryos that enable direct observation of their development. As is the case with any model system used across the globe, standards matter and help make results transferrable to other studies.  This is where our guests come into the picture.  

For this unique episode we’re joined by both Corbin Schuster and Zoltan Varga of Zebrafish International Resource Center (ZIRC) at the University of Oregon. In their roles, they help raise and maintain over 12,000 genetically unique zebrafish lines for use in studies across the globe.  We learn about the health monitoring they conduct on a regular basis to maintain their colony and support their own and partner studies using their zebrafish.  The conversation touches on: 

• Environmental DNA (eDNA) methods they employ 
• Assay development and method selection based on their need for sensitivity and specificity 
• The use of qPCR and dPCR in their work 
• Studies and monitoring of parasites and pathogens that affect their colony 
• How zebrafish have helped shift research from forward genetic studies to reverse genetic studies 

As always, you’ll also get to know our guests on a more personal level. We learn about how they each got into this line of work, what they love about it, and how they both value human relationships and helping their communities. Through the audio alone you’ll get a sense of the positive, kind, and collaborative attitudes that have helped them both be successful in their careers.  

Visit the Absolute Gene-ius page to learn more about the guests, the hosts, and the Applied Biosystems QuantStudio Absolute Q Digital PCR System.

Parasites may bet a bad rap overall, but they play a vital role in healthy ecosystems. In this episode, we focus on the role parasites play in freshwater ecosystems. Specifically, we’re talking about the role of avian schistosomes, a very interesting parasite that infects waterfowl, but that also uses snails as a host in its larval stage. Larvae also infect humans to cause what’s know as swimmer’s itch.

To guide this conversation we have Dr. Patrick Hanington, associate professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. As a self-described parasitologist and immunologist he and his team focus on developing multiplexed PCR-based tests to detect freshwater parasites, including avian schistosomes. Their work benefits locals in his area by monitoring pubic and recreational waters for swimmer’s itch outbreaks, but their work also serves as a model for informing human schistosome research, where Schistosomiasis is the second most prevalent disease worldwide, behind malaria. 

In our conversation with Patrick we learn about how they design their assays, why they’re increasingly using dPCR instead of qPCR. Beyond the technical work, we get into how Patrick’s career path developed, how what he loves most about his job has changed and evolved over time, his lessons learned in the lab, and how his research and hobbies have blended over time. And because it’s Absolute Gene-ius, you know we keep it fun with some unexpected movie references and a bit of discussion about how science is represented in television and film. 

Visit the Absolute Gene-ius page to learn more about the guest, the hosts, and the Applied Biosystems QuantStudio Absolute Q Digital PCR System.

Visit the Absolute Gene-ius page to learn more about the guest, the hosts, and the Applied Biosystems QuantStudio Absolute Q Digital PCR System.

The details of what make digital PCR (dPCR) different from real-time, or quantitative PCR (qPCR) are relatively simple but not always explained very well. Likewise, it’s not always clear which use cases are a good fit for dPCR, and which others simply don’t require the power of dPCR. The power of digital PCR is real, if you understand it.

In this episode we enlist Marcia Slater, a self-described “PCR guru” to explain digital PCR and its power. She covers the basic differences between dPCR and qPCR and then delves into the details of where dPCR derives its power and where it shines. With over 20 years’ experience in helping customers troubleshoot PCR, Marcia makes is easy to understand key terms and concepts related to dPCR, including:

• Sub-reactions
• Poisson statistics
• Statistical power and confidence intervals
• Controls and false negatives vs. true negatives
• Dead volume
• Dynamic range
• Multiplexing

Marcia also covers some great examples of where the absolute quantification of dPCR is a great fit and how it’s even used to qualify and quantify standards for qPCR. Multiplexing and how its used to do molecular integrity evaluations for gene therapy applications is also discussed.

As always with the Gene-ius series, you’ll also get to learn about more than Marcia’s science chops. We learn about her unlikely career path from growing up on a livestock farm to her storied role in helping produce “data so beautiful it should be framed.” We even get into her rediscovered love of raising animals, including her beloved panda alpaca with a name you cannot forget!

Visit the Absolute Gene-ius page to learn more about the guest, the hosts, and the Applied Biosystems QuantStudio Absolute Q Digital PCR System.

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been around for a while and has been used to track drugs of abuse, chemical waste, and pathogens alike. It may not be the most glorious of samples to work with, but wastewater has proven to be a valuable way to do community-wide monitoring. The COVID pandemic brought new attention and focus to WBE once it was shown it could be used to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus to alert public health officials to outbreaks, often before clinical symptoms presented. 

Our Gene-ius guest for this inaugural episode is Dr. Sarah Philo, a postdoctoral research associate with the Wastewater Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 and Emerging Public Health Threats Research Coordination Network at the University of Notre Dame. In her conversation with Jordan and Cassie, Sarah talks about how she found this area of research and the “joys” of working with wastewater samples. We learn about how she and her team have used both qPCR and dPCR to detect and quantify SARS-CoV-2 and antimicrobial resistance genes in wastewater.

The conversation also touches on several other interesting and informative topics that include a ‘one health’ approach to public health, the importance of team and teamwork in academics, considerations when selecting a graduate research program, the importance of passion in science, and how science is the ‘punk rock’ discipline within academia.  Join us for this fun start of the series and this first season!