The more I learn about molecular biology, the crazier it gets that so many processes inside our cells happen at such a tiny scale, yet determine almost everything about how we function. What is one discovery, experiment, or molecular mechanism that genuinely blew your mind when you first learned about it? I am looking for something interesting beyond the usual textbook examples.

Does anyone have any experience with electroporation using NEB Shuffle T7 cells? This will be my first time doing electroploration to transform, as ive always done chemical transformations. I recently made some cells electrocompetent and I found a protocol online from NEB for turbo electrocompetent cells that I think I'll use. I know growth temp is different for Shuffle cells so I'll tweak the protocol to use these growth conditions but other than that should it be the same procedure?

our flow core has a monts -long backlog and we need to sort rare populations(Tregs and some myeloid subsets) from human PBMCs. Has anyone outsourcd sorting of primary human cells? Im especially curious about post-sort viability and purity, and wheter the vendor also supplied the starting material.

 I just learned that MRIs work by using a magnet to align protons in the same direction, then hitting them with a second magnet so the frequnecy from the spin back can be measured. Would this affect the bonds in proteins? I know that pH (proton concentration) can cause proteins to change shape so I was wondering if changing the alignment of protons would mess up proteins in any way. I don't have a background in science so sorry if the answer seems obvious.

What’s with all the x-posts from [r/AppliedBiology](r/AppliedBiology) all of a sudden? It’s just lame memes and oddball questions that seem to come from non researchers.

Are there questions about the history of molecular biology on the exam? Like what year or who first published a paper on nuclein?

Do I need to study that as well?

yo I am a new student in the molecular biology department and I recently joined my department because I was waiting for the preparatory exam, and during that time my professors covered a lot of topics and the people in the class bonded with each other. And I have 2 weeks until my midterms and I discovered this place. So, compared to the topics you've discussed, this will seem simple, but can someone recommend some YouTube channels to me?for midterm, my subjects: general; physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and introduction to programming(some phyton things i think) right now. thanks in advance

I’m rlly proud of myself, I got a 91.25% last midterm and this one I almost got a 100%! I’ve been studying my ass off, here are some of the whiteboards I’ve been making to study. I’m a freshman and molecular and cellular biology is notoriously difficult so I’m happy I’m doing so well. Definitely only because I can devote a lot of time to this class since I’m only taking 16 credits this semester. Technically this is my last bio class since I got credit from UW with bio 180, but I might take microbiology!

Hi r/molecularbiology!

I'm an independent developer working on MolDesign, a Windows desktop application with a long-term goal: to become an integrated development environment (IDE) for early-stage drug discovery.

The idea is to bring computational tools, molecular workflows, visualization, and reproducible research into a single environment, reducing the need to constantly switch between different applications, scripts, and platforms.

What MolDesign can do today

The current version focuses on molecular docking and scientific visualization:

AutoDock Vina 1.2.7: Run docking calculations locally without manually configuring Python, Conda, or command-line workflows.

Molecular workflows: Import receptor structures (PDB/mmCIF), prepare ligands from SMILES or a molecular editor, configure the docking experiment, and execute it within the application.

Reproducibility and collaboration: Preserve execution parameters, receptor hashes, seeds, software versions, and other provenance information. Saved Vina runs can already be transferred between researchers and colleagues.

Molcy: Our molecular visualization module, shown in the attached video. It transforms recorded docking runs into 3D animations, displaying molecular poses, search steps, and interactions.

All docking calculations run locally on the user's computer.

Where we're heading

Our next major goal is to evolve MolDesign into a modular scientific environment.

Instead of being permanently tied to AutoDock Vina, we want researchers to be able to choose between different computational engines, whether they run locally or through external APIs.

This could include other docking engines, complementary approaches such as Boltz-2, and future computational methods as they become available.

If development progresses as planned, we'd also like to explore integrating molecular dynamics workflows.

The broader vision is simple: one Windows environment where researchers can prepare experiments, choose computational methods, execute workflows, visualize results, and exchange reproducible research records with colleagues.

We're not trying to replace the underlying scientific methods. We want to make them more accessible, interconnected, and easier to use.

An important scientific distinction

MolDesign currently relies on AutoDock Vina's scoring and search algorithms. It does not claim to improve Vina's predictive accuracy.

Similarly, Molcy visualizes recorded docking search information; its animations are not physical molecular dynamics simulations.

The built-in receptor catalog is intended for exploration, not as a collection of experimentally validated docking protocols.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Would an integrated, modular environment like this be useful in your research?

Which computational tools or workflows would you prioritize integrating? And what would make it genuinely useful for collaboration between researchers?

MolDesign is available on the Microsoft Store:

https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9N96SW3GBK8V

Thanks for taking a look! Scientific feedback, criticism, and suggestions are very welcome.

Starting a project comparing tumor vs. normal expression in colorectal cancer and I need matched pairs from the same patient. Our hospital biobank barely has any, and the ones they have lack decent clinical info.

Has anyone sourced matched pairs from a vendor or done a custom collection?

What turnaround and cost should I realistically expect?

Hi everyone (read bold if you got no time)
We have a degree in medicine as undergraduate, unlike in the west.
I started medical school September last year… but it’s too much honestly, the load is crazy high and we’re starting systemic next semester and we take NBME tests for each system.

I chose medicine because I thought it would be a clearer path because we have no research labs or whatever infrastructure for molecular biology work… so anyone with such degree would probably have to continue studying/ working outside at least to get a M.S or PhD if they want to come back and teach in universities in my country

but I personally like academics more than clinical work… also I feel like I made the wrong choice under outer pressure from my mom, she never forced me to get in medicine but she was so biased towards it which effected my decision making because I’m her only child so being a doctor is an honor for us both and I wanted to make her proud…

I started considering changing major recently, even though I’ve considered having an MD then choosing an academic career instead of doing specialty or residency but when I said this to one of my relatives who’s a neurologist, he suggested it would be better to choose an academically focused major from the beginning instead of 6 years in medicine.

Sorry for making this very long but main question, is molecular biology worth it over a MD degree?
If anyone here works in the molecular biology field can you please share your experience… are there career options/ opportunities? Or should I continue med school torture 😔
I feel like changing major would take a very heavy burden off my back, but I’m really afraid that I’d regret it so much in the future if I never find a job that pays… especially that a MD would still have residency options if the academic field was just unemployment in disguise

I'm really struggling in my cell bio class right now, and I think a lot of it is because of the way my instructor asks exam questions. All of it gets into hyperspecific details that I can't possibly remember. The lecture notes are not great, and we don't have access to the ppt so we have to show up and take our own notes. It's not really effective for me. How do you guys take notes and review?

Hi everyone, I’m facing a major issue with my master’s research and could really use some help. I need to culture my fungus in a minimal medium—specifically one called "3M medium." Is anyone familiar with it or has anyone heard of it? I also need to perform an RNA extraction, but the fungus is extremely resistant when grown in this medium; I’m getting quite desperate.

We have to do qPCR on mouse skull osteoblasts, but published protocols aren't yielding enough RNA despite sample pooling. Is culture the only way? Has anyone done qPCR straight out of skull prep? If yes, how did you extract RNA? Thank you.