I just finished reading a most interesting C&EN (Chemical and Engineering News) report about antibacterial resistance. As somebody that has worked in the field and that has a personal interest…
Zika Virus Might Target Development in Neural Stem Cells
The Zika virus, first isolated about ten years ago in Uganda, is transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, which are the same responsible for spreading chikungunya and dengue viruses. The virus can…
Journal clubs: an interesting tradition
Depending on your boss, in the laboratory in which you work there might be a tradition of dedicating some of the lab meetings to holding journal club sessions. In journal…
What does it take to be a bio-scientist? A personal opinion.
Here we are in the first week of 2016 (Happy New Year, by the way!), and I have just finished writing a report on our recent outreach activity at Universitè…
Scientific Outreach: So Many Reasons to Bother
How many times I have found myself at a party with friends being asked “so, what is it exactly that you do?”. As scientists, we are generally both excited, and…
Data-publishing for Better Science
As a winner of the Publishing better science through better data Naturejobs competition (you can find my winning entry here), I had the honour to participate to the Scientific Data conference…
Biocatalysis: Harnessing the Power of the Enzymes
“Enzymes are in many ways the most powerful of the catalysts. Life on this planet is possible thanks to the presence of a multitude of enzymes evolved by nature to…
Interview With The Fruit Fly Expert
I never worked with (or thought a lot about) fruit flies. At least until I moved to Montreal and I met Dr. Chiara Gamberi. Chiara and I work in the…
Ribo-T: the protein factory of the future
Synthetic biology practitioners look at biological life as engineers would look at an ensemble of complex microscopic machines made of biological parts and engines. I recently published a blog post…
The negative impact of not teaching about “impact”
While studying at the University of Florence in my undergrad times I had the honour of being mentored by the late Prof. Ivano Bertini. Prof. Bertini was “unusual”: energetic, funny,…