Brian Chen Lab - Neural Circuit Formation

Brian Chen Lab: What We DO!

Brian Chen — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 10:14:01 -0500

Here is a clip of me describing some of the work that we do in the lab: Below is a video made by SimpliSci.org describing one of our papers:

Get the most out of your money for your university education (First Published in 2013; Revisited 2022)

Brian Chen — Fri, 25 Nov 2022 10:17:06 -0500

Class lectures. I like giving them, but every year I know students don’t learn the material very well. All professors know this, hundreds of years of history have shown this, and “ [a] huge body of evidence 2 suggests that [other] approaches are much more effective than lecture-and-drill-based techniques” ( Waldrop, 2013, Nature). I do not think I have a monopoly on hidden, specific knowledge that only by going to my class will you be able to learn it. I do not think I am the best lecturer in the world and I absolutely believe there are other people out there that can lecture better than I can

A Proposal for new investigators (First Published in 2010; Revisited 2022)

Brian Chen — Wed, 25 May 2022 10:21:28 -0400

As a new principal investigator (PI) I encourage other new PIs to hire underprivileged youths from high school as lab assistants into their new lab. Typically when you are a new investigator: You are going to spend most of your time opening boxes and setting up and organizing your new lab. You are going to spend every second in the lab, obsessing over your lab. You are young and have fewer personal obligations at this point in your life. You know you’re going to spend a lot of time mentoring your first hire anyways. You do a lot of menial tasks, but you want them done right your way. So, give

Neuronhub Interview : Brian Chen

Brian Chen — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 09:32:06 -0400

Here is an interview I did for neuronhub: https://www.neuronhub.org/From-neural-wiring-to-behavior, que también está disponible en español: https://www.neuronhub.org/Del-cableado-neuronal-al-comportamiento!

Thank you to everyone working on a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine

Brian Chen — Fri, 01 Jan 2021 09:43:53 -0500

Not blind scientism, but you know science is saving the world right now, so maybe some acknowledgment of the magnitude of this feat? How many people can say they are saving billions of lives? Thank you to everyone that is working on a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. The fate of the world is resting in your hands!

GENEDIG VIDEO (Revisited 2018)

Brian Chen — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 10:09:17 -0400

Here's our new GeneDig video, called GeneDig: Democratizing access to genomics from GeneDig.

New Feature on GeneDig: Automated Molecular Biology!

Brian Chen — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 09:54:19 -0400

I am thrilled to announce the launch of a new feature on GeneDig: Automated Molecular Biology! Our algorithm will do all of the thinking for you… In your GeneDig User Account, select any DNA file(s) and click on the Molecular Assembly icon. Then edit the DNA sequence to your desired end product. Our algorithm will display all of the possible experimental protocols that will produce your final product, including which primers and reagents to order. You can sort the protocols based on time, cost, and ease. Then just pick a protocol and follow the instructions. Try it out and let me know what you

Congratulations to my Students!

Brian Chen — Thu, 05 May 2016 09:59:14 -0400

Kudos to my two trainees Chiu-An Lo and Ibrahim Kays, who were awarded a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Brain Star award for 2016! A well-deserved $1500 for them, they worked super hard on this project over the years. Their science game is strong. With Vedrana Cvetkovska winning in 2013, I now have a 100% hit rate for my grad students winning this CIHR award.

THANKS, GENEDIG!

Brian Chen — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 10:20:18 -0400

I was curious about trinucleotide repeat disorders like Huntington’s disease and where the trinucleotide repeats occurred in the Huntingtin RNA, near the beginning, middle, or end of the RNA? I first tried looking up the huntingtin gene ( HTT) in NCBI and then realized this was going to take a while—and wouldn’t be reasonable for the rest of the trinucleotide repeat disorders I was also curious about. Then I realized that even the normal HTT gene should have a few trinucleotide repeats, so I looked up HTT using GeneDig and found the CAGCAGCAG repeats immediately. I then repeated this for the