This post is written by guest blogger, Amy Landreman, PhD, Sr. Product Manager at Promega Corporation.
Oxygen is necessary for animal life. It’s essential for cellular respiration and the production of energy (ATP) we require to survive. Given the need for oxygen, it isn’t surprising that our bodies have evolved ways to sense and adapt to decreased oxygen conditions (hypoxia). We can increase the production of new blood vessels by producing vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) or increase red blood cell (RBC) production by increasing the levels of eythropoietin (EPO), the hormone that plays a key role in the production of RBCs. But how does our body sense low oxygen, increase EPO levels, and kick our RBC production into gear? Nobel laureate Gregg L. Semenza has been honored for his contributions to our understanding of this process, and his research demonstrates the value of reporter genes and bioluminescence for studying gene regulation.
Among the one trillion or so species that share space on our planet, complex relationships have emerged over time. Such relationships, in which two or more species closely interact, are collectively termed symbiosis. Although it’s commonly assumed that symbiotic relationships are mutually beneficial, this example constitutes only one type of symbiosis (known as mutualism). The traditional predator-prey relationship, clearly a one-sided arrangement, is also an example of symbiosis.
The sheer diversity of microbial species has led to the development of many well-characterized relationships with plants and animals. Perhaps the best-known example of mutualism in this context is the process of nitrogen fixation. In this process, various types of bacteria that live in water, soil or root nodules convert atmospheric nitrogen into forms that are readily used by plants. On the other hand, some types of bacteria-plant relationships are parasitic: the bacteria rely on the plant for survival but end up damaging their host. Parasitic relationships can have devastating ecological and economic consequences when they affect food crops.
Here at Promega, we have been helping your experiments “Glo” for 30 years by utilizing the sensitivity and wide dynamic range of bioluminescence detection methods. However, we’ve found that many scientists are still more familiar with older techniques like colorimetric or fluorometric detection than with luminescence. This anniversary year we are taking stock of all the assays and applications made possible with luminescence technologies. Check out our 30 Years and Glo-ing Celebration to learn more about how we’re celebrating luminescent assays and technologies this year.
The past year has been a challenge. Amidst the pandemic, we’re thankful for the tireless work of our dedicated employees. With their support, we have continuously stayed engaged and prepared during all stages of the COVID-19 pandemic so that we can serve our customers at the highest levels.
How We Got Here
The persistent work by our teams has made a great impact on the support we can provide for scientists and our community during the pandemic. From scaling up manufacturing to investing in new automation, every effort has helped.
Promega has a long history of manufacturing reagents, assays, and benchtop instruments for both researching and testing viruses. When the pandemic began in 2020, we responded quickly and efficiently to unprecedented demands. In the past year, we experienced an approximately 10-fold increase in demand for finished catalog and custom products for COVID-19 testing. In response to these demands, we increased production lines. One year ago, we ran one shift five days per week. Currently, we run three shifts seven days per week. This change has allowed 50 different Promega products to support SARS-CoV-2 testing globally in hospitals, clinical diagnostic laboratories, and molecular diagnostic manufacturers. Additionally, our clinical diagnostics materials make up about 2/3 of COVID-19 PCR tests on the global market today. Since January 2020, Promega has supplied enough reagents to enable testing an estimated 700 million samples for SARS-CoV-2 worldwide.
Developments and Advances
Promega products are used in viral and vaccine research. This year, our technologies have been leveraged for virtually every step of pandemic response from understanding SARS-CoV-2 to testing to research studies looking at vaccine response.
Promega product: The Lumit™ Dx SARS-CoV-2 Immunoassay
We are extremely grateful for our employees. In the past year, we hired over 100 people and still have positions open today. While welcoming newcomers, this challenging year also reinforced the importance of our collaborative culture. Relationships at Promega have been built over multiple years. The long history of our teams allows us to stay coordinated while prioritizing product distribution to customers across the globe. It also leads to effective communication with colleagues and vendors. Those leading our manufacturing operations team, for example, have an average tenure of 15 years. Their history in collaborating through challenging situations helps them quickly focus where needed most.
Our 600 on-site employees support product manufacturing, quality, and R&D. They do it all while remaining COVID-conscious by social distancing, wearing masks, working split shifts, and restricting movement between buildings. While we continue to practice physical safety precautions, we also prioritize our employees’ mental health and wellness. Promega provides a variety of wellness resources including phone and video mental health sessions, virtual fitness and nutrition classes, and stress and anxiety tools.
What’s to Come
While we acknowledge that the COVID-19 is not over, we are proud of the support we have been able to provide to customers working both on pandemic research and critical research not related to COVID-19. Our policies of long-term planning and investing in the future has allowed us to respond quickly and creatively and learn from the experience.
Food contamination is a serious global health issue. According to the WHO, an estimated 600 million, almost 1 in 10 people globally, suffer from illness after eating contaminated food—and 420,000 die. Developing new technologies for more effective testing of food contaminants can help reduce that number and improve public health.
A recent application of bioluminescent technology could change the way we test for mycotoxins in the future. Dr. Jae-Hyuk Yu, Professor of Bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his then graduate student, Dr. Tawfiq Alsulami, collaborated with Promega to develop a bioluminescent biosensor that enables simple and rapid detection of mycotoxins in food samples.
What do the workings of red blood cells, ensuring breathable air for astronauts, and scraping soil off NASA’s Viking spacecraft have in common? The sharp thinking of biochemist Emmett Chappelle.
Emmett Chappelle conducting research.
February is Black History Month in the US—a time to reflect on the contributions of African Americans in all fields and celebrate their accomplishments while recognizing the adversity they had to overcome in American society.
2021 also marks 30 years since the first firefly luciferase reporter vectors and detection reagents became available as products. There’s no better person to highlight this month than Emmett Chappelle, whose work with the luciferase reaction is still used for many applications today.
Centrosaurus is a herbivorous Ceratopsian dinosaur that lived in Canada in the Cretaceous Period.
Did dinosaurs get cancer? That isn’t an easy question to answer. Finding and diagnosing cancer in dinosaur fossils has proven difficult. Any soft tissue, the typical location of tumors, has degraded over the millennia. Fossilized bones millions of years old are subject to wear and tear, making it hard to distinguish bone damage from possible pathology. By using the knowledge and expertise gained from diagnosing cancer in humans, a team reported in The Lancet Oncology that they found the first known case of osteosarcoma in a lower leg bone from a horned dinosaur found in southern Alberta, Canada.
This case of bone cancer discovered in a specimen of Centrosaurus apertus found in the Canadian Dinosaur Park Formation was confirmed by examining the bone surface along with radiographic and histological analysis. The 77–75.5-million-year-old case was compared to both a normal C. apertus fibula from the Oldman formation also in southern Alberta, Canada, as well as a human fibula with an osteosarcoma.
A new article in Nature Scientific Reports answers open questions about TOPBP1, a protein involved in repairing DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs). The study used cell-free protein expression and a unique DSB system to identify domains that were important for activation of a protein kinase.
New variants of COVID-19 are causing global concern. Mutations in the viral genome can affect its transmissibility and pathogenicity, and structural changes to the spike protein could reduce the effectiveness of some of the vaccines that are being distributed in several countries. A new preprint available on bioRxiv suggests that the COVID-19 variant B.1.1.7, which was first documented in the United Kingdom, is still susceptible to the neutralizing antibodies produced in response to several vaccines, including the Moderna mRNA-1273 and the Novavax NVX-CoV2373.
When the Spectrum Compact CE System launched in June 2020, all the instrument service engineers that are part of the Promega Global Service & Support (GSS) Team needed to be trained on using and fixing the instrument. This is a challenging endeavor in the best of times, but the COVID-19 pandemic made it even more difficult. Thanks to the work of some dedicated teams and individuals, Promega service engineers around the world were able to receive remote instrument training. But how do you teach someone to repair an instrument when you can’t be in the same room?
