Science Education

Light Has a Favorite Color, But It’s Complicated

Posted on by Elise Johnson

Last spring, my niece and I made a trip to a home improvement store to put together a Mother’s Day planter for my sister. My niece had a clear vision: my sister’s favorite color is blue, so we were going to buy blue flowers. We walked every aisle of the garden center. We checked the annuals, the perennials, and the hanging baskets then left with purple, red, and a grumpy 7-year-old.

It turns out we were not up against a bad selection. We were up against biology.

The Problem with Blue

Blue is one of the rarest colors in the natural world. The food industry is currently finding that out the hard way. There is a good chance you have eaten something blue today. Maybe it was the frosting on a birthday cake, the coating on some M&M’s® candies, or the sports drink in your refrigerator. That blue almost certainly came from a petroleum-based synthetic dye, and for the first time in decades, the food industry is being asked to find something better.

The FDA banned Red Dye No. 3 in January 2025, and pressure has been building around the remaining synthetic dyes ever since, including Blue No. 1 and Blue No. 2. Major food brands have begun announcing plans to reformulate.

There is just one problem. Blue is genuinely, stubbornly hard to make in nature. It turns out that blue has almost nothing to do with color, and almost everything to do with light.

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Trends and Tools Transforming Drug Discovery: Five Takeaways from Discover Glo 2025

Posted on by Meghan Rollins

In biologics, cell therapy, and targeted protein degradation, the science is moving fast—and so are the tools. From GPCR-targeted therapies to real-time CAR-T manufacturing tools, new techniques are reshaping how scientists approach drug development, live-cell imaging, and protein degradation.

The “Bringing Light to Science” Discover Glo 2025 speaker series brought together researchers from across academia and industry to share real-world examples of how bioluminescent technologies are helping them advance their research. Now available on demand, these sessions offer fresh perspectives and actionable takeaways on the future of therapeutic development, cellular analysis and assay design.

We’ve distilled five key takeaways from the sessions—practical insights you can apply to your own work or use to stay current with where the field is heading.

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Non-Pharmacological Approaches to ADHD: Exploring Inflammation and Omega-3s

Posted on by Simon Moe

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder that affects millions worldwide. Current therapeutic treatment relies on pharmaceutical approaches, but emerging research suggests that dietary supplements, such as omega-3 fatty acids, may offer complementary therapeutic options. A recent study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research explores the relationship between inflammation and dietary supplements to determine how they might influence ADHD pathology. This work was conducted in Dr. Edna Grünblatt’s lab at the University of Zurich and was supported through Promega’s Academic Access Program. I had the chance to interview Dr. Natalie Walter, the lead author, to learn more about how her work offers potential opportunities for non-pharmacological interventions.

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Beyond Ozempic: The New Frontier of Obesity Research

Posted on by Promega

Today’s blog is written by guest blogger, Alden Little, Marketing Intern at Promega.

From genetics to gut microbes, scientists are finding new ways to make white fat act like calorie-burning brown fat. Here’s how three research teams are working to find the next breakthrough obesity treatment.

Rethinking Fat: How New Research is Transforming Obesity Science

Obesity affects millions worldwide and remains a complex challenge shaped by diet, environment, genetics, and socio-economic factors. While medications like semaglutide have shown promise in supporting weight loss, there’s growing interest in alternative strategies.

One area gaining traction is adipose tissue biology. Adipose tissue—commonly known as body fat— is not just a passive storage site for excess energy, but an active player in regulating metabolism and energy balance. Adipose tissue comes in several forms:

  • White
  • Brown
  • Beige

Most of the fat in our bodies is called white adipose tissue (WAT). It stores energy for later use—but too much of it increases the risk for obesity, diabetes, and other health problems. In contrast, brown adipose tissue (BAT) burns energy to generate heat through a process called thermogenesis, helping regulate body weight and temperature. Scientists have discovered a third kind, called beige adipose tissue, which behaves like BAT but can form within WAT under certain conditions like cold exposure or specific molecular triggers.

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Alzheimer Disease and Metabolic Dysfunction: A Critical Intersection in Brain Health

Posted on by Simon Moe

This guest blog post is written by Alden Little, a Marketing Intern at Promega.

Alzheimer disease (AD) is one of the most devastating neurodegenerative disorders, affecting millions worldwide. While much attention has been given to amyloid plaques and tau tangles, emerging research suggests that metabolic dysfunction in the brain plays a crucial role in the disease’s progression. A recent study published in Acta Neuropathologica by Schröder et al. sheds new light on how astrocytes—the brain’s metabolic support cells—are affected in AD, and how their dysfunction impacts neurons.

Auguste Deter, a patient of Dr. Alzheimer, who first described the hallmark plaques and tangles of AD.
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Ice Age Secrets: The Discovery of a Juvenile Sabretooth Cat Mummy 

Posted on by Shannon Sindermann

In the permafrost of Siberia, a remarkable discovery has been made—a mummified juvenile sabretooth cat, Homotherium latidens, frozen in time for over 35,000 years. This discovery, made along the Badyarikha River in the Indigirka River Basin of Yakutia, Russia, offers an exciting glimpse into a species that has no modern analog (a living equivalent of something extinct) (1). For paleontologists and evolutionary biologists, it provides an unprecedented look at an ancient predator that roamed the Earth during the Ice Age. So, how is this cub mummy truly fascinating scientists?  

A Rare Find  

Homotherium Sabretooth mummy
The frozen mummy of Homotherium latidens: (A) external appearance; (B) skeleton, CT-scan, dorsal view (1).

The permafrost of Siberia is a treasure trove of Ice Age fossils, but the discovery of a mummified Homotherium cub stands out for its rarity and significance. While bones can tell us a lot about the history of an extinct species, mummies—where the animal’s soft tissues, such as fur, skin and sometimes internal organs, are preserved—offer far more detailed information. ‘Mummies’ refer to animals (or humans) that have been preserved with their soft tissues intact, often through natural or intentional processes like drying or embalming. This preservation allows scientists to gain insights into the organism’s diet, health, development and adaptations—details that bones alone can’t reveal! 

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Thanksgiving Cooking: Lessons in Chemistry

Posted on by Shannon Sindermann
Thanksgiving dinner

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, kitchens across the country will soon be alive with the sights, smells and sounds of cooking. But what if we dove deeper into those recipe books and looked beyond the instructions? You might find you’re more than just a cook; you’re quite the chemist!  

Inspired by the popular show Lessons in Chemistry, an adaptation of Bonnie Garmus’s bestselling novel, cooking is presented as applied science, encouraging viewers to think critically about their cooking and the chemical reactions that create the flavors and textures they love. In this blog, we’ll explore the chemistry behind Thanksgiving cooking, revealing how different techniques bring out the best in each dish. 

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Third Annual Targeted Protein Degradation Symposium: Embracing the Excitement of Discovery

Posted on by Simon Moe

The third annual Targeted Protein Degradation (TPD) Symposium just wrapped up last month. It was kicked off with Poncho Meisenheimer, VP of Research and Development at Promega, likening the gathering of researchers to “kids in a biology candy store.” This playful analogy captured the vibrant energy and sense of exploration among the attendees, who convened to delve into the future possibilities of proximity-induced degradation. Poncho left attendees with three key questions to consider throughout the symposium:

  1. How can we focus on quantitative measures of cellular events in relevant models?
  2. How do we generate results that serve both human and AI models?
  3. How do we best embrace the excitement of discovery?

Nearly 150 participants from both industry and academia attended the two-day symposium. It was held on September 11th and 12th at Promega’s R&D hub, the Kornberg Center, in Madison, Wisconsin. The event, now in its third year, provided a familiar environment where collaborations flourished, and many attendees rekindled connections forged through previous interactions or partnerships in the field.

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iGEM Grant Winners Tackle Tough Problems in Synthetic Biology

Posted on by Anna Bennett
Conceptual image depicting dna strands intertwined with robotic parts.

In June, Promega proudly announced the ten winners of the 2024 Promega iGEM Grant. These extraordinary teams have been hard at work preparing for the iGEM Grand Jamboree, which will take place from October 23-26, 2024, in Paris, France. We interviewed a handful of this year’s grant recipients to learn more about their projects and journeys they’ve taken to reach this exciting milestone. Below are stories from four of the winning teams.

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The Casual Catalyst: Science Conversations and Cafes

Posted on by Michele Arduengo, PhD

There is no shortage of stories about great scientific collaborations that have taken root as the result of an excited conversation between two scientists over sandwiches and beer at a bar or a deli. One of the most famous examples of such a conversation was that between Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen when they attended a conference on bacterial plasmids in 1972—that very conversation led to the formation of the biotechnology field as the two scientists worked together to clone specific regions of DNA (1).  

“Over hot pastrami and corned beef sandwiches, Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen opened the door to genetic engineering and laid the foundations for gene therapy and the biotechnology industry.”  

Steven Johnson, author of Where Do Good Ideas Come From, credits the English coffee house as being crucial to the spread of the enlightenment movement in the 17th and 18th centuries (2). He argues that coffee houses provide a space where ideas can come together and form networks. In fact, he defines the concept of “idea” not as a single entity—a grand thought that poofs into existence upon hard work—but at its simplest level, a new idea is a new network of neurons firing in sync with each other.  

Johnson further argues that the development of great new ideas not only requires a space for ideas to bump into each other, connect and form a network, but also that great ideas are rarely the product of a single “Eureka” moment. Rather, they are slowly developing, churning hunches that have very long incubation periods (2).  

Science is Ripe with “Coffee House” Discoveries

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