Karen Steward PhD

Senior Science Writer

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A Leading Voice for T-Cell Expertise During COVID-19 and Beyond

The unprecedented scale of global scientific collaboration, including the establishment of expert consortia, has played an important part in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. We spoke to Professor Danny Altmann, chair of the Global T cell Expert Consortium (GTEC) about the role that T cells have in viral infections like SARS-CoV-2 and what GTEC is hoping to achieve.

Kombucha Inspires Creation of a Microbial “Living Material”

Scientists have created a “living material” made from microbes that can respond to stimuli from their surrounding environment. It is hoped the material could find diverse applications in contaminant detection, highlighting damage, for example, to packaging, delivering nutrients or therapeutics and even in creating living photographs.

Gas Chromatography

In this article, we bring together resources from the across the site on gas chromatography, how it works, its pairing with downstream techniques and what its applications are.

Top 5 Non-COVID-19 Stories of 2020 From Microbiology

In the field of microbiology, COVID-19 has very much stolen the show this year. However, despite media attention and resources being poured into understanding and combatting SARS-CoV-2, there have still been some exciting developments in microbiology. In this list we take a look at five of the most read non-COVID-19 microbiology news stories of 2020.

A Path to Better Plant-Based Foods

With demands for food rising as the population continues to expand, and the ever-present threat of climate change, scientists are looking for innovative ways to feed society without adding to the planet’s burdens. Plant-based foods are one area of great interest to meet this need.

Bringing Speed and Simplicity to SEM-EDS Analysis

While many researchers combine scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) to examine materials for defects at the micro-scale, the process is often viewed as slow and complex. Fortunately, however, advances in SEM-EDS analysis are bringing a new level of speed and simplicity to failure analysis.

Introducing the Antibody

Antibodies are a vital part of the immune system, playing a key role in our ability to fight infection and in the efficacy of vaccinations. However, that’s not where their utility ends. Find out about what antibodies are, where they come from, how they function and how science is putting them to work in the laboratory.

Taking Cultured Meat to the Next Level

In a study published in Metabolic Engineering, bovine cells were engineered to endogenously produce phytoene, lycopene and β-carotene. We recently had the pleasure of speaking to Andrew Stout, lead author of the study, to learn how these cells were created and explore some of the benefits of engineering in the abilities to produce additional nutrients.

Single-Cell, "Multi-Omics" Analysis Uncovers a New Stage in Immune Cell Formation

A research team from The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute has adopted a single-cell, multi-omics approach to explore this question, focusing particularly on T and B lymphocyte formation. They discovered a new stage in lymphocyte development, information which the researchers say could "enrich future studies of the immune system". We wanted to know more.

Teach Me in 10 – An Introduction to ICP-OES With Ross Ashdown

In this installment of Teach Me in 10, we're joined by Ross Ashdown, who talks us through the basic concepts of inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry, or ICP-OES.