After we solved all the teething troubles with our Äkta Avant, we finally dare to let customers use it.

When I started as a principal investigator at the University of Helsinki, I was advised to take the "Good leadership" course which was arranged by Personnel Training.

The most common protein purification technique that we use is gel filtration (also called size exclusion chromatography). In gel filtration, proteins are separated by their size (or more correctly by their “Stokes radius”, which is largely determined by their size and shape). For gel filtration of large protein amounts, we bought GE Healthcare’s HiLoad 26/60 Superdex 200 prep grade about 9 years ago (the 26/60 has been replaced by HiLoad 26/600, but both are almost identical). With this column you can very cleanly separate two proteins that have a size difference of 100%. Therefore it is suitable to separate monomeric from dimeric versions of the same protein. The columns “expiry date” was 2012-03. Our experience is that under proper handling, such a column can easily reach a life span of 10 to 15 years (we don’t use it very often, we store it in 20% ethanol, if we don’t need it for longer periods of time, we keep it at +4°C). ...

I started to teach my son programming and we both are enjoying it.

How much PCR product does one get from a typical PCR reaction?

About one year ago, we secured funding in an internal faculty call to replace the old Pharmacia Äkta Explorer 100 FPLC machine of the Protein Production and Purification core facility.

Since the beginning of last century, researchers have been arguing about the embryonic origin of the lymphatic system.