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InSilico Codex, Inside My Followers Heart, New York, NY (2025)

12/18/2025

🔬 Southern, Northern & Western Blotting – The Trio of Molecular Biology

In cell biology, DNA, RNA, and proteins are the fundamental biomolecules, and studying them requires powerful techniques. Three classic blotting methods help us analyze these molecules with precision:

🧬 Southern Blot – Detects DNA fragments using complementary DNA/RNA probes. Useful for studying gene organization, mutations, and copy number variations.

🧾 Northern Blot – Detects RNA transcripts (like mRNA) using complementary probes. Helps in understanding gene expression patterns.

💪 Western Blot – Detects proteins (polypeptides) using specific antibodies. Widely used for protein expression, modifications, and validation in research and diagnostics.

👉 Together, these methods bridge the gap between genetics, transcriptomics, and proteomics, giving us a complete picture of cellular function.

12/18/2025

HbA1c (Glycated Haemoglobin)

HbA1c is haemoglobin that has glucose attached to it. It reflects the average blood glucose level over the previous 2 to 3 months, corresponding to the lifespan of red blood cells.

Clinical Uses

HbA1c is used to:
• Diagnose diabetes mellitus
• Monitor long-term glycaemic control
• Assess risk of chronic diabetic complications
• Evaluate response to treatment

Interpretation
• A value below 5.7% is considered normal
• 5.7–6.4% indicates prediabetes
• 6.5% or higher is diagnostic of diabetes mellitus (confirmation recommended if asymptomatic)

Treatment Targets
• Most non-pregnant adults: less than 7%
• Young, newly diagnosed patients: around 6.5%
• Elderly patients or those with multiple comorbidities: 7.5–8%, individualized

Advantages
• Does not require fasting
• Reflects long-term glucose control
• Less affected by daily glucose fluctuations

Limitations

HbA1c may give inaccurate results in:
• Hemolytic anaemia
• Recent blood loss or transfusion
• Pregnancy
• Advanced chronic kidney disease
• Hemoglobinopathies such as sickle cell disease

Factors Affecting HbA1c
• Falsely low values: hemolysis, acute blood loss, pregnancy
• Falsely high values: iron deficiency anaemia, vitamin B12 deficiency

Frequency of Testing
• Every 6 months in patients with stable glycaemic control
• Every 3 months when control is poor or treatment is adjusted

Prejeesh Sreedharan Biology Tonic

12/18/2025

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 𝐏𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐄𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠

The gene editing market is moving fast. US$4.44 billion in 2023 became US$4.66 billion in 2024. By 2029, the market is projected to reach US$7.59 billion. That growth reflects a resilient 10.2% CAGR from 2024 to 2029.

Here is what is driving the momentum.

→ Expanding scope of gene editing applications across the market.

But growth is not frictionless.

→ Off-target effects and safety concerns remain a real restraint.

The next phase of growth is already forming.

→ Technological advancements in Prime editing and bridge RNA create new opportunity.

Ex*****on still decides who wins.

→ Scalability issues in gene editing workflows remain a core challenge.

The market is clear, the numbers are real, and the direction is set.
The gene editing market is growing from US$4.44B in 2023 to a projected US$7.59B by 2029. Growth is driven by expanding applications and a 10.2% CAGR. Safety, off-target effects, and scalability will define the winners.

Prejeesh Sreedharan OmicsLogic: Data Science, Bioinformatics and Biomedical Research Concept Biology

12/18/2025

🧬 Telomeres: The Tiny Caps That Control Aging, Health & Cell Survival

Your DNA carries the blueprint of life—but at the very ends of your chromosomes lie telomeres, the protective caps that make sure your genetic code stays safe. Think of them as the plastic tips of shoelaces, preventing your chromosomes from fraying, breaking, or sticking together.

These caps are made of repeating DNA sequences (TTAGGG in humans), and although they don’t code for proteins, they are essential for keeping your cells healthy each time they divide.

🧨 Why Do Telomeres Get Shorter?

Every time a cell divides, it loses a tiny bit of telomere length due to the “end-replication problem”—DNA polymerase simply can’t copy the extreme ends.
But lifestyle factors can speed up this loss:

• Stress
• Smoking
• Inflammation
• Aging
• Poor diet
• Environmental toxins

Shorter telomeres mean your cells are closer to aging, dysfunction, or death.

🔧 Telomerase – The Enzyme That Refills Telomeres

Your body isn’t helpless—telomerase acts as a “telomere repair machine.”
Its job: add back lost telomere repeats and extend chromosome life.

It is active in:
• Germ cells
• Stem cells
• Cancer cells (which helps them divide endlessly)

This makes telomerase a major focus in cancer therapy and longevity research.

✨ Why Telomeres Matter So Much

Telomeres protect your DNA every time your cells divide. Without them, essential genes would get damaged, leading to severe aging or disease.

When telomeres become too short:
• Cells stop dividing
• They enter senescence (permanent rest)
• Or undergo apoptosis (programmed death)

This is why telomere length is considered a biological aging marker.

Longer telomeres = healthier cells, slower aging
Shorter telomeres = higher aging and disease risk

🔬 Real-Life Connections

1️⃣ Aging & Longevity
Humans lose ~50–100 telomere bases with each cell division.
People who live longer naturally have slower telomere shortening.

2️⃣ Cancer Biology
Cancer cells reactivate telomerase, giving them “immortality.”
Targeting telomerase is a powerful anti-cancer strategy.

⭐ Quick Facts

• Telomere length can predict aging speed
• Stress accelerates telomere loss
• Nobel Prize (2009) was awarded for telomere discovery
• Stem cells maintain telomeres to keep renewing your body

🌟 The Bottom Line

Telomeres may be tiny, but they are one of the most powerful biomarkers of your health, longevity, and disease risk.
Protecting them means protecting your DNA—and your future.

Prejeesh Sreedharan OmicsLogic: Data Science, Bioinformatics and Biomedical Research Concept Biology Biology Tonic

Courtesy: Scoolam Foundation

12/17/2025

🌎 Unlock Your Global Future: No-Cosigner Loans for International Students 🎓

Are you a high-achieving student planning to study in the U.S. or Canada, but hitting a wall with financing? Most traditional lenders require a local cosigner or collateral, MPOWER Financing is changing that.

MPOWER believes in your potential, not just your paperwork. As a Public Benefit Corporation, they specialize in providing educational loans based on your future earning potential, not your past credit history.

Why choose MPOWER Financing?
No Cosigner or Collateral: Get funded on your own merit.
Fixed Interest Rates: Protect yourself from market fluctuations with predictable payments.

Visa Support: Receive the support letters you need for your visa interview. 📄

Career Support: Access free resume reviews and networking tools to help you land a job after graduation. 💼

Join thousands of students from 190+ countries who have already used MPOWER to reach their dreams at over 400 top-tier universities.

12/17/2025

🌎 Unlock Your Global Future: No-Cosigner Loans for International Students 🎓

Are you a high-achieving student planning to study in the U.S. or Canada but hitting a wall with financing? Most traditional lenders require a local cosigner or collateral, MPOWER Financing is changing that.

MPOWER believes in your potential, not just your paperwork. As a Public Benefit Corporation, they specialize in providing educational loans based on your future earning potential, not your past credit history.

Join thousands of students from 190+ countries who reached their dreams at over 400 top-tier universities.

Why choose MPOWER Financing?

No Cosigner or Collateral: Get funded on your own merit.
Fixed Interest Rates: Protect yourself from market fluctuations with predictable payments.
Visa Support: Receive the support letters you need for your visa interview. 📄
Career Support: Access free resume reviews and networking tools to help you land a job after graduation. 💼"

👉 Apply Now: https://app.mpowerfinancing.com/?ref_code=shercvfd

12/17/2025

🌎 Unlock Your Global Future: No-Cosigner Loans for International Students 🎓

Are you a high-achieving student planning to study in the U.S. or Canada, but hitting a wall with financing? Most traditional lenders require a local cosigner or collateral, MPOWER Financing is changing that.

MPOWER believes in your potential, not just your paperwork. As a Public Benefit Corporation, they specialize in providing educational loans based on your future earning potential, not your past credit history.

Why choose MPOWER Financing?

No Cosigner or Collateral: Get funded on your own merit.
Fixed Interest Rates: Protect yourself from market fluctuations with predictable payments.
Visa Support: Receive the support letters you need for your visa interview. 📄
Career Support: Access free resume reviews and networking tools to help you land a job after graduation. 💼

Join thousands of students from 190+ countries who have already used MPOWER to reach their dreams at over 400 top-tier universities.

12/17/2025

Calf Stress Pain: An Early Warning Sign

Calf stress pain is a frequent yet underestimated problem that often serves as an early signal of strain in the soleus and gastrocnemius muscles. This discomfort typically develops when the lower-leg muscles are exposed to repetitive loading, sudden increases in physical activity, or prolonged periods of immobility that impair circulation. Athletes, runners, and individuals who spend long hours standing are particularly vulnerable, but office workers who sit for extended stretches can also experience this pain due to muscle stiffness and venous pooling.

Read More Details on this topic in the first comment.

Title: The Soleus Muscle Pump: The Body’s “Second Heart”

Biomedicines MDPI Cancers MDPI Navyami Science Explorer Healthy Habits Science Medinaz Biology Tonic JAMA Dr. Muhammad Affan Qaiser World of Bioinformatics Books: Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry Facts Medical information 💉💊

12/17/2025

🧠Hormones and Their Nicknames — Explained Simply📌

Your body runs on chemical messengers called hormones. Each one has a unique role, and here are six you should know — especially if you're prepping for boards or creating health content:

😊 Happy Hormone – Dopamine
Dopamine is your brain’s reward signal. It drives motivation, pleasure, and focus. When you achieve something or feel proud, dopamine is behind that rush.

😰 Stress Hormone – Cortisol
Cortisol helps you respond to danger or pressure. It activates your “fight or flight” system, raises blood sugar, and prepares your body to act. Chronic stress = chronically high cortisol.

🌙 Sleep Hormone – Melatonin
Melatonin controls your sleep-wake cycle. It rises when it gets dark, telling your body it’s time to rest. Blue light and late-night screens can block melatonin release.

🍔 Hunger Hormone – Ghrelin
Ghrelin signals hunger. It’s released by your stomach when it’s empty, telling your brain to eat. It spikes before meals and drops after eating.

🛑 Fullness Hormone – Leptin
Leptin tells your brain you’re full. It’s released by fat cells and helps regulate long-term energy balance. Low leptin = constant hunger. High leptin = satiety.

⚡ Energy Hormone – Adrenaline (Epinephrine)
Adrenaline gives you a burst of energy in emergencies. It increases heart rate, opens airways, and sharpens focus. It’s your body’s turbo mode.

Courtesy: Supriyo Santra

12/17/2025

5 journal rejections taught me one lesson about research papers.
This is how to fix yours:

The feedback was brutal: "Lacks structure and clarity." Back in my PhD days I thought good research was enough. I was wrong. I spent 18 months collecting data. Ran every analysis perfectly.
Had findings that could change my field. But my paper kept getting rejected. After rejection 5, I almost gave up. Then a senior colleague read my draft. She finished and said: "Your research is solid. Your structure is chaos." She drew something on the whiteboard that changed everything. A simple body diagram. Each section of a research paper mapped to a body part. Each part answers one specific question. Here's what she taught me:

Abstract (The Head)
This is your 30-second elevator pitch.
What's the problem? What did you find? Why does it matter?

Introduction (The Neck)
What is known? Set up our world understanding.
Hook readers with relevance. Make them care.

Literature Review (The Shoulders)
What is unknown? What gap are you filling?
Show you understand the conversation.

Methodology (The Arms)
How should we fill the gap? What did you do?
Make it so clear others can replicate.

Results (The Torso)
What findings did you get?
Present data without interpretation. Clean and focused.

Discussion (The Hips)
How do the findings bridge the gap?
Connect your results to the bigger picture.

Conclusion (The Legs)
What does this mean going forward?
Future directions. Leave readers wanting more.

References (The Feet)
Honor the giants you stand on.
Show the depth of your research journey.

She said: "Each section answers ONE question. Answer it clearly. Move on."

I rewrote my paper using her framework.

Same data. Same findings. Different structure.

Submitted to the same journal that rejected me twice.

Accepted with minor revisions.

Reviewer comment: "Well-structured and clear presentation."

The difference was not my research.

The difference was my structure.

Since then:

My next 3 papers accepted on first submission

I now teach this framework to every PhD student I supervise. The mistake most researchers make:

They think great data makes great papers. Actually, great structure makes great papers. Your research deserves to be read. But first it needs to be structured so readers can follow.

The visual shows the complete anatomy I now use.

One body. Eight sections. Eight questions answered.

I wish someone had drawn this for me on day one.

Would have saved me 5 rejections and 2 years.

12/17/2025

⚠️𝙆𝙞𝙩𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙈𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝘼𝙫𝙤𝙞𝙙 — 𝙀𝙭𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙎𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙮💡

These everyday combinations may seem harmless, but they can lead to chemical reactions, contamination, or health risks. Here's what happens and why you should avoid them:👇👇
🍅𝐓𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐞𝐬 + 𝐀𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐦
➡️Tomatoes are highly acidic. When stored or cooked in aluminum pots, the acid reacts with the metal. This causes aluminum to leach into the food, giving it a metallic taste and potentially harming your health over time.
🍲𝐇𝐨𝐭 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐩 + 𝐒𝐭𝐲𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐨𝐚𝐦
➡️Styrofoam is not heat-safe. When you pour hot soup into a Styrofoam cup, the heat breaks down the material and releases toxic chemicals like styrene. These can mix into your food and pose long-term health risks.
🍋𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬 𝐉𝐮𝐢𝐜𝐞 + 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜
➡️Citrus juices like lemon or orange are acidic. When stored in plastic bottles, the acid can slowly degrade the plastic, releasing microplastics or harmful compounds like BPA into the juice — especially if exposed to heat or stored for long periods.
🍳𝐃𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐅𝐫𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 + 𝐍𝐨𝐧-𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐏𝐚𝐧
➡️Non-stick pans are not designed for high-heat cooking. Deep frying requires high temperatures, which can damage the coating. This releases toxic fumes and flakes of coating into your food, making it unsafe.
🍯𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 + 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐧
➡️Honey is naturally acidic. If you leave a metal spoon in it for too long, especially in reactive metals like iron or copper, it can cause oxidation. This spoils the taste and may introduce unwanted metallic compounds into the honey.

12/12/2025

a), Experimental procedure and dataset. Human cortical brain tissue was obtained from 23 patients who underwent anterior temporal lobe resection for treatment of epilepsy. Top left: colored photograph of resected temporal lobe tissue comprising the STG, MTG, ITG. This study focused on acute slices from the MTG. Recordings were made in L2–3. Bottom: summary statistic of the dataset used in this study. Microscope image shows biocytin staining of recorded neighboring pyramidal neurons. Colored patch pipettes illustrate the multineuron patch-clamp approach (dashed circle—one neuron was not stained). Bottom right: connection pattern between the recorded neurons based on connectivity screening shown in b.
b), Electrophysiological traces recorded from the ten pyramidal neurons depicted in a. Each row corresponds to one neuron. Left: column shows AP firing upon step depolarization. Right: matrix of traces shows averaged postsynaptic voltage traces during subsequent stimulation of APs in the neurons (diagonal). Correlated EPSPs are highlighted and indicate a monosynaptic connection. c–e, Schematics depicting the electrophysiological parameters extracted from the raw traces by an automated analysis pipeline. For this study, 15 cellular (c,d) as well as 5 synaptic (e) electrophysiological properties were analyzed (for PPR extraction, see Methods).
d), Example cellular parameters displaying broad and partially skewed distributions.
f), Monosynaptic connections between L2–3 pyramidal neurons analyzed in this study show a linear relationship between recording distance and synaptic latency; shaded areas correspond to 95% CI. STG, superior temporal gyrus; MTG, middle temporal gyrus; ITG, inferior temporal gyrus; CI, confidence intervals; pA, stimulus amplitude; RMP, resting membrane potential.

Reference:

Electrophysiological classification of human layer 2–3 pyramidal neurons reveals subtype-specific synaptic interactions

(Nature Neuroscience)

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