r/molecularbiology

Education has always been an important part of the solarpunk movement, and so has technology. So why not get a technically advanced bachelors or masters degree at some of the best universities in the world?

My faculty 🌻

I was surprised that this fact of life doesn't get the attention it deserves here; that's the reason of my hopefully helpful post.

Ghent University, Leuven University and other Belgian universities are the only ones in the world providing the ir. (engineer) title for studying biology (a lot of it). In this exact field Bio-engineers stand at the intersection af humans and nature on agriculture, biotechnology, land use management, food industry, climate systems etc.

What do you guys think? I am, as a Bio-engineering student, fascinated by what other people think of these niche(?) studies.

If anyone is interested I have some recommendations for Masters:

Ghent University:
- (Sustainable Urban design) https://studiekiezer.ugent.be/2026/master-of-science-in-bioscience-engineering-sustainable-urban-bioscience-engineering-en

- (Molecular Biotechnology) https://studiekiezer.ugent.be/2026/bachelor-of-science-in-molecular-biotechnology-en

- (Marine Biological Resources)  https://studiekiezer.ugent.be/2026/international-master-of-science-in-marine-biological-resources-en

- (Cell and gene Biotechnology) https://studiekiezer.ugent.be/2026/master-of-science-in-bioscience-engineering-cell-and-gene-biotechnology-IMCEGB-en (available in the green/plant option (which Ghent University is world-renowned for; see first GMO's))

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Hello,

I'm about to apply for a
BSc in biological science at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and after I'd
like to go far a master degree in a specialized field like molecular biology or
molecular medicine for example. Probably I'd also go for the PhD, but that's
kind of hard to say for me now. What I'd like to know is if there's anyone who
started working after a degree in a biology related field abroad. I'm from
Germany and from what I've read chances in the US or Canada are way better
compared to here, especially if you don't go for a PhD. I KNOW biology is not
something you study for easy money, but Germany seems to be a great place to study,
but sucks a lot for working in science. I also considered trying to apply for a
PhD in Canada/USA later, but also that is hard to say for me now.

In general I have no problem with leaving Germany, if that gives me better chances to find a decent
job. Beside German I'm fluent in English and Korean, so South Korea would also
be an option, but I'm open for any abroad experience you have.

I work on small RNAs, about 30 nucleotide long. I want to do in-vitro transcription for which i need to do PCR first. But I am having problem getting the correct PCR prodct when checked in gel electrophoresis.

The forward primer that was used has Tm 60, reverse primer has Tm 57.6. I used Q5 2X mastermix for PCR and 0.5 micromolar primers were used. When i did gel for the PCR products I got too many bands. I did gradient pcr in order to optimize the annealing temperature and got similar results for all of them. I am not sure what went wrong.

So I would like if someone could give any ideas for my master’s thesis that includes something within imunnotherapy or gene therapy and cancer/oncology.

My mentor gave me the freedom of choice, but I find it difficult to find something that is not too broad and specific enough, but not too detailed.

I know that this might be confusing, but I’m looking through a lot of thing and I think that someone might help me in here.

Thanks in advance ❤️

Hey!

I'm trying to generate mutants of three isoforms of a gene that differ in their TSS (transcription start site) using the CRISPR-Cas method.

I'm designing everything according to the protocol at this link: https://bio-protocol.org/en/bpdetail?id=3796&type=0

I then transformed the WT plants using the floral dip method under vacuum.

I selected the seeds of T1 generation that glow red under a fluorescence microscope. However, after sowing and genotyping the plants, it turns out that none of the plants are mutated. Do you have any ideas on how to solve my problem? Design different guides? Switch to a different system? I would appreciate any advice or ideas

I was thinking about prolong activity of Cas9 by leaving glowing seeds by one generation, but I am risking higher off target cutting. What do you think?

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Hi. I'm quite new to the protein purification world. I am having problems in expressing a protein. Would there be someone able to tell me what I did wrong?

- I transformed my DNA in BL21(DE3) rosetta strain and directly inoculated the 1mL post-transformation into 100 mL overnight culture with antibiotic - skipped the plating step.

- this morning the culture was turbid. I pelleted as recommended from the protocol I'm following (I would say there was a more than decent pellet).

- here comes the issue: I resuspended into 4 mL and inoculated in 4 L media with antibiotic, etc. After 4 hour OD600 is 0.02. So nothing. Did I create a massive bottleneck, should I have resuspended the pellet in more volume? I did it once already in the past and it worked. I only hope I did not waste 4L media and created another delay in this process. Is there be any chance for the grow to start at some point?

Thanks to everyone who can give me some advice!

​I’m not interested in intense competition or accumulating great wealth. I have no desire to climb the corporate ladder or compete for high-level positions in major firms. My goal is simply to be a researcher—perhaps within a government agency—living far from major cities with a comfortable salary. Is this lifestyle achievable with my degree, or would I need to become a professor at a remote university to make it work?

Hi! I am a 3rd year cell biology student taking an upper division writing class focusing on biology. Our final project is a review paper on a topic of our choosing. I am focusing on the link between microplastics and pulmonary fibrosis.

The actual, specific subject, is something like "the mechanism polystyrene nano plastics induce pulmonary fibrosis through ferroptosis." At this point I have read 9 review papers, about the NF-kappaB pathway, ferroptosis, the link between inflammation and pulmonary fibrosis, ect. Still, I feel like whenever I read a primary paper it mentions something I have never heard of. I usually recognize the pathway they are mentioning, but they often mention a specific aspect I have not read about.

For example this paper: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2590006425013109 focuses on the YY1 transcription factor, and its effect on iron storage.

I recognize what it is doing, how suppressing FTL (which promotes iron storage) would lead to a lack of iron being stored that means overall for the cell. But my problem is I don't know how to tie this information to other pathways, I have found out YY1 is downstream of NF-kappaB, but... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3829205/ I could only find that out through a different paper on a totally different cell.

How would you learn that NF-kappaB is upstream of YY1? Are there resources for learning about these pathways outside of review papers? Any good textbook recommendations, websites, ect?

I recognize that I am a bit out of my depth here, but I thoroughly enjoy this topic. However, I am open to the opinion that it is simply not doable for me at this point.

I ran my extracted DNA through a spectrophotometer. While the A260/A280 reading showed great results (1.84, 1.92, and 2.01), my A260/230 had a very low reading (0.35, 0.43, and 0.35). I used the Qiagen FAST Stool Mini Kit for the extraction, and I did read that low concentration of elution buffer can affect this. The protocol states that the elution buffer to be used should be at 200ul; however, my laboratory instructor suggested using only 50ul.

I am a biology undergrad. Your help/explanation would be appreciated!

I want to do mRNA pcr for HPV. Anyone know any commercial kits available. Not closed platform or have any experience in developing in-house mRNA PCR?. Pls suggest

Hi everyone,

I’m having trouble with lentiviral transduction in mouse c-Kit⁺ hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells targeting Dnmt3a. I designed three shRNAs (pLKO); one shows strong knockdown in NIH3T3 cells. However, in c-Kit⁺ cells, shControl gives ~70% transduction, while shDnmt3a drops to ~7% after 10 days, despite similar MOIs(through gfp tagged in plko backbone)

This suggests possible toxicity or off-target effects. The other two shRNAs show weaker knockdown (5–20%) in qpcr but normal survival in c-Kit⁺ cells. I do not even trust that this because it very small knockdown

Any advice or similar experience would be appreciated. (shRNAs designed using Thermo Fisher BLOCK-iT.)

Approximately 25% of 7200 noncoding open reading frames produce detectable peptides in cells with unknown function.

I am about to finish university and so lose my unfettered access to papers with paywalls for a while. What papers would you recommend I download to read once I have graduated?

Especially to do with cell signalling, evolution, genetics and metabolism. Also interesting paper suggestions about biology of unusual organisms are appreciated.