THIS STORY HAS BEEN APPROVED BY THE CUSTOMER FOR EXTERNAL PUBLICATION. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SHARE! Read it here: jmp.com/embg. The recording is also available on JMP YouTube.
Optimizing the Undergraduate Laboratory with Smarter Experimental Design
We’re excited to share a new academic success story from the University of Exeter’s Microbial Biofuels Group (EMBG), where JMP is helping researchers and students push the boundaries of synthetic biology and bioengineering.
Video Summary
- EMBG is a synthetic biology lab designing custom bacteria to produce biofuels and bioplastic precursors.
- JMP has become integral to their process optimization, from protein extraction protocols to diagnostic test development.
- Researchers use Design of Experiments (DOE) to drive efficiency in undergraduate and postgraduate projects, making limited lab time and resources count.
- The lab also leverages JMP in high-profile competitions like iGEM, where students apply JMP to real-world biological challenges.
Key Takeaways
- Rapid optimization: A half-day DOE experiment redesigned a 15-year-old sonication protocol, increasing protein yield 3x.
- Efficient training tool: JMP, especially Easy DOE, is used to teach experimental design to undergrads with limited lab access.
- Better use of resources: DOE helps students and researchers avoid inefficient one-factor-at-a-time experiments, maximizing data per run.
- Applied student research: iGEM students used JMP to develop a veterinary diagnostic for bovine TB, achieving a 60-fold sensitivity gain in three iterations.
Return on Investment
- High yield from fewer experiments: Significant lab gains achieved in minimal time and with limited resources.
- Cost-effective education: JMP allows under-resourced academic labs to achieve higher experimental outcomes.
- Reproducible science: Experiments designed and analyzed in JMP support reliable, publishable research outcomes.
Product quotes:
Mark Hewlett, Researcher, University of Exeter:
- “I try quite hard to get my undergraduate and postgraduate students to use JMP to maximize the amount of experimental data they can get, and I think that the Easy DOE is probably the most useful way of having a really low-key introduction to JMP.”
- “The most common tool I use is Design of Experiments (DOE) to try and get away from the one-factor-at-a-time or full factorial experimental design. I think that's really important, especially with undergraduate students because they have such limited time in the lab, and such limited financial resources behind their research that you want to get as much high-quality data as possible with the fewest number of experimental runs and I think that's where JMP really comes into its own.”
- “We use a sonicator to lyse bacterial cells so that we can harvest the protein inside. We've changed our sonicator machine two times in the last 15 years. And each time, we just kept the same protocol. So, I ran that through a screening design. And I actually got a three-fold increase in usable protein within just 12 experiments. So, it was a half day's work, it was really simple, but it made a massive difference to the amount of time I was spending on lysis and the amount of yield I was getting.”
