Free online nucleic acids book
A free online book on the chemistry and biology of nucleic acids, written by Prof. Tom Brown, is available on the new ATDBio web site: www.atdbio.com/nucleic-acids-book
Postdoctoral position available
Applications are invited for a BBSRC-funded postdoctoral position in the Brown group, to work on oligonucleotide chemistry. The position is part of a wider BBSRC funded programme of research involving teams in the Optoelectronics Research Centre at Southampton (Dr T. Melvin and Dr P. Horak) and Cambridge University.
For futher details see http://tinyurl.com/44udz5j
Second PNAS paper in two years!
The paper Biocompatible artificial DNA linker that is read through by DNA polymerases and is functional in Escherichia coli, published in PNAS this week, is the second paper published by the Brown group in the journal PNAS in two years. The paper, written by Afaf El-Sagheer, Pia Sanzone (a student in the Ali Tavassoli group at Southampton), Rachel Gao, Ali Tavassoli and Tom Brown, describes how DNA containing an artificial triazole linkages (in the place of a DNA phosphodiester linkage) was copied during PCR with high fidelity and a gene containing the triazole linker was functional in Escherichia coli.