Since joining MRC-LMB Neurobiology division in the mid 1990's I've always had a fascination working and looking at visual images of the nervous system. Transfecting and subsequent expression of DNA in living neuronal tissue is problematic and no technique has emerged that is completely non-damaging, efficient and reproducible. Over the last few years I have tried to find an alternative way of transfecting tissue rather than using conventional methods. The introduction of the hand-held gene gun (from Bio-Rad) has overcome some of these problems by exploiting a "biolistic" (an anagram for biological ballistics) approach in which small gold particles carrying plasmid DNA are propelled into neurons via a pulse of helium.
Since joining MRC-LMB Neurobiology division in the mid 1990's I've always had a fascination working and looking at visual images of the nervous system. Transfecting and subsequent expression of DNA in living neuronal tissue is problematic and no technique has emerged that is completely non-damaging, efficient and reproducible. Over the last few years I have tried to find an alternative way of transfecting tissue rather than using conventional methods. The introduction of the hand-held gene gun (from Bio-Rad) has overcome some of these problems by exploiting a "biolistic" (an anagram for biological ballistics) approach in which small gold particles carrying plasmid DNA are propelled into neurons via a pulse of helium.