Published: 25-09-2024 17:10 | Updated: 25-09-2024 17:14

KI researchers receive Blue Flame Award for shared plasmids

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Illustration: Suparlek Laipa, Noun Project.

Addgene is a non-profit organization that serves as a global plasmid repository, facilitating the sharing of molecular biology tools among researchers worldwide. Those scientists whose plasmid has been ordered 100 times or more are congratulated with a “Blue Flame Award”.

Plasmids are widely used in genetic research, including applications in CRISPR, cloning and gene expression studies. Since its founding in 2004, Addgene has grown to include more than 100,000 plasmids contributed by scientists from around the world. And demand from the scientific community is high - the organization receives around 20 000 requests annually. 

This exchange of genetic tools promotes open science and accelerates the pace of research by making key reagents readily available.

"Addgene's work is of great importance to many researchers”, says Fredrik Wermeling at the Department of Medicine in Solna, who recently received the Blue Flame Award for a plasmid produced by his research group.

Other researchers at KI who received the award are Nico Dantuma, Sten Linnarsson, Urban Lendahl and Pontus Aspenström (formerly at KI).