There are a few good websites that I have discovered during my years of being involved in scientific research, and I was wondering if other people have some golden resources out there that they would like to share. These could be anything from online concentration calculators to forums that you go may frequent to find answers to troubleshooting problems (besides Nature Network of course :-)), and I thought it would be neat to share some of these resources.

Some of my favorite “golden resources” are:

1. Online Molarity Calculator
I know that every one of us is an expert at calculating molarity, but it never hurts to double check your calculations, and I use this website all the time.

2. Human Protein Reference Database
I’ve found this to be, overall, a great place to get comprehensive information about your favorite protein, such as molecular weight, known interactions with other proteins, tissues it is expressed in, etc. I think most of the information is mined from PubMed, and occasionally I find I need to check the references to some of the information carefully, but for the most part it’s a great place to start when you want to grasp the “big picture” of a protein.

3. Protocol Online
I’m sure most people have come across this website at some point, but I’ve found that their BioForum can be quite helpful in solving troubleshooting issues. I recently got some very good information here, as well as specific help from other people using this site. It helped me bring an end to my frustrating cloning woes (well at least for now anyway).

4. And of course there is the protocol resource of Cold Spring Harbor
I know UCSD has a site license to access this resource, but I’m not sure about other institutions.

Well I hope that’s a good start and gives other researchers some interesting resources to check out the next time they’re trying to solve a laboratory conundrum. We’d love to hear some other great resources from all of you other researchers out there too!