Circadian biologists have a specialized toolbox of experimental techniques and approaches, many of which are discussed within each tutorial. The videos in this section focus on the techniques.

Read our overview of bioluminescence and luciferase reporters, which are used for a variety of applications in biological research.

This tutorial provides a visual explanation of luciferase reporters and how they are used throughout biology.

The following videos discuss the the application of luciferase reporters for circadian biology in cyanobacteria and mammals:

Many of these approaches rely on “cell culture”, the technique of keeping cells (and their oscillators!) alive in a dish. This tutorial offers an overview of mammalian cell culture in circadian biology.

In whole animals, the ability to detect changes in gene expression at multiple time- or treatment points allowed transcriptomics to greatly enhance our understanding of circadian biology; view our “Dry Lab” series to understand how circadian transcriptomics studies are performed, analyzed, and visualized.