Methods of detecting the absence or presence of a micro-organism in a sample comprising: contacting the sample with a nucleic acid molecule which acts as a substrate for nucleic acid modifying activity of the micro-organism in the sample, incubating the thus contacted sample under conditions suitable for nucleic acid modifying activity; and specifically determining the absence or presence of a modified nucleic acid molecule resulting from the action of the nucleic acid modifying activity on the substrate nucleic acid molecule to indicate the absence or presence of the micro-organism. Corresponding kits are also provided.

Methods of determining polymerase fidelity are provided. In one embodiment, the method comprises filling a gapped plasmid with a polymerase to form a gap-filled plasmid, wherein the gap-filled plasmid comprises a gene encoding an protein that is functional or non-functional depending on the polymerase fidelity; forming a plurality of partitions from a solution comprising the gap-filled plasmid and a label for detecting the presence of the plasmid; detecting the presence of the gap-filled plasmid in one or more of the partitions; and determining the fidelity of the polymerase by determining a ratio of partitions containing the gene encoding a functional protein to partitions containing a gene encoding a non-functional protein.

Methods of detecting the absence or presence of a micro-organism in a sample comprising: contacting the sample with a nucleic acid molecule which acts as a substrate for nucleic acid modifying activity of the micro-organism in the sample, incubating the thus contacted sample under conditions suitable for nucleic acid modifying activity; and specifically determining the absence or presence of a modified nucleic acid molecule resulting from the action of the nucleic acid modifying activity on the substrate nucleic acid molecule to indicate the absence or presence of the micro-organism. Corresponding kits are also provided.

Compositions, devices, systems and methods for reducing and/or preventing photo-induced damage of one or more reactants in an illuminated analytical reaction by addition of one or more photoprotective compounds to the reaction mixture and allowing the reaction to proceed for a period that is less than a photo-induced damage threshold period.

The present invention is based, in part, on the discovery and characterization of the CD-NTase family of proteins, as well as compositions comprising CD-NTases, methods of producing nucleotide-based second messengers using such polypeptides, and methods of screening for modulators of the structure, expression, and/or activity of such polypeptides.

The disclosure relates to treating and diagnosing telomere diseases, and methods of screening agents for treating and diagnosing telomere diseases.

The disclosure provides for a newborn metabolic vulnerability profile that can be used to evaluate risk for neonatal mortality and major morbidity in preterm infants, methods of using said model for precision clinical monitoring and targeted investigation of etiologic pathways to reduce the incidence and severity of major morbidities associated with preterm birth.

Methods of detecting the absence or presence of a micro-organism in a sample comprising: contacting the sample with a nucleic acid molecule which acts as a substrate for nucleic acid modifying activity of the micro-organism in the sample, incubating the thus contacted sample under conditions suitable for nucleic acid modifying activity; and specifically determining the absence or presence of a modified nucleic acid molecule resulting from the action of the nucleic acid modifying activity on the substrate nucleic acid molecule to indicate the absence or presence of the micro-organism. Corresponding kits are also provided.

One aspect of the invention provides a system for drug discovery, drug development, drug screening, or drug validation. The system includes: a sample chamber comprising a target protein and a drug candidate that may interfere with the target protein in the sample chamber, wherein the sample chamber is configured to: detect one or more of the following: (a) interference between the drug candidate the target protein and/or (b) one or more dynamics of the drug candidate on the target protein, wherein the one or more dynamics comprise affinity of the drug candidate to the target protein, and select the drug candidate if one or more desirable dynamics is detected. The system includes one or more immobilized surfaces and is configured to detect interactions between the drug candidate and the target protein at the single-molecule level.

The disclosure relates to treating and diagnosing telomere diseases, and methods of screening agents for treating and diagnosing telomere diseases.