February 2026 Round-up
Hi everyone! Here is what’s new with Bento Bio since the beginning of this year.
We’d love to hear your feedback, questions, and comments. Just contact us here.
Leopard Detection
We were excited read this new publication by Alagaili & Amor (2026), using Bento Lab for Oxford Nanopore MinION DNA barcoding of leopards in Saudi Arabia – a study that detected the presumed regionally extinct Arabian Leopard (Panthera pardus nimr)!
See the LinkedIn post by one of the authors, Nabil Amor, for more details.
You can also read more about their use of Bento Lab for fieldwork and other work in our blog post, Decoding the Leopard Genome.
Wild Lab – Dr Amor’s set-up for sequencing in the field
Malaria Surveillance
In January, Yale School of Health’s Amy Bei and team shared how they and their collaborators processed hundreds of malaria samples in real time while training scientists from across Chad using Bento Lab and Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ MinION.
It’s amazing work to see in action, and it shows how molecular analysis can happen right where it matters. You can read more about this work on Amy Bei’s post on LinkedIn.
Molecular Pathogen Training
The Institute of Biology, University of the Philippines Diliman, posted about their molecular pathogen detection training course. It involved sampling, DNA extraction, PCR analysis, and data management; working with snail-borne parasites, pathogens, STIs, and water samples; and PCR, eDNA and qPCR!
It was great to see Bento Lab being used as part of their PCR training!
You can read about here, and also check out the Philippine Society of Parasitology’s post about the event on Facebook.
Bento: Improved Teaching Primers, and a New Teaching Lab Kit
We’ve recently improved the formulation of our learning-focused primers. The new formulations are more tolerant to crude DNA extractions and should therefore work better in classrooms.
We’ve also started working on smaller, more affordable teaching kits, starting with a Lactose Intolerance Teaching Lab (now in our store).
If you’re teaching PCR or using the Biotech 101 Learning Primers, we would love to hear from you. What frustrates you about current PCR lab teaching products? What changes would you like to see?
That’s it for February! If you have stories to share, we’d love to hear from you (and include you in the newsletter next month).
Best of luck for all your DNA extractions and polymerase chain reactions in March!
Your Bento Bio Team
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