Welcome to the Abcam blog

An Abcam customer from Japan has been very creative with their Molly toys. In a throw back to our 2010 Find Molly calendar, they have hidden various Molly toys all over their work area.

There are six Molly toys to find, can you find them all?

Visit their blog to find out the answers, as well as the original image. However, if you can't read Japanese you just need to scroll down to find it!

We love seeing our customers' creative side, feel free to get in touch via our Facebook or Twitter accounts.

April's solutions are now here.

Have you had trouble finding Molly, or do you think you've found every image? The wait is now over, as you can find all the answers here.

Based on the great fun we had in 2009 with the popular Fine Art of Science calendar, I couldn't wait to see what we came up with for 2010...

It's about to get a lot more competitive.. we've hidden our Molly the Sheep mascot in the calendar images for each month. There are lots of Mollies in each month's images: some are easy to find, some are fiendishly difficult!

Challenge your colleagues and friends to find as many as they can, and then month by month check back on this blog or at www.abcam.com/findmolly for the solutions.

Calendars will be sent out with every order in December and January whilst stocks last, or visit our scientific experts at conferences to collect your copy!

Since our calendar and magnets have proven to be so popular we've taken it one step further and turned the US office into an art gallery. And not just any art gallery a Molly art gallery! From Monet to Van Gogh and everything in between we've got all twelve images from our illustrious 'The Fine Art of Science' calendar as stunning framed masterpieces.

Check out the difference for yourself:

Before

Dan, Marketing Coordinator and Spencer, Marketing Intern hard at work measuring.

After

Dan and Spencer proudly displaying Edvard Munch's: The Scream.

The office now has a decidedly exhibition-like feel. Although fortunately we haven't yet been charged an admission fee!

In October, we ran a competition to celebrate Abcam's tenth anniversary, offering the chance to win three prizes: a day out for your lab, a meal for your lab, and a basket of delicacies.

Learn more about the Abcam story, and find out how the winners got on below...

First prize: Dr Fumiko (Pathology Institute, Tokyo)

Here's some pictures of the lab's day out, and it looks like Molly the Sheep was lucky enough to be invited too!

"We really enjoyed the hot spa and blowfish cuisine. Thank you for giving us such a wonderful opportunity". Dr Fumiko

Second prize: Dr Koh (Johns Hopkins University)

"We all had a great time. Thank you!!" Dr Koh

Third prize: Dr Smit-Rigter (University of Amsterdam)

As well as the basket of goodies, you can spot the Abcam pathway cards too! "Thanks a lot for all the stuff. It was delicious. Here a photo of the basket and us enjoying it". Dr. Smit-Rigter

Or at least that's what it looked like to me...

Terence and Jeong Suk visited China recently to host five seminars on ChIP and Western Blot applications in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. In total, over 450 delegates attended the seminars, and it seems that Molly the sheep wanted to come along too.

Having read all the feedback comments about our website, I know that there are some pretty big fans of Molly out there. If you can't tell, we're all pretty keen on her too!

At the end of each seminar there was a Q&A session, which proved to be very popular. Questions included:

2009 is well and truly upon us, so it's time to open up the new Abcam calendar, 'The Fine Art of Science'.

What's more, we're doing something a little extra special this year. We've taken the artwork for each month (plus the awesome 'Sheep with the Pearl Earring' cover) and turned them into fridge magnets!

Magnets will be given out in order boxes for the whole of 2009, but we only have limited stock for each month. Even I haven't been able to get hold of any, they've been safely locked away...

So make sure you order early so you can collect all thirteen for your lab.

Read more about Molly and the Abcam story.

It may be a little early to start Christmas shopping for you lab, but Abcam have released the 'must-have' for this season, our 2009 calendar! This year's theme is 'The fine art of science', and in addition to Molly the sheep, it features 12 great characterization images from our lab.

Update: as well as giving out the calendar in all orders, we have also produced some limited-stock fridge magnets based on the designs!

I had a quick chat with John, the designer who's worked on the calendar, our pathway posters, and the famous Molly...

Q: Hi John. What's the idea behind the Abcam calendar, and how many years have we been making these?