lab life

No I'm not going to write about the NH primary. I'll just say that I'm surprised that Hillary won, and I'm glad that the NH and Iowa votes canceled eachother out. In the end the Democratic nomination will be decided by the more populous states (as it should be). Let's get on to more important issues. Yesterday afternoon a very serious topic came up in our bay. You see baymate challenged me to a game of Scrabble (or it's facebook equivalent). I then made a big mistake and mentioned the infamous "reshaven incident". You might be wondering what exactly is the "reshaven incident"? Click on the…
Last week I had a cool result - but this week after looking at all the controls it would seem like that amazing result is an artifact. Oh well ... Instead of showing you that great result, I'll post the remains of another cell that exploded after microinjection. Note that quite a bit of the membrane stayed behind giving the cellular debris a funny appearance.
Yesterday, a postdoc from a neighbouring lab came by to hand over an aliquot of antibodies to baymate. Here's what happened: me: it looks like Santa came early this year. friendly neighborhood postdoc: Well actually my PI would be Santa. I'm more of a reindeer. baymate: Nah, you're an elf. Remember, it's the elves that make all the toys while Santa sits back and relaxes. I think that baymate was on to something. The elves make all the toys, while Santa goes on a world-wide toy-promotion PR tour. But the only question I have is who are the reindeer?
(Yeah, I know, luck ... at least I feel better after staying in the lab until 9:00PM purifying DNA from 40 mini-preps and then preparing 40 DNA digestion reactions.)
It's incredible. You finish with one project, and the next set of experiments pops up. No time to blog, no time to read papers ... although there are several interesting ones: transcriptional regulation by an endogenous antisense RNA in yeast, ribosomes composed of slightly different subunits translate different messages, how the endoplasmic reticulum is inherited in yeast and how this act helps organize the septins, and this very complicated paper about the energetics of protein folding and how this relates to vesicular transport. If anyone has had the time to sift through these, please let…
Sorry about the lack of posts, I've been a bit busy as of late. On Thursday I had to look over the proofs for my upcoming paper: The Signal Sequence Coding Region Promotes Nuclear Export of mRNA. It is due to come out December 4th in PLoS Biology. If also been busy with two other projects that have recently yielded fantastic results. As a result it will be a while before I take another weekend off (yes I'm in the lab, PCRing up genes, RNAi treating cells, and performing the obligatory acts of cutting and pasting DNA). But don't get me wrong, I am very excited about these new results. It is…
Here's a general email message that I just sent out for next week's New England RNA Data Club. Hello All, The next meeting of the New England RNA Club will take place Tuesday, November 20th starting at 6:00PM in the Cannon Room of Building C at Harvard Medical School. Our speakers will be: - Caryn Navarro, Lehmann Lab, NYU - Ruthie Zearfoss, Ryder Lab, U Mass Worcester - William Abraham Pastor, Rao Lab, HMS We will email out a flyer of the meeting by the end of the week. Food and beverages will be served after the talks. This meeting is sponsored by MERCK, Qiagen and The Department of Cell…
For those in the Boston metro area. First up, next Friday, November 9th, there will be a conference being held here at the Medical Campus entitled Publishing in the New Millennium: A Forum on Publishing in the Biosciences. Not only is fellow blogger Anna Kushnir part of the organizing committee, but Bora Zivkovic (from A Blog Around the Clock) is one of the invited panelists. Here is the program: "Publishing in the New Millennium: A Forum on Publishing in the Biosciences" Friday, November 9, 1:00 - 6:00 pm TMEC Walter Amphitheater, Harvard Medical School 260 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA…
So this morning baymate was telling me how she's taking a course called Intro to Maya with Gael McGill, a former gradstudent here at Harvard Med School. Gael co-founded Digizyme and gained quite a bit of attention with his fantastic "cellular movie". You know the one where a kinesin motor protein drags a vesicle along a microtubule. Gael is teaching gradstudents and postdocs here at Harvard Medical School how to use Maya, a program used to generate animated 3D-movies of the type popularized by Pixar Studios. There are even plans to have a repository of 3D animations of cellular phenomena…
I would like to thank the speakers and all of you who attended our NERD Club (New England RNA Data Club). One amazing aspect of our club is the diversity of the topics included. Last night we had talks about mTOR signalling (TOR = Target of rapamycin) and how it activates the translation of certain mRNAs. TOR signalling is fascinating. It is the major way that cells assess the nutritional status of the cell. If the nutrient levels plummet, TOR signalling will inhibit a lot of the translation in the cell. Recently TOR signalling has been shown to be important in all sorts of translational…
Here is the email I sent out today: Hello All, The next meeting of the New England RNA Club will take place October 30th starting at 6:00PM in the Cannon Room of Building C at Harvard Medical School. Our speakers will be: - Xiaoju (Max) Ma, Blenis Lab (HMS) - Andrew Grimson, Bartel Lab (Whitehead) - Ming-Chung Kan, Richter Lab (U Mass Worcester) Food and beverages will be served after the talks. This meeting is sponsored by MERCK, Qiagen, Alnylam and The Department of Cell Biology HMS. If you are driving in and need parking, please let us know before Friday so that we can make…
This week has just come and gone. I didn't do a single experiment. As for the blog, I typed two measly entries. But I did finalize my PLoS paper, give journal club and prepare for the next New England RNA Data Club. It's taking place here at Harvard Medical School on October 30th. So what else happened this week? Yes, I heard about the whole Watson affair. (BTM do you have anything to say? I guess the last time Watson was served by a black waiter, our Nobel laureate didn't tip well ...) The latest in this story is that he just got reprimanded by the Board of Trustees at Cold Spring Harbor.…
One lobbyist's recommendations on how academic publishers should counter the open access movement. Do I need to write anything? Just read it here. Also see - Eric Dezenhall PR memo to publishers leaked (Coturnix) - Publishers prepare for war over open access (Jim Giles, the New Scientist) And previously: - PRISM - a new lobby against open access - The latest reactions to PRISM
Unfortunately I'll be out of town, but if anyone is in the Boston area, I encourage you to attend. All the info is in this email I just got from Corie: You've seen the website, now meet the people who are on it (and who run it). Nature Network Boston (http://network.nature.com/boston) is hosting the 4th of its monthly pub nights for Boston-area scientists next Tuesday, September 25 at 6pm. If you're new to NNB or haven't been able to make it to our previous events, this is your chance to get out of lab and meet scientists from that university across the river or that biotech company down the…
From today's email: Dear Colleague: NIH is inviting health professionals engaged in biomedical and behavioral research to apply online for a loan repayment award. The loan repayment programs (LRPs) are a vital component of our nation's efforts to recruit and retain highly qualified professionals to careers in research. NIH annually awards loan repayment contracts to approximately 1,600 health professionals with an average award of $52,000. More than 50% of the awards are made to individuals less than 5 years out of school. Approximately 40% of all new applicants are funded and 70% of…
Me: So how long has it been since you first submitted your paper to XXX?Resident Genius Postdoc: Next week it'll be eight months.Me: Wow, that's almost like pregnancy.Resident Genius Postdoc: At least there's an end to pregnancy.Me: Yeah, I guess you can always get a c-section. Question: why don't journals have some policy about how long they can hold a manuscript that is up for review? Journals should promise to review any submitted manuscript within a certain number of days. If the review process (including the first and second review periods, but excluding the time it took the authors to…
This morning, baymate and I were debating when would be a suitable time for coffee when we heard a giggle from the next bay. Here's what our neighbor saw on her transformation plate: And here's a blowup: As another postdoc said, "you probably don't have to sequence those colonies. They'll have what you're looking for."
German Nihilist Postdoc: You know what we are?Me: No, what?GNP: Leibeigenschaft.Me: What's that?GNP: A serf, you know like in the middle ages.Me: You mean XXX is our lord and we follow his commands?GNP: Yup. Or a pawn, yes that is what we are.Me: Yeah, I guess XXX is the king or queen and we little guys move up the board square by freakin' square for the glory of the lab.GNP: Sometimes we kick to the right, sometimes to the left, battling the pawns from the other competing labs.Me: Some of us are sacrificed with risky projects.GNP: If we are not protected or backed up by the other pawns.Me:…
This was to be expected. Remember how Elsevier and American Chemical Society hired Eric Dezenhall? (click here for more) Well apparently under Dezenhall's direction these guys have formed Partnership for Research Integrity in Science & Medicine or PRISM, a lobby group against open access. As I've mentioned before, there is a concern about how open access (OA) is to be funded. It takes lots of money to hire editors and a production team to produce a top tiered journal such as Science, Nature, Cell and even PLoS Biology. And it is not only the peer review and production, but also the…
From the last week's issue of Nature, More biologists but tenure stays static. From the article: The data, compiled by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) (opa.faseb.org/pages/PolicyIssues/training_datappt.htm), are from many sources, including the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the Council of Graduate Schools and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). And one message is clear: increasing numbers of bright young students are eager for a career in biology and biomedicine, but fewer than before will gain the coveted tenured academic positions. Although…