Hey JC

A cool thing about academic science is thay you are expected to continually learn. In addition to your experiments, you must keep up on any publications relating to your project or anything that could be connected to your project. It is also necessary to keep up on your field as a whole (in my case metastasis, breast cancer, and cancer in general).

I’ll admit, sometimes I get super lazy and don’t particularly want to read a paper titled, “Histone Acetyltransferase hALP and Nuclear Membran Protein hsSUN2 Function in De-condensation of Mitotic Chromosomes” a paper directly related to my project. Conversely, I may be drawn to a paper titled “Localized and reversible TGFß signaling switches breast cancer cells from cohesive to single cell motility” – a bigger picture paper.

Either way, the NIH (as well as my labs at the UA and Germany) have a way to make you read – Journal Club. As you may guess, I often find my mind drifting, and here are a few things I noticed this week:

• Socks & sandals. WHY do older researchers (see: PIs* AKA the bosses) insist on wearing socks with their sandals?
• Having to be the person who has to translate biochem/genetics/etc. into sign language must be rough.
• I count 2 people asleep and 10 people playing the nodding off game. Glad I brought my coffee!
• Older Female Principle Investigators put me on edge – they are intense x 10^9. And Lalage Wakefield has that + fierce x 10^9.
• Love how PIs use their Blackberry’s during Journal Club. If anyone else tried that shit they would be called on it, taken outside and then shot.

 

PI = Principle Investigator