All posts by Jessica S. Elman

articles, arts & culture, Community, Events for Students

“The Prize” by Geoffrey M. Cooper, PhD is a thriller for the dramatic scientist in all of us

I was excited to learn a few months ago that my former PI from BU, Dr. Geoffrey Cooper, was publishing a fictional novel about the competitive world of scientific discovery and competition. I’m sharing a short review for you guys to hopefully inspire you to pick up a copy of your own to enjoy this entertaining and relatable thriller!

A fictional novel that tells the story of two professors racing to discover the first successful Alzheimer’s drug, written by Geoffrey Cooper PhD., a professor of Biology at BU. The story follows a chronological timeline to detail how the insatiable need to achieve a novel discovery can drive scientists to perform inconceivable acts. Pam Weller acts as the protagonist, a young assistant professor studying Alzheimer’s, vying for tenure at the fictional Boston-based research institute, the Langmere. Opposing Pam is Eric Prescott, a well-established and older professor at the Institute for Advanced Neuroscience in Cambridge, also a fictional and supposedly more established institute, compared to the Langmere. Whereas Eric is credited with the establishment of an Alzheimer’s mouse, Pam is building her budding career on a novel cell culture model of Alzheimer’s in which primary mouse brain cells grow plaques and die in vitro. Pam’s lab’s efforts are directed towards screening tens of thousands of compounds in her cell culture model in hopes of identifying a drug that can stop or reverse the formation of plaques to rescue the cells—a much speedier technique, compared to the screening of compounds in Alzheimer’s mice. With Pam’s tenure review coming up quickly, the pressure is on for her to make a truly groundbreaking discovery. When Pam’s postdoc Holly happens to identify the right compound, she greedily decides to keep the data to herself in hopes of advancing her own career. In an exciting and dreadful twist, Holly uses her discovery to team up with Eric to steal the drug, destroy Pam’s credibility, and walk away with all the glory and a Nobel Prize to boot.

This book is a true thriller as Pam works to uncover the truth and gain credit where it is truly due. The Prize is an easy-to-read page-turner. It’s an exciting and relatable story that is sure to entertain, especially for us, as we are deep in the trenches of scientific discovery!

That being said, hopefully none of us are resorting to tactics as evil and dramatic as Eric and Holly. It’s just a Nature paper and full tenure and the Nobel Prize… nothing worth murdering anyone over, right?

The Prize is available for purchase on Amazon.com

Community, Events for Students, October 2017

ICYMI: Short course on Introduction to Drug Development

The fall semester is in full swing here at Tufts, and Dean Dan Jay’s mission to “train to career excellence” is already palpable. You may have noticed that you received an e-mail alerting you to new course offerings at Tufts this fall: a career coaching workshop that also includes one-on-one sessions with career strategist Sarah Cardozo Duncan (this took place on October 16, 2017) as well as a short, five-week course on drug development, led by Tufts alumnus and Agios Pharmaceuticals’ director of enzymology Stefan Gross, PhD.

As a “senior grad student” (don’t call me that to my face), the impending decisions of career paths are pressing on me. Since I had met Stefan at other Sackler events–he gave a DMCB seminar as well as judged our flash talk competition last spring–I knew he was a fantastic scientist and speaker. I jumped at the opportunity to learn from him first hand about the work he is involved in, and registered for his course on drug development. In this edition of “In Case You Missed It,” I’ll be sharing with you my experience at our first class. Perhaps it will inspire you to also take other career training courses that we anticipate will be offered in the coming semesters!

In this first class, Stefan talked about developing drugs for strategically selected diseases- for example, rare genetic diseases that are relatively uncommon but are actually prevalent enough for a substantial patient population (and ultimately drug consumer population) to exist. We reviewed a specific example that covered the series of experimental techniques performed toward developing treatments for an example of a category of rare genetic diseases, Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDG). As the name CDG suggests, these conditions are due to defective glycosylation, the ubiquitously important process in which a carbohydrate is attached to a molecule to enable its structural or functional role. Glycosylation defects can occur at many different points of sugar production, and for every affected step in the pathway, there can be an associated disease. We learned about how to design an experiment to screen thousands of compounds that might rescue enzymatic activity of phosphomannomutase 2 (PMM2), a defective enzyme in a type of CDG. Moving forward, we also learned how to follow up on and validate hits from a screen and then progress those compounds through a drug development program.

Just from this first meeting, I can tell this course is unlike any other I have taken at Tufts (and as a one-time Immunology, now-CMDB student, trust me, I have taken many). The mix of graduate students and postdocs, as well as the presence of our Deans Dan and Dan, creates a new kind of diversity and range of experience that results in many thought provoking questions, comments, and discussions. I look forward to completing the class goals outlined by Stefan, which are to familiarize ourselves with the small molecule drug discovery process and current state-of-the-art concepts in drug discovery, and to conduct a company diligence exercise. Towards the first two goals, we will be learning about procedures carried out at industrial companies that often require resources graduate students like ourselves could only dream of, like simultaneously testing thousands of 96-well plates with tens of thousands of compounds in a screen. By thinking about science through a lens in which we are enabled with benefits like these, experiments can be designed in a completely different way. Furthermore, the third goal of the course, to conduct a company diligence exercise, is meant to prepare us for an interview at a biotech company, something that your microbial genetics course may not.

Keep an eye out for announcements for career-oriented course offerings in the future. These are great opportunities for those of us who may be interested in transitioning to a career in industry after grad school, and even for those who have other paths in mind but are still curious about the inner workings of industrial procedures!

April 2017, articles, arts & culture, Community, Events for Students

CMDB and Genetics Programs Come Together in Portland, Maine

For the first time, the Genetics and CMDB programs came together for a retreat in Portland, Maine for the snow and slush-filled weekend of April 1st. The retreat brought together students from different programs to interact and learn more about one another’s’ research, as well as students from different campuses. Both the Boston and the Bar Harbor Jackson Laboratories contingents made it to Portland to join the Scarborough Maine Medical Research Center Institute (MMCRI) folks for a weekend of science and camaraderie. Students and faculty gave brief talks on their work, followed by a poster session and a fantastic keynote speech on storytelling was given by Christine Gentry. Read on for details on the weekend, written by Jessica Elman (CMDB, Boston Campus), Jessica Davis-Knowlton (CMDB, MMCRI), and Alexander Fine (Genetics, JAX).  

We kicked off the retreat with a marathon of 16 talks given by students in year four and up from the CMDB and Genetics programs. Given the challenge to present a summary of their work in seven minutes or less, the students delivered with presentations that were brief but pointed. Three winners were selected by Philip HInds, Ira Herman, and Rajendra Kumar-Singh for their exceptional clarity, creativity, and concision.

In third place, Melissa LaBonty, a 5th year CMDB student in Pamela Yelick’s lab, presented on her work studying Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP). In this rare and severely understudied disease, an abnormal wound repair mechanism results in bone ossification in soft tissue after damage or injury. LaBonty is working with zebrafish to create a model of FOP, which will help to better characterize the disease and understand the underlying mechanisms that drive its progression. In her presentation, LaBonty spoke clearly and at an even pace, with assisting powerpoint slides that displayed only the most essential words: together this style helped keep the group focused on her story and contributed to her ranking as one of the best speakers of the day.

 

Siobhan McRee, a 5th year Genetics student in Philip Hinds’ lab, came in second among the student presenters. McRee talked about her work in which she is elucidating the roles of different Akt isoforms in BRAF-mutant melanoma. Though this cancer is initially responsive to the drug Vemurafenib, which specifically targets cells with a BRAF-mutation, cells with other driving mutations manage to survive the drug treatment and clonally expand, resulting in significant and potentially deathly relapse of disease. Ultimately, McRee’s work will help to better understand how the Akt signaling pathway is involved in this disease and may result in more therapeutically targetable molecules. McRee’s story logically built from general facts and understanding of BRAF melanoma to ultimately culminate on more specific data showing her findings thus far as well as their implications. Furthermore, her even pace and well-organized slides made her an especially great presenter that day.

Coming in first place was Kayla Gross, a 4th year CMDB student in Charlotte Kuperwasser’s lab. Gross’s work involves understanding how aging contributes to the breast cancer development, and why certain subtypes of breast cancer are more prevalent in the aging population. Given the prevalence of breast cancer, the impactfulness of Gross’ research is immediately obvious. She worked with an aging mouse model to characterize their mammary tissue as well as performed an RNAseq experiment to uncover molecular mechanisms that might be differentially expressed in young and aging mouse tissue. Gross presented her data in a logical progression, and used illustrative cartoons and animations to her advantage to keep her audience focused and to get her point across. Besides for her brilliant and captivating powerpoint, Gross stood out for her speaking style: she had clearly chosen her words to be concise and to the point, which allowed her to make the most of the seven minutes allotted to her.

All in all, the student presentations were remarkably impressive: in just seven minutes, all the participating students managed to convey the most critical and interesting components of their research. This was a great opportunity for everyone to learn a little bit more about what our colleagues are working on, as well as a chance to practice our “flash talk” skills, which will come in handy whether it’s at a job interview or at Thanksgiving table when your uncle asks you to explain what you’re doing in graduate school for the third time.

The Story Collider’s Christine Gentry, PhD as keynote

It was suggested by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, and Jack Cohen in The Science of Discworld II: The Globe that perhaps Homo sapiens as a name for our species is a bit of a misnomer considering we are not omnipotent beings. They suggest Pan narrans, the storytelling ape, because we gain understanding by fitting facts into a larger narrative rather than collecting and storing millions of pieces of disparate information.

As communicators of new knowledge to the world (i.e. our scientific findings), it is important for us to keep the nature of our listeners in mind. In her keynote presentation to the retreat, Story Collider’s Christine Gentry, PhD encouraged us all to think about how to frame our narratives to be more approachable and demonstrated some methods of drawing in an audience.

She immediately captured our attention and sympathy by describing the challenges she faced in a wending career path that started with her geek excitement to bring a black widow spider to her Texas elementary school show-n’-tell, traversed through public outreach on the topic of zoology, and has landed at teacher/storyteller in Boston.

She required us to engage with her material by highlighting snippets of stories that we examined in small groups to find the element that made them compelling. We saw that admitting to vulnerability helps to humanize us to our audience in the story from a researcher who relies on fresh donor tissue, that self identity makes us more honest in the story from a researcher who decided not to cover her tattoos, and that we can surprise our audience by not sticking to script in the story from David who refused to tell the inspiration arising from conflict story that reporters sought to box him into. The thread tying all these stories together is that at the core they are about relationships with others, ourselves, our work, and with the larger community.

Perhaps the most memorable take-home point from her talk is that anecdotes do not equal stories. The response to most anecdotes is naturally “so what?” In order for an event or experience to be a story, it must have changed you: “I was callus, this event happened, and now I am more thoughtful” rather than “I am amazing, I did this, and I am still amazing!”

Scientific inquiry must be done in an objective manner and it is imperative that we remain unbiased as possible when we review scientific evidence, but there is room for us to inject our personalities into our presentations and relate our findings to the people who care. Now it remains to us to decide when to do so and to what degree.

On Sunday morning, we took a break from data and lectures; it was time to start working together. The purpose of this retreat was cross-program cooperation, and in our final event of the weekend, we put that goal into action. We separated into breakout sessions, not by program or campus, but by what we are interested in. These small group discussions were designed to get people together with various strengths and experiences to think about how to solve some of the challenges that graduate students face.

So what are graduate students at Sackler interested in discussing? The topics of these breakout sessions varied. Some sessions focused on day-to-day problems that a graduate student might face, like using CRISPR/Cas9 or selecting a sequencing platform. In the CRISPR discussion, participants came to the conclusion that there are no specific shared standards for all the applications of CRISPR and identified strategies to address potential off-target effects.

Other discussions centered on how to accomplish broader training goals, including grant writing, mentoring, and communicating in science. The grant writing section reviewed general writing strategies, like setting short-term, realistic goals, and shared a need for a formalized grant-writing course at Sackler. The mentoring/leadership session discussed existing programs at Sackler where a student can find a mentor, like the Tufts Mentoring Circles and the Tufts Biomedical Business Club. Students expressed a need for a more accessible alumni network, including cross-institutional resources. In the scientific communication group, students were urged to get on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and ResearchGate.

In two of the largest breakout sessions, participants concentrated on solving larger scale problems: designing coursework for a modern graduate program in biology and bridging the gap between science and medicine. To help bridge the gap between scientific research and medicine at Tufts, the discussion group recommended that faculty members be identified that can connect labs with clinicians and tissue banks. In addition, access to a course that provides a basic orientation to clinical research would benefit many students at Sackler. In the session on coursework for a modern graduate program, one topic became the clear center of the discussion: computational biology! Whether students had struggled through teaching themselves or were currently stuck with a dataset they didn’t know how to analyze, everyone in the room agreed that coursework in computational biology was crucial for a graduate student’s success in modern biology. In addition to new coursework, students from both programs expressed a need for a revision and update of their first year coursework.

While all of the breakout sessions at the retreat were productive, they are meant to be starting points for continued discussion and collaboration. This retreat should be the springboard that leads to action across programs and institutions. Sackler students are lucky to be in programs that span multiple states, campuses, and research focuses. The cross talk between these groups will make each of our programs stronger and better prepare us for our careers in the future.

articles, Community, Events for Students, GSC, GSC career events, March 2017, Mentoring & Outreach, Techniques

ICYMI: Public Relations and Communications Essentials for Scientists

When it comes to reporting our scientific findings, we are trained to compose manuscripts that are measured, precise and objective. The mainstream media, however, take a very different approach to broadcasting scientific news: headlines designed to grab readers tend to be more sensationalized and the articles draw more conclusive and overarching statements. These contrasting approaches to reporting are appropriate in their respective fields and it is important that we as scientists learn to take advantage of mainstream journalism for the publication of our discoveries, not only for the reputations of our university and ourselves, but also to share with the public, whose tax dollars fund most of our work, what we have accomplished. Enter the Tufts Public Relations Office—a fantastic resource that allows us the opportunity to share our research with the community outside of our scientific world. The purpose of the seminar du jour was to inform the Tufts community on how the office works and how to best use it to our advantage.

The purpose of the seminar was to provide some information on how to work with the PR office when you are ready to publish work that you would like to broadcast beyond scientific journals. Kevin, the assistant director of the office, stressed that the earlier you get in touch with the PR office, the better prepared they will be to help you. The best time to contact them about publicizing a manuscript is when you are submitting your final revisions to the scientific journal that will be publishing the paper. You will be asked to share your manuscript with the office so that Kevin and members of his team, who are well versed in reading scientific literature, can familiarize themselves with your work. Soon after, they will meet with you to discuss the details of your study, get a quote, and draft a news release that your PI can edit and approve. From there on out, the PR Office works to spread the word on your research via prominent blogs, science, local, and potentially national media, depending on your work’s level of impact. The PR Office is also equipped to help you interact with reporters effectively: they can prepare you to talk about your science in layman’s terms to be more relatable and better understood by the general public.

By sharing your work with more mainstream media, you build your reputation as well as credit your university, your funding agencies, and the tax-paying public. Reach out to the PR Office for more information on communicating your science with the rest of the world and take advantage of the great opportunities they offer that can make you a more visible and effective participant in the science world!

One last tip for those of you interested in improving your science communication skills–keep your eyes peeled for more details on our upcoming joint Dean’s Office / TBBC / GSC Event, Sackler Speaks in April!  This is a competition for students to pitch their 3-minute flash talks in front of a panel of judges.  Besides critical feedback on presentation skills, there will also be cash prizes for winning presentations!

Contacts at the Tufts PR Office, Boston Campus:

Siobhan Gallagher, Deputy Director (Siobhan.gallagher@tufts.edu)

Kevin Jiang, Assistant Director (Kevin.Jiang@tufts.edu)

Lisa Lapoint, Assistant Director (Lisa.Lapoint@tufts.edu)

 

articles, Community, Events for Students, February 2017

ICYMI: New DMCB/MORI Seminar Series Kickoff

This month I’ll be giving you the low-down on a seminar that kicked off a new weekly meeting, hosted by by MORI (Molecular Oncology Research Institute) and the DMCB (Developmental, Molecular, & Chemical Biology) department. The inaugural meeting took place on Thursday, January 26, 2017, with talks presented by Jerrica Breindel, Ph.D. and Thomas Ni, Ph.D., both postdoctoral researchers in the Kuperwasser lab, which focuses on breast development and cancer research.

Before the realization of this new series, MORI hosted a pizza-catered weekly seminar on Friday afternoons at 75 Kneeland. Graduate students and postdocs from the Hinds, Kuperwasser, Hu, Tsichlis, Kuliopulos and other members of the institute would participate in the meetings for the opportunity to share their work and receive feedback from other scientists working in the cancer field. Thanks to the initiative of several professors, the once exclusively-MORI meeting has now joined forces with interested labs in the DMCB department to bring together more scientists on a weekly basis.

At this first meeting, Jerrica presented to talk about her work on elucidating whether certain oncogenes drive the formation of specific subtypes of breast cancer. Her approach involves breeding mice with mammary gland driven oncogenes and observing the phenotypes of their mammary epithelial development and tumorigenesis. In collaboration with Piyush Gupta’s lab at MIT, she is also experimenting with growing human primary mammary organoids that are infected with viruses that cause the expression of various oncogenes of interest in 3D hydrogels. The structures generated in these gels look incredible as they grow into biologically relevant ductal networks that can be assessed with immunofluorescence. Pro tip: if you happen to be in Kendall Square, walk by the Koch Institute’s first floor where you can see a picture of one of these beautiful structures on display!

Next up, Tom presented his unique and innovative quest to define a novel method for identifying putative tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes. Following up on a hit from a screen he conducted as a graduate student at Yale University, he identified that an alternative isoform of a protein called MAGI3 acts as an oncogene that can promote breast cancer by permitting Hippo signaling that causes malignant transformation of mammary epithelial cells. After uncovering that premature poladenylation is responsible for the production of this alternative isoform, he started to investigate whether other cancer-related genes have the same premature poladenylation signal. Intriguingly, it appears that the mechanism behind MAGI3’s alternative isoform is not a one-off event, but something that might be behind the formation of many known (and very likely unknown) genes that are involved in tumorigenesis!

Overall, this first meeting was a great success: we drank, we snacked, and we learned about some truly exciting work from the members of the Kuperwasser lab. Everyone is welcome to attend these series, held every Thursday at 4PM in M&V412. Emily Michael of the Kuliopulos Lab spoke at the subsequent meeting on February 2nd and we are all looking forward to hearing from other members of MORI and DMCB in these upcoming months!

 

articles, Community, Events for Students, GSC career events, November 2016

ICYMI: Career Exploration Panel

In this month’s edition of ICYMI, I’ll be giving you the low-down on a career exploration panel that took place on November 3rd in Sackler 114, sponsored by the GSC, TBBC, and the Sackler Dean’s office. Like every great event at Tufts, there was plenty of cheese, crackers, and booze to go around. Aaron Bernstein (CMP) took the stage as emcee and introduced the eight panelists and their intended career paths, which ranged from teaching to healthcare consulting.

I’ve made you all a little cheat sheet that summarizes the main takeaway for each career path and some of the great resources provided by the panelist that can help you learn more about and prepare for the job. Hopefully one or more of these professions spark your interest and inspire you to join a club, participate in an event, or simply give you something new to think about!

  1. Joslyn Mills-Bonal (CMP), teaching

Inspired by her great experience at a small liberal arts college, Joz participated in the panel as an advocate for a teaching-heavy career at a community college, liberal arts college, or university.  

Teaching experience, which might seem hard to find at Sackler, is critical for preparing you for this job. Take advantage of student seminars and treat them as an opportunity to practice teaching. You can work on your curriculum design skills by getting involved in behind the scenes efforts for the various teaching opportunities you participate in. For example, if you get involved with Biobugs you can also take part in designing the labs.

It’s important to think about what kind of institute you want to work for- a liberal arts college? A state university? A research I institute? These decisions will inform the steps you take during and after graduate school as you work towards your career as a teaching professor. For example, a postdoc is usually required for a job at a liberal arts school and above, whereas community college professors don’t need a PhD. Also keep in mind that if you don’t want to continue to do research, your publication list isn’t so important. If you do want to continue to do research, however, you need to keep in mind that prolific publishing is paramount.

Opportunities/resources of interest:  

If you’re interested in any of the above opportunities or simply want to learn more about this track, feel free to contact Joz!

  1. Laura Stransky (CMP), academic/industry science

In academia we aim to better understand some disease or mechanism, whereas those in industry work to make some therapeutic or drug that can be marketed and sold. For both jobs, however, Laura loves the fact that you get the luxury of thinking for a living!

As a graduate student at Tufts, you’re already actively in training for a career as a scientist! To make the most of your time in graduate school, go to seminars as often as possible and learn from how other people present. Remember that for many of the visiting speakers there is a lunch you can attend with the speaker at which you can network and learn about their career path. Take any and all opportunities to write! There are plenty of grants travel awards, abstracts, and conferences that give you the chance to practice writing. By taking mentoring opportunities—volunteering to work with rotating students, for example—you can develop the management skills that are critical to being a good scientist, regardless of whether you’re in industry or academia.

After graduate school you must become a postdoc if you intend to get a job in academia. You need to demonstrate your ability to accrue funding and publish high impact papers. If you’re leaning more towards becoming a scientist in industry, a postdoc isn’t absolutely essential but can certainly get you started a little higher on the ladder. Furthermore, a postdoc before industry can help you expand your skills, fill in any gaps that you may have, and perhaps give you the opportunity to get involved in more translational research and develop project management skills.

  1. Kayla Gross (CMDB), science communication

This field encompasses more than just one kind of job—you can be a medical writer, a publisher, a communicating officer at a brand, or even a journalist. While at Tufts, find ways to improve and practice your writing and communication skills! Look for as much feedback as you can on your manuscripts, abstracts, posters, presentations and even committee reports to help you sharpen your skills and hone in on what needs to be improved. You need to practice adaptability to different scientific fields, since as a writer you are unlikely to be limited to just one topic. Furthermore, you need to be able to speak to those who aren’t well versed in the field you are writing about.

For a job in science writing, there is no hard and fast rule on whether you need to postdoc or not. The only track in which working as a postdoc is encouraged is in being an editor. If journalism is your goal, keep in mind that making the shift from grad school to journalism can be tricky—you may have to do some freelance writing for a while to build up your portfolio and break into the field.

Opportunities/resources of interest:  

  • Join the INSIGHT newsletter/blog! You can participate as much or as little as your time permits, and it’s a great opportunity to practice your writing and communication skills. Contact Kayla to join!
  • Tufts also has a collaboration with Emerson College in which you can work with an undergraduate communications student whose project is to assemble a science-centric media piece in which your research is explained to the general public. This is a great way for you to practice making the science that we think so deeply about a digestible subject for the general public!
  1. Andrew Hooper (Neuro), science policy

A job in science policy often involves advising policy makers on important scientific matters. This is a great way to have impact on our government and every day lives by helping educate people, especially politicians, who often have very minimal science knowledge. Because part of the job also often involves putting budgets together, it’s important for you to have some financial savvy. Finally, communication skills are essential, as you’ll be translating complicated scientific concepts to people completely untrained in the field.

There are many organizations that offer policy fellowships that can support you while you work in D.C. and learn the ropes, most of which require a postdoc. Applications are usually due in January and start dates are in the fall.

Andrew suggested you contact him if you’re interested in science policy!  

  1. Matthew Kelley (Neuro), data science

Data science merges statistics, math, and programming to help get insight from large databases, generate correlations, and make predictive models.

Hard skills you need for a job in data science include statistics, programming—many things you are already doing regularly as a PhD student. It’s important to learn how to code, which you can do on your own! While you’re at Tufts, try to integrate data science in your PhD project to practice applying your skills.

Opportunities/resources of interest:  

  • The Insight Science Data Fellowship, designed to bridge the gap between a non-computational graduate degree and a career in health data science (http://insighthealthdata.com/). In this program, you’re funded for 7 weeks to learn from industry leaders and even interview with some of the top companies in the industry!
  • Check out the newly formed Data Science Club—there have only been two meetings so far so get in early! The club plans on bringing in speakers and learning applicable skills together.
  • MIT edX has a course on analytics: https://www.edx.org/course/analytics-edge-mitx-15-071x-2
  1. Jaclyn Dunphy (Neuro), entrepreneurship

A job as an entrepreneur is exciting because it involves brainstorming and sharing ideas with other people to start something completely novel. A job at a start-up company might seem high risk, but it offers the opportunity to make a big impact, as teams are usually small. If you’re interested in being a “big piece of a small system,” this field might be for you!

Firstly, to be more proactive, reach out to others—contact experts who can assess your idea and help you decide how feasible it is. Secondly, demonstrate leadership skills! Take the lead with rotation students and get involved in student-run groups where you can take some charge! Thirdly, practice your interpersonal and networking skills. You must practice the formula to successful networking: reaching out to your person of interest the day after meeting them, be it via e-mail or LinkedIn, and setting up a time and day for a coffee meeting where you can learn more about their job and solidify your professional relationship. To get started as an entrepreneur, the best thing you can do is… be an entrepreneur! Think of an idea and start a company!

Opportunities/resources of interest:  

  • Cross register for classes in the entrepreneurial management program at the Medford campus
  • Engage in IDEAS competitions
  • Participate in Mass Challenge!
  • Venture Café: A networking event that happens every Thursday evening at the Cambridge Innovations Center (1 Broadway, Kendall Square, Cambridge MA) where you can have a (free!) drink and socialize with other entrepreneurial-minded people. This can be a great opportunity to find collaborators or just bounce your ideas off other people in a social and friendly environment.
  1. Michaela Tolman (Neuro), healthcare consulting

Michaela aptly nicknamed healthcare consulting “rent-a-brain”—a perfect summary for a job in which you are hired to consult non-experts in a healthcare related venture. Many of us are in biomedical research because we want to help people, but as we all know, research can be slow and it might take years or even decades before a discovery you make in lab actually benefits someone in the clinic. As a consultant you are involved in helping bring people the best healthcare much more rapidly.

It’s extremely important to develop interpersonal and networking skills for a successful career in consulting! The job involves a lot of interactions with non-scientists and you need to be able to fit in and make them feel comfortable. It’s also important that you have business acumen and learn the jargon of the business world. Do you know what people are talking about when they say percent market share, market size, or competitive landscape?

To go on consulting interviews, you have to be able to say that you can graduate within a year. Postdocs are not recommended as consulting firms are typically looking for someone fresh out of graduate school. It’s also critical that you know how to do a case interview, which typically the process one goes through before getting a consulting job.

Opportunities/resources of interest:  

  • Join the case study groups, which take place every Monday!
  • Participate in TUNECC- this is a highly attended case-competition event at which you can show off your consulting skills and get the attention of potential hirers!
  • Come to Biotech Buzz and Tufts Advisory Partners (TAP)!
  • Michaela also had some book recommendations, including Case Interviewing Secrets and Case In Point.
  • A website that might interest you is Seeking Alpha.
  • The “Mini MBA” program at Harvard can be great for your resume
  • Just like for any other career path, network, network, network!
  1. Christina McGuire (Biochem), venture capital

Though there are venture capital firms that solely exist to provide funding for start up companies that already have a formulated product or idea, Christina’s goal is to find a job in a venture capital company that creates ideas in-house. To get that kind of position, you need to have a deep understanding of science and you definitely need good analytical skills. Continue to practice reading primary literature to develop these skills and also keep in mind the importance of acquiring business acumen. Often times, to get a job at a VC firm, you need to get involved in business or consulting first. Demonstrate your entrepreneurial abilities by getting involved in successful projects and familiarizing yourself with the business world, much like when you are preparing for a career in entrepreneurship and consulting!

Opportunities/resources of interest:  

  • Tufts Biomedical Business Club (TBBC) and Biotech Buzz.
  • Christina’s book recommendations: Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson.
  • Subscribe to: Fierce Biotech and XConomy

Overall, the event was a great success and attendees walked away with a wealth of knowledge and tips for how to better prepare for a slough of career options. A major recurring theme throughout the night was the importance of networking, so as intimidating as it may seem, the next time you hear about a networking event, grab a friend and go! You never know if the next person you meet will help open the door to your dream career.

Events for Students, October 2016

ICYMI: Mentoring Circles Kickoff

As part of my resolution to better understand my career goals and options by attending more seminars at Tufts and then sharing my experiences with you, I decided to join the Tufts Mentoring Circle Program. Here’s a brief breakdown of the program’s kickoff event, which was held on October 6th in Sackler 114.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the program, the mentoring circles, open to all graduate students and postdocs at Tufts, are meant to provide a social and educational experience for mentors and mentees alike, bringing together people who, based on a previously submitted survey, have similar career goals and interests. At this first event, the circles, which have an average of five or six people per group, were brought together to meet one another and discuss objectives for the year. Since on my survey I indicated a strong interest in industry, my group consists of postdocs with the same inclination and a mentor who currently works as a scientist at a prominent pharmaceutical company in Cambridge. My experience will be unique to my personal goals, as those who stated an interest in academia are grouped with other academia-bound grad students and postdocs, similarly to how those who are working towards an alternative non-academic career, like science writing, are also assigned to one another for the duration of the program.   

After we introduced ourselves within our groups over pizza and salad, the organizers of the program gave a short presentation on tips and suggestions for how to have a successful circle. The importance of preparing for and attending every meeting was heavily stressed. We were also encouraged to mix up the format our meetings—instead of always just going to a coffee shop and talking, we can go to events together like symposiums, seminars, or even networking events. As someone who finds networking to be an intimidating and nerve-wracking experience, the prospect of having someone come along and act as a safety net seems fantastic and will make me more likely to attend.

After the presentation, groups were left to themselves to chat, set goals, and eat more pizza. In my group, every person had the opportunity to talk about what their dream job might entail—whereas some of the members had pretty specific career ideas, others, including myself, could only speak in broad strokes about factors like work-life balance, travel, and flexibility. The meeting was casual and fun, and it was actually a relief to hear some postdocs, even a few years out of graduate school, have undeveloped ideas about their careers and are still figuring out where they want to end up. Together, we decided on topics that we would like to discuss and goals that we would like to achieve throughout the year and we signed a “Mentoring Circle Contract” that stated the following: “We understand that each of us is responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of our shared communications, meeting regularly at the times we have agreed upon, and actively participating in circle discussions”.  Though this was only our first meeting, I can tell we all have a lot to learn from one another and I am excited for the new professional and friendly circle I am now a part of! It’s like joining a club where the main project is you and your career.

Definitely keep an eye out for the program’s announcement next year, and also keep in mind that American Women in Science (AWIS) is another organization through which some of you can join a similar circle.

articles, Events for Students, September 2016

ICYMI: Dr. Rafael Luna & Telling Science Stories

Hi, Sackler! I’m a fourth year student in CMDB who is terrified of the fact that she just called herself a Fourth Year. Like some of you out there, I am surprised at how quickly my time at Tufts is passing by, and I am panicking about my career and life objectives. That is why I have made the conscious decision to start attending as many PDA and GSC seminars as I can, to better understand my options and to expose myself to the people who can best explain them to me. For your benefit I will be writing up an “ICYMI” (in case you missed it), a take on what went down and what I learned that you will be able to find in this newsletter. My first piece recaps a seminar hosted by the Tufts PDA titled “The Art of Scientific Storytelling,” given by Rafael Luna, Ph.D. Happy September, everyone!

Would The Lion King still be as exciting if Scar weren’t in the picture? How about if “the circle of life” weren’t really critical to survival in sub-Saharan Africa? Pride rock would be meaningless and Simba would have nothing to fight for, right?

Fortunately for all you kids of the 90’s who like to occasionally belt out a little song called “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” Walt Disney’s classic film incorporates a dire antagonist to challenge Simba and thus creates stakes to fight for, making The Lion King the compelling tale we know and love.

On August 18th, Rafael Luna, Ph.D. came to Tufts to talk about how basic storytelling elements—a protagonist, antagonist, conflict, scene, resolution, and stakes—make not only for a great Disney plotline but also an impactful and powerful title for a scientific manuscript. Dr. Luna is a biomedical research fellow at Harvard who has applied this method to the design of dozens of his own manuscripts, as well as those of his clients and collaborators. He explained that, by weaving together the above listed elements, you not only construct a more informative and intriguing title, but you also inform the structure and progression of your manuscript’s contents.

Dr. Luna began his seminar by having the attendees name all the specific storytelling elements from The Lion King: the protagonist = Simba, antagonist (or a secondary, supporting role) = Scar, conflict = regency, scene = Africa, resolution = reclaims, stakes (i.e. research impact) = the circle of life. No matter how you combine these characters and themes, you are able to wholly summarize the story. For example: “Simba defeats Scar in a battle for regency in Africa and reclaims the circle of life.” Or: “The circle of life in Africa is reclaimed by Simba as he defeats Scar in the battle for regency.” The possibilities go on and on.

Having established this, we moved on from cartoons to something slightly more relevant to our purposes, like Dr. Luna’s 2012 Cell Reports publication, C-terminal domain of eukaryotic initiation factor 5 promotes start codon recognition by its dynamic interplay with eIF1 and eIF2β. This title prepares us for a story that is primarily about the “protagonist,” C-terminal of eIF5, supported by the “antagonists” eIF1 and eIF2β. The “scene” is set at the start codon, and the “stakes” are start codon recognition. Finally, dynamic interplay summarizes the “conflict,” and we find ourselves with a complete and all-encompassing title. Throughout the seminar, we continued to analyze several other manuscript titles in order to identify how they were successful and how they could be improved.

The manner in which the title is structured can also help determine how the rest of the manuscript is written. If, for example, you are researching how a drug interacts with a certain protein, you can either structure your title such that the drug is the protagonist and the protein is the antagonist, or vice-versa. Depending on your findings, one should make more sense than the other. The implications go even further, since whether the drug or the protein plays the protagonist determines if your paper should be submitted to Nature Pharmacology or Nature Biochemistry.

Incredibly, Dr. Luna’s method is a tool with which any story can be titled and thus, organized. In just one hour, he provided us with a technique to help create accurate, informative, and complete titles. From there on out, it’s hakuna matata: no worries, for the rest of your days…

If you’re interested in learning more about Dr. Luna’s method, his book The Art of Scientific Storytelling is available for purchase on Amazon.com!