Category Archives: articles

articles, October 2016

CRISPR Interference Battle: Still Duking It Out?

At the moment in the USPTO office, a fierce battle is occurring between two scientific teams over patent rights associated with core CRISPR/Cas technology. On one side of the dispute is Jennifer Doudna’s team from UC Berkeley. On the other side is Feng Zhang’s team from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Both teams were the first labs to demonstrate that the Cas9 enzyme can be directed to cut specific sites in isolated DNA. It will be intriguing to find out who is finally the victor of this contentious debate.

The story of the patent dispute has been lengthy and drawn-out. Jennifer Doudna’s team first filed for patent rights over CRISPR/Cas technology back in May of 2012. Feng Zhang’s team subsequently filed their patent application in December of that same year. Interestingly, Zhang’s team beat Doudna’s team to the punch over patent rights because in October of 2013 they submitted their application for expedited review. Expedited review required the Broad to undergo “accelerate examination,” where they were required to respond quicker to questions asked by the USPTO office. Due to the expedited reviewing process, the patent was ultimately granted to Zhang’s team in April of 2014. Shortly after this event, eleven other CRISPR-related patent applications were  filed by the Broad Institute. To counter-attack the Broad’s prompt monopoly over CRISPR-related patents, Doudna’s team requested a patent interference against all CRISPR-related patents filed by the Broad. The USPTO office finally declared the patent interference in January of 2016.

Historically, a patent interference has been a procedure to resolve disputes between two parties over who was the “first to invent.” However, in March of 2013 the USPTO altered the patent system from “first to invent” to “first to file.” Under these new rules, Doudna’s team would have won the CRISPR patent rights because the team was the “first to file” their patent. But since both parties filed their patents before March 2013, the interference procedure defaults under the outdated “first to invent” rules.

The “first to invent” rule has blurred the lines of who is the true proprietor of the patent rights. For over nine months, both parties have been providing evidence claiming they were the “first to invent.” The Broad asserts that Zhang’s team was the first group to demonstrate that CRISPR/Cas technology has applications in editing genes in mammalian cells. They argue that Doudna’s team only described using CRISPR/Cas in bacteria, not in eukaryotes. This distinction is important because some of CRISPR’s most lucrative, future applications will be in gene editing therapies for human diseases. Doudna’s team countered the Broad’s argument by claiming that although her team only demonstrated the use of the technology in bacteria, transferring the technique to mammalian cells was “obvious” and any “person of ordinary skill,” such as a postdoc, could have made that inference. This observation is also important because one of the hallmarks of patentability is that an invention cannot be obvious to a person of ordinary skill. Doudna’s team asserts that the obviousness of the Broad’s patent would make it invalid. The Broad subsequently counter-argued that the shift from bacteria to mammalian cells was “anything but obvious.” This type of back-and-forth between the USPTO, UC Berkeley, and the Broad has been continuing for the last nine months and updated details of the case can be viewed on the Broad’s CRISPR Patent Interference Updates webpage (reference is listed below).

Patent interference cases can last up to two years before appealing to the Federal Circuit. Due to the intense, ongoing clash between the two academic teams, attorneys expect the end date of the CRISPR patent interference case to be sometime in 2017. However, a recent twist in events may close the case completely by the end of this year. This past week, UC Berkeley attorneys submitted a 2013 dated email to the USPTO office. This email was from Feng Zhang to Jennifer Doudna describing his team’s first, published CRISPR paper and mentioning that he has been “very inspired” by her team’s work. This is enough evidence to imply that Zhang’s team had adapted from Doudna’s team’s work and that Zhang’s team was not the “first to invent” the CRISPR/Cas technology. The Broad understands that it’s difficult to counter this piece of evidence. Since the submission of this email, the Broad has asked patent officials to remove four CRISPR-related patents from the interference case in hopes that they can demonstrate novelty of the patents in other ways that are separate from the initial Zhang team’s CRISPR patent. If the Broad can separate these patents from the interference case, then both UC Berkeley and the Broad can walk away with some intellectual property. We will see in the forthcoming weeks how the case plays out.

Although intellectual property was at stake for the two scientific teams, the interference case has been rather unusual in nature. Why has the fight been so bitter and acrimonious? One explanation could be that it’s not the academic institutions that are footing the legal bill for the case but the biotechnology companies that are relying on licensing the patent. Both Doudna and Zhang have started up genome editing companies and if one of those companies has proprietary rights over the CRISPR/Cas technology, that company can collect huge royalties from patent licensing. Perhaps another reason why the dispute has been rancorous is because Doudna and Zhang have their eyes set on a Nobel Prize. CRISPR/Cas technology is revolutionizing the way we do basic science research, the way we treat diseases, and the way we practice agriculture. For these reasons it’s very likely that the scientists behind the technology will receive a Nobel Prize. Regardless of the outcome of the patent interference, the scientific community is certain of one thing: CRISPR has definitely made its mark in patent law history.

References:

  1. CRISPR Patent Interference Updates. Retrieved from https://www.broadinstitute.org/what-broad/areas-focus/project-spotlight/crispr-patent-interference-updates
  2. Begley, S. (2016, August 16). CRISPR patent fight: The legal bills are soaring. Retrieved from https://www.statnews.com/2016/08/16/crispr-patent-fight-legal-bills-soaring/
  3. Cohen, J. (2016, October 5). Dramatic twists could upend patent battle over CRISPR genome-editing method. Retrieved from http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/10/dramatic-twists-could-upend-patent-battle-over-crispr-genome-editing-method
  4. McCall, A. (2016, June 5). The CRISPR Clash: Who owns the groundbreaking, DNA altering technique? Retrieved from http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2016/06/05/crispr-clash-dna-technology/id=69650/
  5. Ledford, H. (2016, September 21). The Titanic clash over CRISPR patents turns ugly. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com/news/titanic-clash-over-crispr-patents-turns-ugly-1.20631
articles, Community, September 2016

Elisabeth Adkins graduates as the first Tufts JAX Track Ph.D.

Written by Alex Fine

Not all experiments at The Jackson Laboratory take five years to complete. But one day last month, a group of JAX scientists gathered to see the results of a five-year experiment. The presentation by Tufts University Genetics Program student, Elisabeth (Liz) Adkins, described a newly defined cell in the immune system, a cell that when multiplied excessively could contribute to autoimmune diseases such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. But the five-year experiment was even bigger than Liz’s newly defined cells. The other experiment was Sackler’s collaborative partnership with The Jackson Laboratory, and it had yielded measurable success: Liz is its first Ph.D. graduate!

A little over five years ago, the Sackler School and JAX created a new graduate program, the “JAX Track,” that would allow students to enroll with the explicit intent of conducting their thesis research at JAX. Located in Bar Harbor, Maine, The Jackson Laboratory is a world-renowned institution where mammalian genetics is at the forefront of research. JAX hosts Ph.D. students from universities in the US and abroad during some portion of their thesis research.

Tufts JAX Track students might be drawn to JAX because of the laboratory’s history and reputation in mouse genetics, or they might have been at JAX as a summer student and fallen in love with the place, or they might have been told about the resources and community from a mentor who had valued their own time at JAX. But the question, five years ago, that faced JAX and the Sackler School was: were there students who wanted a uniquely JAX experience during their Ph.D.? And would it work? Together, Sackler and JAX faculty thought they had the right ingredients: a strong translational research group at Tufts and wide strengths in mammalian genetics at JAX. But it took the students, and especially Liz Adkins as the pioneer student, to put it together and meet the high expectations.

Adkins joined the JAX Track on the strong recommendation of her undergraduate mentor, Tom King, who had worked with Eva Eicher at JAX during his scientific training. As Liz said, “I also knew that if I wanted to do mouse research – and I did – that there was no better place in the world to do it than at JAX.” Liz’s graduate school career began in the two months before her Sackler orientation, during which she attended the Short Course in Medical and Experimental Mammalian Genetics and had a short research rotation, both at JAX in Bar Harbor. She then moved to Boston to complete her first semester of coursework at Tufts with the rest of her Genetics cohort before returning to Maine to resume her laboratory rotations. At the end of her first year, Liz joined the research group of JAX professor Derry Roopenian for her thesis research. Roopenian studies autoimmune disorders, pathologies that arise when our body’s immune system starts fighting our body. Adkins wanted to understand the process by which B cells, the immune cells in our bodies that produce antibodies, become corrupted to produce antibodies against our own cells and tissues instead of exclusively against foreign invaders like bacteria or viruses.

As we all know, a Ph.D. requires a lot of work. There are hours and hours in the lab, at the microscope and the cell sorter, and reading papers and trying to figure out why results are different than you thought they would be. Adkins had the added challenge of helping to shape the JAX Track program. Although the Sackler and JAX faculty had a clear vision of the program’s mission and the overall structure, there were challenges along the way that no one anticipated – and which Adkins, initially as the sole student, helped solve. “I knew there would be hiccups helping pilot a new program, but I love a challenge and this was one I was happy to take,” recalled Adkins. “Communication lines are open over the geographical distance separating the two institutions. Faculty at both institutions are pulling together and there is a mutual sense of pride in what we all have accomplished,” added Mary Ann Handel, the JAX Track director in Bar Harbor. Thus today, thanks to the efforts of Liz, other Genetics students, both in the JAX Track and in Boston, and the Sackler and JAX faculty, we can all call the program a success!

Liz Adkins moves on from her successes and outstanding work at Tufts and JAX to a postdoctoral research position, studying basic questions about how stem cells remain immortal. And she will continue to teach, an interest she developed during her time as a Sackler student at JAX. She leaves with a sense of accomplishment – in her research and her life – and appreciation for the JAX Track’s unique scientific environment. “Five years later, I have absolutely no regrets,” said Adkins. “I know it helped shape me into the person and scientist I am today, and I feel extremely well prepared for the future.” So yes, in a very personal way, Liz has shown the JAX Track works!

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!

articles, Events for Students, September 2016

TUNECC makes a case for collaborative competition

The annual Tufts New England Case Competition (TUNECC) is a unique, student-organized venture that brings together outstanding teams of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from multiple disciplines and institutions to solve a current life sciences business problem. Each year, the TUNECC Executive Board together with the Center for the Study of Drug Development (CSDD) choose a relevant topic that incorporates both therapeutic and business components to be the focus of the all-day case competition and following panel discussion. Previous years’ topics included new market entry assessment of biologics and post-merger and acquisition integration strategy for a large pharma and an antibiotics biotech. This year the teams tackled Research & Development (R&D) productivity of immuno-oncology field on the example of Juno Therapeutics, a T-cell therapy clinical stage biotech. In addition, a career fair ran throughout the competition, facilitating more opportunities for related conversations and also networking between participants and sponsors.

Two weeks prior to the competition–which took place on August 5th–the assembled teams received their case and were given ten days to brainstorm and structure solutions to the proposed problem. At the competition, the teams presented their proposals in several rounds that were judged by representatives from contributing sponsor companies. For this third year of TUNECC, 17 teams consisting of students from a total of 17 academic institutions nationwide participated, with 5 teams competing in the final round. A first-place prize of $2000 was awarded to the team JT Consulting Solution from Tufts University & Boston University, while second place went to Pennovation, a University of Pennsylvania team ($1000), and third place to Chiron Consulting, a team of students from Vanderbilt University, University of Rochester, University of Arizona and Duke University ($500).

The participating teams this year were highly competitive and deeply engaged in the subject matter, which carried over into a lively discussion during the panel discussion portion of the event. Representatives from sponsoring companies spoke to their experiences with managing company growth and investment to maximize R&D productivity, or rather “doing the best science you can do but also being the most productive.” This conversation evolved as the panel went on, touching on where and why the industry is struggling, the pros and cons of small biotech versus ‘big pharma’ models, and hurdles to approval, pricing, and regulation in drug development. The depth and breadth of the discussion showed how closely intertwined these topics are when considering science in the business setting.

In addition to the high degree of participant engagement, the variety of Tufts programs (multiple Sackler and Medford graduate programs as well as the School of Medicine) and academic institutions from across the country represented at TUNECC is a key component to its continual success. Such cross-institutional collaboration encourages broader thinking and discussion by providing new and different perspectives for each participant to consider when tackling life sciences business problems. The increasing commitment of sponsors from life sciences consulting business sectors also strengthened the event, with the number of sponsoring companies increasing to 11 total this year, almost double the number at the event’s initiation. Not only did this impact the case competition itself but also the day-long career fair and topical panel discussion by providing richer opportunities for forming cross-discipline connections. This achievement was a highlight for this year’s TUNECC Chair Alexandra Taracanova (Pharmacology), who commented that it was rewarding to see “industry being supportive…and interested for what we offer as an event” and was very satisficed by “great talent at Tufts being supported by corporate firms.”

Jennifer Nwankwo, PhD (Pharmacology ‘16) was presented with The Founder’s Award of Excellence for founding, leadership and continues support of TUNECC since the day of its inception in 2014. Additionally more past TUNECC executive members and participants, Julia Keith, PhD (Microbiology ‘15) Hailing Yang, PhD (CMP ‘15), Julie Coleman, PhD (Neuroscience ‘16), Michael Baldwin, PhD (CMP ‘15), and Ben Dake, PhD (CMDB ‘15), attended as judges, sponsor representatives, or simply enthusiastic observers this year, providing the event with increased continuity and a strong network of individuals who return and share their experiences in transitioning from academia to life sciences business.

TUNECC will continue to build on its great momentum in the coming year under the direction of Andrew Coleman (Neuroscience). Applications for new Executive Board members will open in December while applications for case competition teams will open sometime in Spring 2017 for the 4th Annual TUNECC in late Summer 2017. To find out more about TUNECC and previous events visit our website.

Corporate Sponsors: Back Bay Life Science Advisors, The Decision Resources Group, Clarion Healthcare, McKinsey & Company, Putnam Associates, CBPartners, Simon-Kucher & Partners, The Boston Consulting Group, L.E.K. Consulting, ClearView Healthcare Partners, and TechAtlas Group of RA Capital Management.

Additional Support: Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development and Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences.

articles, Community, Events for Students, Summer 2016, Techniques

Notes from the North – MMCRI mouse transgenic expertise from the comfort of your own bench!

Whether you’re hunting for an engaging and useful elective as a first/second year student or soaking up last minute knowledge before jumping into the job/post-doc market, I recommend considering Mouse Transgenic Models and Advanced Mouse Transgenic Models coordinated by Dr. Lucy Liaw of Maine Medical Center Research Center and Tufts Sackler. The aim of the modules is to deepen understanding of molecular biology’s most popular mammalian model organism and help participants design thoughtful and effective in vivo experiments.

The first module givinjectiones an overview of how to develop transgenic models of gene expression and gene targeting plus strategies for phenotypic characterization such models. When I took the course for transfer credit in spring 2015 we learned basic transgenic and gene targeting construct design, conditional and inducible systems, early embryonic mouse development in the context of pronuclear and blastocyst injection, and the effects of genetic background on models. We utilized what we were learning over the course of the module to develop a strategy for making a mouse model of our choice (construct design through phenotype characterization) with discussion of our design at the start of each class.

CRISPR

The second module focuses on cutting-edge techniques currently being used in academic and industry laboratories to generate transgenic animals. Last spring we reviewed genome editing via Zinc finger nucleases, TALENS, and CRISPR/Cas9. The assignment for this module was to revise our previous model employing the more recent techniques.

Both modules utilized lecture, discussion of primary literature, and project development/presentation to ground participants in mouse transgenic biology. The pace was rigorous; we met for 2 hours twice a week for 3.5 weeks per module, yet easy to integrate with benchwork.

These well established modules have been available through the UMaine graduate course catalog for four years and will be directly available to Sackler students starting spring 2017 (look up CMDB 0350 while browsing the Tufts SIS catalog). The UMaine Graduate School of Biomedical Science and Engineering students who have traditionally taken this course rely on a consortium of institutes across Maine for their training. Because of this, the Mouse Transgenics modules are designed to be highly compatible with teleconference style classrooms allowing excellent participant interaction and experience in telecommunication meetings (a skill not to be sneezed at in this era of global collaboration).teleconference

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

Editorial: Career Development Survey Results

In the April issue of the Sackler Insight, we published an editorial discussing the career development resources available for Sackler students, their effectiveness and how they could be better suited to the dynamic landscape of a post-PhD worklife. As a follow-up, the Graduate Student Council (GSC), in collaboration with the Dean’s office, developed a survey to hear from students about their needs. This editorial will focus on the outcomes and suggest recommendations to be implemented by the GSC and the Dean’s office.

The survey was conducted over a period of 2 weeks, and around 1/3rd of all Sackler students responded, with representation from all class years and programs. Majority of the respondents had either prior research experience in an academic setting or had come straight from their undergraduate institutions, as shown in the pie chart below. While career development opportunities were of varying degrees of priority among the respondents at their time of graduate school interviews, almost all respondents, regardless of class year, considered these opportunities as a high priority at the time of the survey.

The survey also asked the students to indicate how many career development events at Sackler they had participated in over the last 2 years and to rate their usefulness. This data has been summarized in the bar graphs below. The same was asked for any career development opportunities outside Sackler the students had participated in. The students were also asked to indicate reasons they were unable to attend the events at Sackler and what kind of events they would like to see more. Lastly, an open-ended question was posed to gather additional comments from respondents. After analyzing the data, we identified 3 premises that were prevalent among the responses.

 

 

1. Alumni network building

 

Majority of respondents to the survey advocated for more networking opportunities and information regarding alumni’s current jobs. The comments section also focused on the disconnect between alumni and the current students. While there are no Sackler specific alumni databases, as is true for other Tufts schools, it should be noted that Tufts does maintain a database of all alumni through the Advancement office. Individual schools can request alumni information through the advancement office and vice versa. There is already an existing network of Tufts alumni called Tufts Online Community (OLC) that allows Tufts alumni and students to establish and maintain connections. More info on the OLC and how to register for it can be found here – http://tuftsalumni.org/who-we-are/faqs/#community-what-is. Additionally, the Dean’s office, who keeps track of the Sackler alumni through social media services such as LinkedIn for training grant application purposes, also update the alumni information on the Sackler website (can be found here – http://sackler.tufts.edu/Student-Life/Career-and-Professional-Development/Career-Outcomes). Given that this existing database can be effectively used for networking, we urge the Sackler students to utilize this resource for their benefit. We also urge the GSC and the Dean’s office to hold a workshop to showcase this resource and guide the students on how to use it most effectively. A stronger alumni network can also be made possible through student organizations such as TBBC, who have been able to form a tight-knit group of peers across programs and class years.

  1. Full-time Career Development Office

There have been requests for a full-time career development resource to be made available for the Sackler students. However, due to the small size of the school, and the cost associated with hiring new employees and setup, it is difficult to be justified considering that PhD-track Sackler students do not pay tuition. However, if there could be a collaboration between the PHPD programs in the TUSM and the Sackler school, it could potentially provide a critical mass to warrant a full-time career office to serve all the schools on the Boston campus, albeit for broader services such as resume reviews. The changing landscape of the post-graduate work opportunities also indicate that there is a need for alternative career options, related to the healthcare and biomedical professions, which can be addressed through collaborative efforts between the various schools on the Boston campus. For example, last year the Sackler GSC collaborated with the Friedman nutrition school to host a career fair. Even if a full-time career resource center on the Boston campus is not possible, it’d serve the students well if the GSC, the PDA, and the Dean’s office could organize a few resume review workshops for students and post-docs throughout the year.

  1. Career Development Events & Resources

The bar graph showing the usefulness of the various career development events and resources indicates that most respondents find the seminars organized by Career Paths, TBBC and PDA to be most useful. However, some respondents commented on the focus of these seminars to be heavily biotech or industry-centric, which could undermine the needs of students who are not looking into get into such fields. While in general there might have been an increased number of events with such a focus, it should be noted that the GSC have sought to put out a diverse group of seminars, panels and workshops to help students pursuing any non-academic career path. Historically, the career paths committee of the GSC have focused on non-academic careers since that was the gap that needed to be filled – the Sackler faculty are well-equipped to provide advice on academic career paths, but that is not necessarily true for non-academic ones. In addition, a clear distinction needs to be made between the seminars organized by the various student groups – TBBC seminars will be focused on the biotech industry whereas the GSC seminars are more likely to include a diverse group of topics, based on their mission statements. This being said, it would also serve the GSC well to have a standardized version of event flyers for easy recognition. It would also help to showcase their previous events through the blog so students unable to attend such events can follow-up on what was discussed and presented.

In the last year, the PDA, GSC and TBBC have all worked closely together to host events that have been well-attended and lauded, and this is a trend that should continue to aid students and post-docs alike. However, more visibility and promotion of these events are required for a well-rounded attendance, as indicated by some survey respondents.

MyIDP was indicated to be really useful by the respondents who had used it, although this resources was not used by majority of the survey users. This shows that there is a need for a myIDP workshop that would help guide the students on using the valuable resource, which was deemed to be more useful than talking with thesis advisory committees. This workshop can potentially be done at the beginning of the academic year in September, to help the incoming and the rising students. Recent graduates should also be invited to a panel on different careers as mentioned in myIDP. This would further aid to establish connections between current students and alumni. Additionally, grant writing workshops should also be organized for both students and post-docs, as requested in the survey.

 

This survey was conducted to gauge student interest in career events and resources and how the existing ones can be tailored to better fit the needs of the Sackler student population. While valuable data was obtained from this survey, it should be noted that this data is inherently biased since the respondents are more likely to seek out career development opportunities within and outside Tufts, and are likely to be more active in participating in events and workshops. Even with these limitations, it can be safely said that Sackler students have laid down a strong foundation of career development resources and events through their own enthusiasm and efforts and grassroots organization. And it is to this collaboration between student organizations and the Dean’s office that we should turn to ensure proper career development resources are made available for Sackler students and post-docs.

 

articles, arts & culture, Community, Events for Students, Summer 2016

Humans of Sackler: Jaclyn Dunphy, “Good Things Come to Those Who Waitress”

I’m Andrew Hooper, a fourth-year student in Dr. Jamie Maguire’s lab in the Neuroscience program.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by the stories of how scientists came to be scientists.  Where are they from?  When did they recognize their passion for science?  How did they get their foot in the door?  What is it about their topic of interest that so captivated them?  And what breakthroughs just over the horizon would most excite them?  There are as many compelling, eye-opening answers to these questions as there are scientists, and I decided to highlight the diversity of backgrounds and perspectives at the Sackler School by gathering and sharing some of these stories.  Inspired by the format of Brandon Stanton’s wonderful “Humans of New York” blog, I called this project “Humans of Sackler”.

Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Jaclyn Dunphy, a fourth-year Neuroscience student in Dr. Phil Haydon’s lab.  We discussed the questions above and many more, and I’m very happy to share with you a small sample of our conversation in this, the first issue of “Humans of Sackler”.  Enjoy, and please look me up if you’d like to share your story and be the next Human of Sackler!

 

Humans of Sackler, 15 June 2016

Jaclyn Dunphy, Neuroscience, Fourth-Year Student: “Good Things Come to Those Who Waitress”

Humans_Image1
Graduating from the Masters program at Kent State NEOMED

AH: Did you come into college with a biology major, knowing that that’s what you wanted to study?

JD: I wanted to be a teacher when I started college because I had a really great biology teacher in high school. I went to Xavier, a private Catholic college, so I also thought I might want to be a religion teacher. For the first couple years I took biology, education classes, and theology classes. But I had a ‘coming to terms moment’ with what my major was going to be around sophomore year, and so I just went through the bulletin of all the courses that were offered and picked the ones I liked the best – and they tended to be related to biology, so I figured that’s what I should be doing. I didn’t know what I could do with the degree. I had never heard of graduate school until after I graduated!

Humans_Image2
At an air show with dad

AH: Were your parents interested in science, or did your interest develop totally independently from family?

JD: I think my interest in science definitely goes back to roots that I have with my dad. He has a workbench in the basement, and some of my earliest memories of us spending time together were us building rockets in the basement. He was very into space and stuff, so we would build rockets down there. Also, I was in this program for gifted students when I was in fourth and fifth grade, and we were assigned weird projects – like if you’ve heard of the ‘egg drop’ project, where you have to drop an egg off of a roof and get it not to crack? I would get assignments like this and take them home. I was really excited about them, but my dad was even more excited! So we would work on those things together, and I would go back to school with something that was, like, 80% his idea and 20% mine. So in those couple of years we had five or six things we worked on together in the workshop downstairs, and that was really fun… We built a bridge with Popsicle sticks, and I could stand on it. I could stand on it to this day! We made I-beams – not my idea. I’d never heard of that, but he was like ‘We need to build I-beams!’ We even sanded them – it was intense.

Humans_Image3
After a day of kayaking on the Charles

AH: After you finished undergrad, what did you do for work and how did you transition eventually to grad school?

JD: I was working at an upscale restaurant called Bistro on Main, close to Kent State’s campus, where Kent State professors take their seminar speakers out for dinner. So I had seen a couple groups of them come through, but one night I was waitressing for a table of four people: three people from NEOMED/Kent State and their invited speaker, Wendy Macklin. When I came to the table they were talking about prion disease, and I said, ‘Oh, that’s odd dinner conversation’. And they asked ‘How do you know what that is?’ in a very accusatory but jovial tone, and I said ‘Well, I just graduated with a degree in biology’ and they were like ‘Then what are you doing here?’ and I said ‘Waiting on you, what does it look like?’ So after that, all four of them took turns harassing me, they asked ‘Do you need a job?’ and I said ‘No, I have a great job, I’m making a lot of money doing this, I’m just trying to figure out what I want to do.’ And they said ‘Well, if you figure it out, then here’s my card.’ They put the card in the bill and they said, ‘Give us a call if you want to work as a technician.’ And I didn’t even know what that meant. At that point, I thought I was going to be cleaning rat cages. So I interviewed with one of the professors at the dinner, Bill Lynch, a few weeks later. It was the worst interview I’ve ever had, it was terrible! He’s a virologist: he asked me whether viruses are living or not. I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s a controversy among virologists. So I just picked a side, and then he argued me all around in circles until I switched sides, and then he asked me why I switched sides..! I left feeling so defeated; it was the first experience I’d had of someone who really, really questioned my thought process. I felt terrible, I felt like I had done such a bad job. But he ended up offering me the job because he liked that I didn’t give up, he liked my enthusiasm.

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Demonstrating the Blind Spot at the Museum of Science, with Alex Jones (right)

AH: What was it about glial cells that made them so interesting to you?

JD: I fell for astrocytes – I liked that they were so abundant but they were so under-studied. There was so much to learn. What are they doing? There has to be more to the story. Later on, when I met Phil Haydon, he said that in the field of glia, there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit, and I felt like that was very much the case. Glia are… I hate the word ‘support’ cells, but they are support cells for neurons. Neurons are like actors in the big play that is the brain, so the glia are stagehands, directors, producers, writers – they’re the ones that actually control the show. But the ones that you see and you care about are the neurons.

 

articles, arts & culture, Summer 2016

Notes from the North – The Science of Lobster

The other week my family and I were driving home from an afternoon on the beach playing in the waves, poking through tide pools, and eating seaweed (only Ronan indulged in this last pursuit) when we IMG_20160713_204129_894[1]made a spur of the moment stop at a local farm to pick up lobster and a couple pounds of steamers1. Standing at the counter in flip-flops and a swimsuit as the lobsterman weighed out our “bug”, I began to ponder this quintessential Maine summertime treat. In preparing and eating whole lobster the consumer becomes acutely aware of the animal’s physiology; an experience most of us are divorced from for most of the produce we eat.

 To start with, you have to decide as you are making your purchase whether you would like a hard-shell or a soft-shell lobster. A soft-shell lobster is one that has recently undergone ecdysis, a shedding of the exoskeleton. The lobster does this by inflating a newly grown exoskeleton with water within the old carapace causing it to pop open and expose the soft new shell. The reason these soft-shell lobsters cost less per-pound than the hard-shell lobsters is that a good proportion of their weight comes from that water rather than meat.

When you get your lobster home and are facing the decision of how to cook him or her2, you might begin to wonder “why on earth do I need to buy it live?” In part this goes back to the molting cycle again: powerful proteases (four members of the calpain family) induce muscle atrophy in the claws in order to reduce the volume of tissue that will need to be withdrawn from the old shell. When the lobster is dead, these proteases cause rapid degradation of the flesh. The other part of the answer lies in the presence of metabolites from micro-organisms. The combination means a much shorter shelf-life for raw lobster meat than you might otherwise imagine.

This inconvenient brevity of freshness forces the chef to consider the question of lobster nociception.  The avoidance behaviors (tail-flipping) exhibited by lobsters upon being placed in boiling water clearly demonstrate that at the very least lobsters have evolved to respond to noxious stimuli. Pain is typically understood to be comprised both of physical sensation and emotional distress, but since it is difficult to observe or define emotion in non-humans using only our experience of human emotion it seems reasonable to minimize the animals’ exposure to noxious stimuli. In Europe this is accomplished by electrocuting crustaceans prior to cooking, but the best compromise I have seen in the US is to make a cut through the lobster’s brain while it is still cold from the fridge before cooking.

There is a huge body of scientific literature out there both utilizing lobster as a model organism and studying it directly (the lobster fishery just in Maine is worth over $1 billion!), but I’ll leave you with just one last lobster physiology anecdote. Ed Kravitz, one of my grandmentors (mentor’s mentor) demonstrated that GABA is a neurotransmitter using lobster (the shell apparently makes a convenient receptacle in which to bath the muscle and nerves), but I was always told that Ed’s favorite part of studying lobster was the taste test!

  1. Scrumptious little soft shell clams that are cooked by steaming. In our family we bring the cooking brine to the table so we can rinse each clam clean of sand before dipping in butter to consume whole.
  2. The most infallible method to determine the gender of your lobster is by looking at the first pair of swimmerets that appear on the ventral surface of the animal where the tail joins the cephalothorax. In females these are soft and flattened while in males they are stiff and curve to form a tube through which spermatophores are deposited in the female during mating.Lobster anotomy