Do you have fun and interesting hobbies? Have you traveled to fascinating places? Held unusual and challenging jobs? Do you use cutting-edge technology to conduct biomedical research of earth-shattering importance? Are you a human? If you answered “yes” to any of these, you could be the next Human of Sackler!
Humans of Sackler is a monthly blog featuring individual Sackler students’ firsthand accounts of their path to the Graduate Biomedical program. Inspired by Brandon Stanton’s “Humans of New York” blog, the aims of this project are to highlight the Sackler School’s rich diversity of backgrounds, interests, and personalities, and to engage with the public by revealing the human side of scientists.
If you are interested in contributing to or nominating someone for the Humans of Sackler blog, contact Andrew Hooper (andrew.hooper@tufts.edu, Subject: Humans of Sackler) to set up a brief interview at your convenience. We look forward to hearing your story!
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 createsstakes 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 plotlinebut 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 ofhis 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 tosomething 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 orderto 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!
The 21st Annual Sackler Relays did not start out the way it was meant to be – buses filled with adrenaline-fueled graduate students pulling up at the Medford campus (a location rarely frequented by most attendees), the summer heat bearing down on the participants in a myriad of athletic events for which only a few are ever prepared for, and ending with merriment amid delicious food and copious amounts of beer. Unfortunately, the weather refused to cooperate on the morning of Friday, July 29 and the organizers were forced to move the events indoors. However, if you think that the weather could deter the spirit of Sackler, then you’d be gravely mistaken – weeks of trash talk, camaraderie and secret strategizing for the tug-of-war culminated into a boisterous gathering on that fateful day in the Sackler building basement.
Introducing the relays mascot “Richard”, a Richard Simmons inspired Jumbo. (Courtesy – Jess Elman, CMDB)
As porky the pig was being slow roasted outside, the Sackler community convened in the basement of Sackler building to start the aptly named process of pre-gaming. The organizers of the event – the Graduate Student Council and the Dean’s Office were not daunted at the change of plans. Instead, kegs were in place and food were in plenty – as any veteran event organizer in the Sackler school knows, the path to graduate students’ hearts is through their stomachs. While the number of athletic events were curtailed down only to the obstacle course and the tug-of-war, the most important event of the Relays. In place of the other events, the organizers decided to screen the PhD comic movie in the Sackler auditorium, followed by a re-run of the game night. Hey, if you can’t compete physically, why not rumble on screen with your favorite Super Mario character?
There were some changes in the teams this year – in keeping with the tradition of collaboration and mergers, programs chose to merge to balance out the number of available participants for each team. Cell, Molecular & Development Biology (CMDB) merged with Biochemistry and Cellular & Molecular Physiology (CMP), Immunology joined teams with Genetics, Microbiology went with Pharma (PPET) while Neuroscience chose to play solo. In addition this year also introduced new contenders in the game – MD/PhDs across programs chose to participate by forming their own team, the Sackler MuDPhuDs. While the competition was intense, as always, Neuro did manage to keep their title as the victor, and the dark horse MD/PhDs came in second (watch out, Neuro!).
The newest addition to the Relays – Team Mud Phuds, led by their fearless leader Dr. Gordon Huggins. (Courtesy – Claudette Gardel, Micro)
“The Determination is Real.” – Team Neuro on how to win the Relays
The Relays were supported by generous donations from BioTechne/R&D, Starbucks, Coolidge Corner Yoga, Trader Joe’s, Cheesecake Factory, RockSpot climbing, Coolidge Corner Theater, Harpoon Brewery, Sam Adams Brewery, Canary Square, Roche Brothers, BoLoCo, The Paint Bar, Back Bay Yoga (YogaWorld), New England Biolabs, Downeast Cider, Tufts Bookstore, Airgas, Sigma Aldrich, Invitrogen and Chipotle. The Relays would not have been possible without the organization of the Graduate Student Council, the help of the Sackler Faculty, particularly Dr. Ira Herman, the Dean’s Office, and of course, the students, post-docs and every member of the Sackler community. A HUGE thank you to Claudette Gardel (Micro) for the amazing photos and to Jess Elman (CMDB) for designing the mascot. More photos from the 2016 Relays can be found here.
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.
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 gives 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.
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).
From Left to Right (Alexandra Taracanova, Ji Kang, Christina Hao, Valerie Larriau, Maddy Das, Mike Pereria, Michaela Tolman, Farrah Roy, Wendi Ni, Mike Jager, Geoff Gonzalez
April 2016: The excitement is palpable as the three co-founders sat around the table and planned out their first session as part of the inaugural Tufts Advisory Partners (TAP), a pro bono consulting group made up of Boston-area graduate students and postdocs. Alexandra Taracanova, Michaela Tolman, and Ji-Yong Kang were meeting to plan out their first engagement, or client relationship. They had selected a team of consultants, and now it was time to get to work. Tufts was about to be put on the map as an institution with high interests and talents for consulting and business development.
TAP was largely inspired by the sudden explosion in interest for the Case Study Group at Tufts. Students at Tufts, as well as institutions in the area, were becoming aware that career choice options were growing, make it an ideal time for TAP to emerge. Realizing the unmet need for hands-on opportunities in life sciences consulting, the founders of TAP got together in January 2016 and came up with a solution. TAP provides strategy services to biotechnology companies to develop their business. In working with a potential client, TAP will consult on how to set up the business, help them expand, or provide market research and due diligence. What makes this new consulting group unique is the ability to build an organization from the ground up, recruit clients, make their own rules, and pick projects to work on–in other words, they are essentially a fully functioning, autonomous firm that will provide a real product that will impact the biotechnology market. However, another integral goal in creating TAP was to connect enthusiastic and committed grad students and postdocs with the opportunity to use their talents.
For their first engagement, TAP selected a mid-sized medical devices company from several options. They planned to spend six weeks on the engagement, working with two teams. Of the three partners, Ms. Taracanova would work primarily with the client, and Ms. Tolman and Ms. Kang would each lead one of the teams as an engagement manager. Before the engagement began, and even before they could release the identity of the client, the eagerness and enthusiasm from the TAP partners was obvious. In particular, Ms. Taracanova was excited by the prospect of teamwork in the engagement teams and “seeing the two teams work together and move forward to deliver the end product.”
The team members for this first engagement hailed from three institutions: Tufts University, Boston University, and Harvard University. Throughout the engagement, team members collected information from key opinion leaders, analyzed the data, and presented recommendations on business strategy for the company. Both teams worked to develop market entry strategies for one of the company’s assets. As the members were from different institutions and departments, there was ample opportunity to network and get to know other students and postdocs who were interested in the consulting field. However, after completion of the engagement, it was clear that the team members first and foremost gained a valuable and rewarding experience. Christina Hao, a team member from Boston University, said of her experience: “I worked with TAP for six intense weeks on a consulting project, where I was able to gain hands on experience with solving business problems in a hypothesis-driven, structured manner, as well as honing my presentation and leadership skills. The level of teamwork was incredible, and the engagement manager was very professional and genuinely cared about our learning goals. TAP is hands down the most enriching, rigorous and fulfilling business experience I have experienced so far as a graduate student.” What was perhaps key to the consultants who participated in this engagement was the learning experience, and Michael Pereira, from Tufts University, reports that “as a first-time consultant, TAP exceeded all of my expectations. I learned more about the consulting profession in those six weeks than any number of books or classes could possibly teach me. It is an absolute must for anyone seeking a career in life sciences consulting!”
The team members were not the only people who had positive reviews for the first TAP engagement; the client, now revealed to be SteadMed Medical, also had encouraging comments. The CEO disclosed that “[he] was very pleased with the personal engagement and passion the entire team embraced throughout the project. The final report was clear, concise and supported with facts and data. [They were] excited to execute on the recommendations made.” The marketing manager of the company describes the TAP engagement with the following: “The quick uptake of our industry, its challenges, and our visions were outstanding. From the first week, we felt there was a deep understanding of how to take our questions and deliver them back with tangible perceptions and directions for us to move forward. At the next given opportunity, we will engage with TAP again to leverage their passion, knowledge, and ability to deliver promising direction with a message tailored to a market we thought only we knew so well.”
With the first engagement behind them and with success, no less, the TAP team is looking forward. They are looking to begin a second engagement in August, and to build upon this first experience to improve, further engage, and delve deeper. With the growing interest in life science consulting, they should have no problem recruiting more team members who are interested in venture capital, life science investing, and the life science business in general. And if the initial reviews are any hint to the future, the next client they select from their list of options will benefit enormously as well.
Applications for TAP’s second engagement open August 1st, 2016. If you are interested in applying or have a business that would benefit from TAP’s services, please contact tuftsadvisorypartners@gmail.com.
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.
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.
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.
It’s that time of year again to get out of the lab, into the sun, and show off your program pride: the Sackler Relays are here! As you are all bringing your A-game to the fields of Medford this Friday, the Insight Newsletter team decided to step up to the plate and help get everyone pumped for a great day of fun and friendly competition by outlining what the GSC has put together for everyone this year.
First up: the teams! We have some programs joining forces, with Biochemistry, CMP, and CMDB merging together into a new program and thus a new team for this year’s Relays. Immunology and Genetics are also going for some cooperative action, as well as Microbiology and PPET. And lastly (but not least), let’s see if this year’s new MD/PhD team can put some pressure on last year’s Neuroscience champions.
The GSC has a classic event lineup planned (see below), with a BBQ lunch and raffle scheduled as well. The proceeds from that event will go towards the Sackler Student Enrichment Fund, which provides support for students to present research at scientific conferences or attend career development events.
12:00-1:00 pm Arrival at Medford Field
1:00-1:30 pm Running events (4 x 200m relay, 100m dash, 800m dash)
Scoring is point-based per event, with increasing points awarded the higher the team placement for the event (Table 1). The scoring for the obstacle course is time-based, while the volleyball, dodgeball and tug-of-war events are scored based on single-elimination tournaments (see graphic for brackets). Total points are tallied from all Relay events as well as points awarded from the March Madness bracket competition to determine the winning team.
Table 1. Scoring scheme for the 21st Annual Sackler Relays.
2 x 400m relay*, 100m dash**, Half mile*
Volleyball*, Dodgeball*, Obstacle Course, Water Balloon Toss, Tug of War***
1st
8
16
2nd
6
12
3rd
4
8
4th
1
4
5th
1
1
* There must be at least one male and one female competing.
** Separate heats for males and females.
*** Teams must come to an agreement regarding # of each gender participating based on available members of each team.
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”
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!
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.
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.
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.
Inspired by a conversation between post-docs at a science and education conference, the Tufts’ TEACRS (Training in Education and Critical Research Skills) and TII (Tufts Innovation Institute) worked together to host a community outreach event this May. The “Meet the Scientist” event took place on the Medford campus and consisted of a science faculty-hosted panel session and an activity session, with attendees including local families and students from all levels of schooling. The panel session allowed community members to ask insightful and probing questions of Tufts faculty that facilitated an open, honest, and engaging conversation about science and science research. Following this, the activity session consisted of six stations hosted by TEACRS post-doc trainees. Children, teens and adults alike had the opportunity to play with silk and DNA legos, to look at flies and talk about circadian rhythms, to isolate some of their own DNA, and to watch how music played from a mobile phone could make a cockroach’s leg muscles move.
With a strong turnout and enthusiastic hosts as well as attendees, this event succeeded in strengthening bridges between Tufts’ scientists and the local community. This type of connection is a significant component in narrowing the gap between the public and their understanding of science and strengthening trust in scientists and the work we do.
