September 2019

CACHE Your Antibodies to Save Cash!

No antibody is perfect for every application, but if you’re on a budget and everything you’ve found looks about the same, here are a few things that you should consider before purchasing.

A simple way to remember this information is with the mnemonic CACHE: Citations, Application, Clonality, Host, Epitope. The more “yes” answers that can be applied to the questions below, the more likely the candidate antibody is to be successful for the experiment at hand.

1) Citations: Does the literature support the functionality of the antibody?

A good antibody will have numerous citations supporting its use. More often than not, the manufacturer will not have validated the antibody for exactly what you need. And if the goal is to do immunohistochemistry (IHC) on paraffin-embedded kidney tissue, but the manufacturer only validated the antibody for Western blotting, the literature is the best place to go to see if someone else has used a particular antibody for that purpose. Check out CiteAb for this; it is an excellent resource to compare antibodies!

2) Application: Has the antibody been validated for the desired application?

If so, make a little mental checkmark that this might be a good one! If not, consider the applications it is validated for, and compare them to your own. An antibody for Western blotting, for instance, which may recognize the target in a denatured form, might also work for immunoprecipitations. An antibody validated for flow cytometry and fluorescence-assisted cell sorting (FACS) could recognize the native form of the protein found in a tissue section.

3) Clonality: Is the clonality appropriate?

And what is the difference between monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies, anyway? Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are produced by a single population of B cells that is derived from a single cell, while polyclonal antibodies (pAbs) are produced by multiple B cell clones. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, monoclonal antibodies bind to a single epitope, resulting in high specificity and low background, but staining with them is easily lost if the antigen is degraded. Polyclonal antibodies, on the other hand, are resistant to this problem in that they bind to multiple epitopes. This promiscuity can also result in higher background staining, but also greater sensitivity. Choosing to use a monoclonal antibody versus a polyclonal antibody will largely depend on the target of interest and the application of the antibody.

4) Host: Is the host for the antibody different than the species of the target?

The best practice is to use an antibody raised in a host other than that of the sample species, to avoid any potential binding of the secondary antibody to endogenous immunoglobulins within the sample. Preventing cross-reactivity within the sample minimizes background staining and is a relatively simple way to ensure better results, but this is probably the least important question to consider. There are kits available to block cross-reactivity when the source of the sample is the same as the host of the antibody.

5) Epitope: Is the antigen used to raise the antibody present in your sample (or does it have significant homology)?

Multiple epitopes can be targeted within a single molecule, and antibodies can be raised against entire proteins, a protein fragment, or a particular sequence. If you are working with samples from an uncommon organism (plant biology, anyone?), you will be relying mainly on homology of your protein of interest with the epitope that the antibody targets. This is also a good place to consider your experimental conditions. As an example, FACS requires an antibody that targets an extracellular epitope so that it can bind to live cells.

These questions are not a substitute for optimizing an antibody in the lab, but they do make it much easier to choose antibodies that work, and work reasonably well, faster.

References

CiteAb – The Life Science Data Provider, 2019, www.citeab.com/. Accessed 13 September 2019.

Lipman et al. (2005) Monoclonal Versus Polyclonal Antibodies: Distinguishing Characteristics, Applications, and Information Resources. ILAR Journal 46(3):258-268.

“Polyclonal vs Monoclonal Antibodies.” Pacific Immunology, https://www.pacificimmunology.com/resources/antibody-introduction/polyclonal-vs-monoclonal-antibodies/. Accessed 13 September 2019.

“Antibody Basics.” Novus Biologicals, https://www.novusbio.com/support/general-support/antibody-basics.html. Accessed 13 September 2019.

Library, Notes from the library, Uncategorized

NOTES FROM THE LIBRARY

Introduction

Hello everyone! My name is Andrea Kang and I recently joined the Research & Instruction Librarians at the Hirsh Health Sciences Library (HHSL). One of my roles is to be the library liaison to the School of Biomedical Sciences. I am so excited to be a part of the Tufts community and hope I can make your lives a little bit easier, whether that is by helping you through your literature review for your thesis, or giving you tips on research data management, or connecting you with resources that HHSL has to offer you. Here are some things that I can help you do throughout your time at Tufts:

FIND JOURNAL ARTICLES & MORE. I can help you find articles, datasets, health statistics, chemical/drug information, etc. and equip you with the skills on how to do it yourself in the future! Even if you know the basics, I can help with troubleshooting or refining search strategies.

GET YOU STARTED ON A RESEARCH DATA MANAGEMENT. Government funders among others are requiring rigorous research data management (RDM) plans for your research, some requiring that you meet with a librarian. But beyond these requirements, RDM can make your life (and others’ lives) easier in the long run. I can provide tips on best practices and where to get started with your RDM plan.

HELP ORGANIZE YOUR CITATIONS. If you are still using Microsoft Excel/Word, Google Sheets, or going old school with pencil and paper to organize the bazillion articles you found for your research, STOP. There are other ways that you can manage your citations that will save you time in the long run! I can help you with tools like Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote (which is FREE because Tufts pays for it), or connect you with the experts here at HHSL.

CONNECT YOU WITH OTHER RESOURCES. There are so many other resources available at HHSL. Whether you need to use test prep books, borrow a phone charger, just need advice on where to start your research, or learn skills like R/R studio, I can help connect you to the resources you need. Just reach out!

To make an appointment with me, you can go to my page and schedule an appointment through the scheduler. If there are problems with this, you are more than welcome to call me at (617)-636-0385 or email me at andrea.kang@tufts.edu.

Book Reviews, Uncategorized

Book Review: If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?

From Goodreads.com

When I was getting ready for school in the morning as a tween-going-on-teen, I’d often have the TV on in the background, playing reruns of whatever television shows adults enjoyed in those days. So I’ve never actually seen a full episode of M*A*S*H, and really only know it by the sound of the helicopter blades in the opening segment, which was often playing as I walked out the door. But I’m definitely familiar with the actor who played Hawkeye in this show, Alan Alda. After Hawkeye’s tour was over, Alda hosted Scientific American Frontiers for 12 of its 15 seasons, and that show was most certainly not just background to my middle school mornings. For me, Scientific American Frontiers was a sit-down-stop-everything-else-and-only-watch-TV kind of show. Naturally, I decided I had to read Alda’s latest memoir, If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?, which encompasses his experience with scientific communication in an amusing and relatable way. As Alda says in the introduction, “Developing empathy and learning to recognize what the other person is thinking are both essential to good communication, and are what this book is about.”

            Storytelling is an important aspect of science. When we’re giving a talk, we have to convince the people listening that the research is worth their time and attention. Alda argues that communicating isn’t just telling. It is simultaneously observing and determining whether the audience follows, and whether what you’re saying resonates with them. In many ways, it’s akin to a performance, which is perhaps why an actor with a prolific track record like Alda is so successful at it. Using small studies and anecdotes as evidence, Alda suggests in this book that things like improvisation or audience-synchronization exercises can improve presentation skills.

            His principle extends to written audiences as well. A writer cannot observe and react to a reader’s thoughts, confusions, or frustrations, but they can learn to think about a reader’s state of mind and anticipate the reader’s expectations. In essence, a writer can learn to be familiar with the experience level of their target reader and what questions they might ask if they were in the room, and adjust the narrative or delivery of the story accordingly.

            If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? is a quick read, but that doesn’t hinder its capacity to home in on the important points above. This is not a how-to book; just reading it will not inherently improve your ability to communicate or your grant writing. But it may give you an idea of how to practice getting into your audience’s head and engaging with them in an easy and effective manner. Every audience will be different, and it is our responsibility – as researchers, as authors, as presenters – to be able communicate the intricate concepts of our research in a way that is readily comprehended by both scientists and non-scientists alike.

Community, Events for Students, March 2019

#SackSackler : Demands & Petition

3 Comments

This January, the Massachusetts Attorney General released a memorandum to the public as part of her lawsuit against Purdue Pharmaceuticals and their owners, the Sackler family. This lawsuit alleges gross misconduct on the part of the Sackler family in their unethical marketing and selling of OxyContin, valuing corporate profit over the safety and lives of patients. The United States is in the midst of a deadly opioid epidemic, caused by pharmaceutical companies like Purdue selling potent, addictive opioids and lobbying physicians to overprescribe these drugs to their patients.

Tufts has well known financial connections with the Sackler family, who have donated vast sums of money to the university and supported the founding of the Masters of Science in Pain Research, Education, and Policy. This relationship is painfully evident in the name of the Sackler School for Graduate Biomedical Sciences. Worse, the Sacklers and Purdue used their connections to Tufts to push pro-opioid propaganda into the medical community. At one point, Purdue employees allegedly inserted pro-opioid information into the pain management curriculum, bragging afterwards about “penetrating this account.” The full extent of how Tufts is funded or influenced by the Sackler family is unknown to the public. Not only is this relationship unethical, it also poses a potential serious conflict of interest in the university and threatens the integrity of Tufts’ biomedical research and education.

In response to the lawsuit memorandum and increased media scrutiny, Executive Director of Tufts Public Relations Patrick Collins released this statement:

“The information raised in the Attorney General’s lawsuit against Purdue Pharmaceuticals and other defendants is deeply troubling. We will be undertaking a review of Tufts’ connection with Purdue to ensure that we were provided accurate information, that we followed our conflict of interest guidelines and that we adhered to our principles of academic and research integrity. Based on this review, we will determine if any changes need to be made moving forward.”

This official response offers no details, accountability, or mechanisms of transparency and is inadequate. Instead of working to solely minimize public relations damage, Tufts has a responsibility to hold itself and the Sacklers accountable.  While the focus of this petition is on the Sackler family, we are conscious of the fact that Tufts receives donations from other powerful families and organizations, such as the Koch brothers. Tufts’ relationship with the Sacklers underscores the need for democratic accountability more broadly.

We need your help in making change happen. We are collaborating with students in the Tufts Medical School to demand changes. However, Tufts University is more than just the medical school, or the undergraduate campus. We want a representative coalition, with support from community members (students, faculty, workers, etc) across all the programs. By signing this petition, you are affirming your support for the following demands from Tufts leadership:

  1. A fair and transparent investigation into all connections between Tufts University and the Sackler family. The results of the investigation must be made public, and an open forum must be held where students and community members can raise their concerns.
  2. A plan for instituting community oversight of all future donations to Tufts programs that includes a review committee comprised of students, faculty, and community members, and an annual public report of all donors.
  3. Appropriate steps to defend Tufts’ academic integrity, including the removal of Purdue-sponsored curriculum material and the acknowledgement of any research produced with a conflict of interest, especially those produced through the Masters of Science in Pain Research, Education, and Policy program.
  4. Financial support for opioid treatment programs through the School of Medicine and the University at large.
  5. A name change for the Sackler School of Biomedical Sciences, the Sackler Building, and any Sackler Family affiliated edifices or institutions at Tufts University.
  6. A revocation of the honorary degree provided to Raymond Sackler and any awards or recognition provided to the Sackler Family including plaques, signage, and dedications.

Petition Link –
http://bit.ly/SackSacklerPetition

This petition will be used to demonstrate to the University administration a demand for action from the Tufts community. With a growing number of concerned voices from students and faculty from all parts of the Tufts community we believe we can begin to address this problematic legacy and make changes for the betterment of Tufts as an institution and our community at large.

articles, Community, January 2019

Op-Ed: Rename the Sackler School

1 Comment

Guest Post by Nathan Foster, a recent graduate of Tufts University

The United States is in the midst of a deadly opioid epidemic, with 72,000 people estimated to have died from drug overdoses in 2017 alone. The crisis was caused by the systemic overprescription of opioid pain relievers, fueled by a massive drug industry campaign to downplay the risks and straight-up lie about the dangers of their drugs. Troublingly, it has come to light that Tufts programs were used to promote the opioid industry’s lies.

Purdue Pharma, wholly owned by the Sackler family, is one of the companies most responsible for the opioid epidemic. Purdue makes OxyContin, and for decades they systematically lied about its effects in order to sell more pills at higher doses. As tens of thousands of Americans died, the Sacklers made billions, some of which found its way to the Sackler School of Biomedical Sciences here at Tufts. Although the school was originally founded with donations from three Sackler brothers in 1980, before OxyContin was invented, the Sacklers have continued to give large sums of money to Tufts, including to establish the Masters in Pain Research, Education, and Policy program through the Medical and Public Health Schools in 1999, and the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Convergence Laboratory in 2013.

As the role of the Sacklers in the opioid crisis has become increasingly clear through news reports and the activism of artist Nan Goldin, there has been some discussion about the appropriateness of the school’s name. Tufts’ biomedical scientists dedicate their careers to saving lives, after all, not destroying them for profit. But the conversation has remained relatively abstract, more about the symbolism of good deeds sponsored by bad people than about the concrete effects of the Sacklers’ money.

That has to change now. The Sackler name is no longer an abstract morality problem, if it ever was, but a full-blown crisis of academic integrity. According to a lawsuit from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office, Purdue Pharma used the Sacklers’ donations to systematically corrupt Tufts’ curriculum and research in favor of opioids.

The Attorney General’s allegations are mind-boggling. Purdue employees placed unlabeled curriculum materials in Sackler School courses, and talked afterwards about “penetrating this account.” A seminar on opioids in Massachusetts was regularly taught by Purdue staff, and Tufts helped the company develop pro-opioid materials for patients. The head of the Masters in Pain Research program spoke in favor of Purdue at FDA meetings in 2012 and 2013. Purdue sent staff to Tufts “regularly,” as recently as 2017. The CEO of the company wrote to President Monaco in 2017 “to promote Purdue’s contentions about opioids and offer to meet,” though the lawsuit does not say President Monaco took him up on the offer. And all this happened after Purdue Pharma was fined $600 million in 2007 for misleading regulators, doctors, and patients about OxyContin’s potential for addiction and abuse. 

“The Sacklers got a lot for their money” at Tufts, the lawsuit asserts. “The MSPREP [Masters in Pain Research] Program was such a success for Purdue’s business that the company considered it a model for influencing teaching hospitals and medical schools.”

To be clear, Tufts is not the only institution alleged to have been improperly influenced by Sackler money. Following millions in donations, Massachusetts General Hospital even named its pain program after Purdue Pharma—then changed the name as the scale of the opioid crisis became apparent.

Last week, Attorney General Maura Healey stated that Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family are “one and the same.” It is not possible to separate the Sackler name from the crimes of the company that made them billions.

It is disturbing that the makers of OxyContin had such deep influence over research and education at Tufts. In addition, Purdue and the Sacklers’ close connection to a leading biomedical research institute allowed them to maintain credibility in the medical community for years after it was clear their product was killing people. It is too late to save the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose lives have been lost to the opioid epidemic. But Tufts can act now to undo some of the damage it has caused.

First, Tufts needs to immediately change the name of the Sackler School. Faced with lawsuits and protests, the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma can still draw credibility from having their name attached to one of the country’s top biomedical schools. The recent resurgence of the tobacco industry shows that the makers of deadly drugs will seize on any remaining scraps of credibility to push their product. We cannot let that happen.

Second, Tufts must establish a commission of medical professionals, students, and members of the addiction advocacy community to thoroughly review all improper connections to Purdue and the Sacklers, past and present, including but not limited to those alleged in the Attorney General’s lawsuit. The results of the review should be made public. Given the extent to which Tufts’ academic integrity is alleged to have been compromised, a fully transparent review process including students and addiction advocates is the only way to genuinely move forward. As an added benefit, the students involved will get an excellent education in the sociopolitical determinants of health.

Third, Tufts must file an amicus brief in support of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s lawsuit against Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family.

Finally, Tufts must implement clear guidelines to prevent any donor from compromising its academic integrity in the future.

Editors’ Note: The views of the author do not necessarily represent the views of the Sackler Insight editorial board or that of the Sackler community. Below is an official response from Patrick Collins, Executive Director of Public Relations at Tufts. 

Tufts University has always been and remains deeply committed to the highest ethical and scientific standards in research and education. The information raised in the Attorney General’s lawsuit against Purdue Pharmaceuticals and other defendants is deeply troubling. We will be undertaking a review of Tufts’ connection with Purdue to ensure that we were provided accurate information, that we followed our conflict of interest guidelines and that we adhered to our principles of academic and research integrity. Based on this review, we will determine if any changes need to be made moving forward.

Community, December 2018, Events for Students

Coffee, Conversation & Intersectionality

1 Comment

Guest Post by Alyssa DiLeo (Neuro)

If you’ve listened to Beyonce’s self-titled 2014 album, you’ll recognize the definition of a feminist as a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. What this definition misses is the importance of intersectionality, a framework that attempts to identify the intersecting social factors, like race, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, class, and education, that impact marginalized populations. At GWiSE’s November Coffee & Conversation, we welcomed PhD student Molly Hodul, who attended a Harvard event addressing Intersectionality in STEM and discussed what she learned and how to an active ally in the fight for social justice.

Historically, feminism has mainly served white women who centered and upheld their own voices instead of prioritizing experiences of all women and women identifying populations. This can most easily be seen in the history of voting rights in the US. Non-white men and freed male salves were “allowed” to vote in 1870 through the 15th amendment, but Jim Crow and voter suppression laws kept many from exercising their right. The 19th amendment in 1920 gave the right to vote to women, but similar restrictions applied to poor or non-white women. Native Americans weren’t allowed to vote and keep their tribal affiliation until 1924. It wasn’t until the 1960s that the poll tax was prohibited and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 protected voting rights for racial minorities. Here, it’s simple to see how race, gender, and tribal association affected marginalized groups, both separately and together.

Kimberle Crenshaw first coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989 in her paper for the University of Chicago Legal Forum, but many black activists had advocated for intersectional principles. Sojourner Truth made parallels between her abilities and those of men in her speech to the Women’s Convention in Ohio in 1851. Audre Lorde said in a 1981 speech “ I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is anyone of you.”

Around the same time, Shirley Malcom conducted the Double Bind study that showed that discrimination of minority women shifted from race based to gender based as they moved into post college training or graduate school. Over 40 years later, women of color are facing more subtle obstacles and microagressions in academia. Overt racist and sexist laws may not be in place anymore, but academic institutions can make statements through their action or inaction in the face of discrimination. Historically, science has also been used to uphold patriarchal white supremacy, something we’re still seeing as the alt right co-opt genetic studies for their agenda, which causes mistrust among minority populations. The failure of science to credit and teach the work of underrepresented minorities in science also adds to this problem.

So, what can scientists and scientific institutions do to actively be an ally for social justice? For one, we can acknowledge our own biases; Harvard has some great implicit bias tests here. When we are real about our bias, we can begin to unlearn these automatic associations we make about groups of people. Intersectionality must focus on the most vulnerable and others must work to uplift and amplify their voices. Most importantly, we, and by “we” I mean white people, must go into our communities and teach these intersectional principles because that is where the work needs to be done. As the holidays approach, find the courage to speak up to that “old fashioned” grandparent or racist uncle. Be a scientist and fight ignorance with facts.

If you’re interested in getting involved with GWiSE, follow us on Twitter @TuftsGWiSE, like us on Facebook, or email us at tuftsbostongwise@tufts.edu.

articles, Community, December 2018, Events for Students, Mentoring & Outreach

New Initiative on Campus Seeks to Tackle Mental Health Issues among Grad Students

1 Comment

For a long time, it was a generally accepted trope in academia that graduate students must endure harsh conditions, intellectual and emotional, before they are granted their PhD degrees. This is supposedly meant to build character, and weed out those who are not fit for the rigor and stress one encounters in academic research – a trial by fire of sorts. The ones who survive these conditions and emerge victorious, also internalize such hazing and come to think of it as just the regular pressure of working in academia.

It is therefore not surprising that the mental health of graduate students have not been discussed very much except in the recent years. While it has long been a subject of humor, such as PhD Comics and memes such as Shit Academics Say, it is only recently that the severity of the problem has been brought to light. In 2013, a series of articles regarding graduate students’ mental health was published on the GradHacker blog. In a guest post, Nash Turley, then a PhD candidate in evolutionary ecology at University of Toronto, looked at studies focusing on the major mental health issues graduate students face – anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, going as far back as 1997, and deduced that “mental health issues are the biggest barriers to success among graduate students.”

Earlier this year, a study published in the journal Nature Biotechnology by , described the mental health issues among graduate students as a “crisis”, highlighting the prevalence of anxiety and depression. After surveying 2,279 graduate students representing 26 countries and 234 institutions, the study found that graduate students are six times more likely to suffer from moderate-to-severe depression compared to the general population. The study also found that female, trans and gender-non conforming (GNC) students were significantly more likely to experience anxiety and depression than their cis male counterparts. Among the students with anxiety and depression, more than half did not felt valued by their mentors and half did not agree that mentors provided emotional support (only a third said yes). The study proposed some short term solutions, such as providing trainings to faculty and administrators by mental health professionals, similar to the NIH’s “train the trainers” program. For a longer term solution, the authors advocated for “a shift of the academic culture to eliminate the stigma and to ensure that students are not reluctant to communicate openly with PIs.” The notion of suffering has been internalized by graduate students to the point that in a latest study conducted among five hundred economics graduate students across eight institutions, the students who scored worse than average on a mental-health assessment tended to think that their mental health was better than average; among those who reported having suicidal thoughts, 26% assumed that their psychological well-being was better than the norm. In both studies, the major driver of such mental health issues seemed to be a combination of financial worries and the professional pressure to publish, both of which are products of the tight budget climate and the “publish or perish” nature that academia has recently taken on.

Alyssa DiLeo, a second-year graduate student in the Neuroscience program, is well aware of mental health issues graduate students face; she has faced them personally as well. “Graduate school is a hard transition for many people and even more difficult when they don’t have a support system. Mental health issues are also highly prevalent in graduate students. Levecque et al. published a study in May of 2017 reporting one in two PhD students experience psychological distress and 1/3 of graduate students are at risk for a psychiatric disorder. An online survey of graduate students in a recent March 2018 study by Evans et al. reported that graduate students are more than six times as likely to experience depression and anxiety compared to the general population. After taking a few years off before entering graduate school, I’ve definitely found myself struggling to transition from an employee to a graduate student and was finding it hard to find the right support.” She became aware of an initiative called Resources for Easing Friction and Stress (REFS) at MIT while attending a Graduate Women in Science & Engineering (GWiSE) event at Harvard, and was inspired to start a REFS program here at Sackler called sREFS (sackler Resources for Easing Friction and Stress).

The goal of the sREFS initiative is “to provide an easily accessible outlet for graduate students to talk about conflicts, issues, or stressors in their lab or personal life.” Currently, there are few options that Sackler students can peruse if they are having mental health issues – the Wellness Center which puts out events for the whole TUSM community, the Student Advisory Council of the Wellness center (which just got a Sackler rep on their board), or their friends and other graduate students at certain social events. Mentoring circles, another peer-based support system started by Sackler students and alumni for networking and career development, could be another option. However, Alyssa noted that while Mentoring Circles provided “a great networking resource with experienced mentors”, “sREFS aims to create a more one on one private conversation between students about mental health in graduate school.” This initiative also hopes to serve as the first contact for first year students who may have questions about the school or its programs, courses, etc. Additionally, sREFS will be trained on mediation and conflict management skills that may prove valuable in their own labs or workplaces post-graduation.

The sREFS initiative is a pilot program, proposed by Alyssa in conjunction with Sharon Snaggs from the Wellness Center, and has gained the support of the Dean’s Office and the Graduate Student Council. The process to become a sREF involves an 8-hour training spread out over 8 weeks, and is modeled after MIT’s REFS program. While the MIT program offers a certification after 40 hours of training provided by professionals, the sREFS initiative has a smaller scope and is more flexible given the student body size and available resources at Sackler. Once trained, sREFS will be expected to hold office hours for one-on-one conversations, and sREFS are also mandatory reporters and are liable to report any cases of harassment or similar incidents to the administration. At the inaugural meeting on Thursday, Nov 29, Alyssa mentioned that the only exclusionary criterion for becoming a sREF is enrollment as a PhD student, since continuity and consistency are important for this initiative to succeed. The sREFS will be allowed to keep anonymized and confidential notes only after getting consent from those who are speaking with them. These notes may also help identify the common issues prevalent among Sackler graduate students and help sREFS recommend programs to administration to tackle such issues. In case of any conflict of interest, sREFS may recuse themselves from certain cases; Alyssa would like to see at least one graduate student from each program volunteer as sREFS to avoid such conflicts. Given that this role incurs emotional stress on the volunteers, sREFS can also take time off from the initiative.

Interested students are asked to email Alyssa at Alyssa.DiLeo@tufts.edu to receive an application packet. The application deadline is Jan 15, but is also flexible since the initiative would like to be as inclusionary as possible. The sREFS initiative is also looking for volunteers to fill in positions on the executive board to help with logistics and planning. Unsurprisingly, all the current volunteers are female, as emotional labor most often falls on women in this patriarchy, and it would be great to see the male graduate students do their part as well in this timely, community-based initiative.

Uncategorized

Five Things to Consider Before Attending a Conference

1 Comment
  1. Make a good poster.

To bring a good poster to a conference, you need to have an actual poster to bring, which means carefully planning when you assemble and send your poster for printing. Leave at least a few days, or even better a week, between printing your poster and the date of your departure or attendance.

Check for any poster guidelines provided by the conference; you don’t want to end up with a poster that doesn’t fit on the presentation board.

Think about how you want your poster to look, in regards to content as well as physical appearance. Find an organizational flow for your information and data that will allow readers and listeners to easily track your project through its various stages. While paper posters are format most researchers use, fabric posters are easily packed into a suitcase, making them a good option for airline travel. 

  1. Choose sessions to attend wisely.

Big or small, conferences have a lot going on. Daily schedules are packed, and with larger conferences, there can be a half-dozen or more sessions happening simultaneously. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, so be thoughtful about the scientific fields or types of research you want to experience while there. Pick a few sessions that are of high interest to you that you absolutely will commit to going to, and be engaged in those sessions: sit in the front, take notes, write down questions and papers to look up later. Aside from those key sessions–and depending on the size of the conference and its offerings–be judicious in how you add to your list so you can get maximum output from all of the input available there.

  1. Plan out a networking strategy.

Conferences can be as much about networking as they are about sharing and learning new science. During poster sessions, socials, career events, dinners, and coffee hours, you might be introduced to dozens of new faces. Figure out ahead of time what you want to get out of the social aspects of the conference beforehand. Do you want to find another lab to collaborate with? Is there a lab you are interested in applying to after graduate school? Do you want to get to know trainees from other institutions? Are there contacts in science-related careers of interest to you that will also be at the conference? Once you have a goal in mind for how you want to network at the conference, scan through the program to pick out events that will help you meet those goals and commit to attending those sessions.

  1. Prepare business cards.

If you meet a potential collaborator or career connection, having a business card to give them could make or break a follow-up after the conference. After all, we’ve all written down someone’s email on a note in our phones and then promptly forgotten about it until we find it again three months later. With a physical card, your information is in a more accessible and memorable format that shows you are both professional and prepared.

  1. Rest, rest, rest.

It is tempting to get wrapped up in the busy nature of conferences, but breaks are key to making it through without feeling completely exhausted by the end. Each day, run out for a quick coffee, go back to your room and take a power nap, or take ten minutes to just listen to some music in a hallway or quiet corner. Even a small pause in the hustle can refresh your brain and make room for even more great science 🙂 

Community, November 2018

NIH’s efforts to fight sexual harassment fall short of expectations

2 Comments

On October 21, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) new policy to fight sexual harassment in science went into effect. This policy requires institutions that receive NSF funding to report to the agency any findings related to sexual harassment, including coercion, assault and other forms of harassment (as defined here), by principal investigators (PIs) and co-PIs, within ten business days of the report. This policy also requires the institutions to report any administrative actions that have been taken against such PIs, including putting them on a leave during an investigation. This policy, originally drafted in February of this year, will apply to any new grants and any extensions to existing grants made on or after that date, and is considered as the “strictest action yet by a US research funding agency” to fight sexual harassment.

In comparison, the NIH’s new efforts to battle sexual harassment pales when held up to the NSF’s new policy. Several months after the NSF’s initial undertaking to design their policy, NIH Director Francis Collins unveiled the new anti-sexual harassment website containing a centralized reporting system for sexual harassment and violence, and updated policies that would apply to the institutions that receive NIH funding. These policies require the institutions to also develop and foster an environment that prevents gender violence, increase accessibility to reporting of incidents, respond to any reported incidents and notify the NIH in case of status change of the PI/co-PI on existing grants.

While these policies seem sound, a comparative analysis between NSF and NIH’s efforts reveal the lukewarm nature of such policies. The NSF requires that the agency be notified by funded institutions whenever a PI/co-PI has been placed on administrative leave, faces any administrative action related to the incident, or is under investigation for violating the award policies or the codes of conduct related to sexual harassment. In contrast, the NIH only requires that it be notified when there is a change of status for the PI/co-PI (a change of status is required when a PI/co-PI is no longer able to substantially contribute to the research efforts of the grant awarded). In addition to requiring that incidents be reported within ten business days, the NSF also has a review process for evaluating such incidents. The NIH has no such timeline, provides no guidance on investigating such incidents, and has no proper review process in place for determining the course of administrative action. It should be noted that both the NSF and NIH are dependent on the investigation performed by the alleged perpetrator’s host institution, which is a problem in itself given how universities seem reluctant to pursue sexual harassment cases.  

The starkest difference between the NSF and NIH policies seems to revolve around the question of what will happen to the funding situation for the alleged perpetrator if they are to be found in violation of the codes of conduct. Under the NSF policy, the PI/co-PI can be either removed from/substituted in the award, or have their funding amount reduced, or have their award suspended or terminated. However, in the FAQ section of the new NIH website, the question of removal of funding is described as a “complex issue” and refers to an existing policy requirement that is not specific to gender violence and sexual harassment issues. NIH Director Francis Collins pointed out that NIH grants are awarded to “institutions, not to individuals”; he also mentioned that due to the legal constraints the NIH faces since it is under the Department of Human and Health Services (HHS), immediate termination of the perpetrator’s funding cannot be applied as it can from the NSF, which is an independent agency.

Critics argued that Collins’ rationale appears contradictory and unclear. NIH policies allow grantees to transfer their funding when they change institutions, which is directly opposite to his statement that NIH grants are awarded to institutions and not individuals. Additionally, there are other mechanisms that the NIH can use to address time-sensitive issues, such as those of sexual harassment when they threaten the safety of scientists. The disappointment and frustration expressed towards NIH’s lukewarm efforts to fight sexual harassment is amplified by the fact that Collins had announced this topic to be on his agenda back in 2016. Critics pointed out that if the NIH had actually started working on this issue when they promised, they would have already made progress with the the complex rulemaking process. Collins has promised to work with the government and his counterpart in NSF, France Cordova, to work on these issues.

The issue of gender violence and gender bias in STEM fields have taken a center place with the burgeoning #MeTooSTEM social media movement. It was given a more concrete place in policymaking with the report from the National Academy of Sciences, published on June 12, that showed how pervasive these issues are, the failure of current Title IX policies, and the absence of any specific policies to address them. In this report, female STEM students in the University of Texas system reported higher levels of sexual harassment and related issues compared to non-STEM majors, with the highest level in Medicine; similar trends were found when female graduate students in the Pennsylvania state system in a separate survey. The report also showed how sexual harassment is also harming careers and driving women away from pursuing scientific careers altogether. All this data build on previous research which showed that prevalence of sexual harassment in academia stands at 58%; women of color, LGBTQIA and gender minority folks experienced a higher rate of harassment. The NIH’s new policy does not take into account the barriers victims face when reporting incidents of sexual harassment and violence due to established power dynamics and the pervasive patriarchy in society; nor does it take into account that it is more often than not that the victim suffers in their professional careers more than the perpetrator. The latter is exemplified in the case of the tobacco researcher at UCSF, who has been found guilty of sexually harassing a post-doc (although the perpetrator has denied responsibility), but is still employed and lauded by UCSF for winning a large NIH grant, whereas the post-doc had to leave the university and her work has not been published. This only adds to the argument as to why the NIH needs to take serious action against perpetrators and not reward them further with more funding. 

Scientists are not just waiting for NIH to catch up on the times to fight gender violence – Beth McLaughlin, the founder of #MeTooSTEM, and others have launched a petition to Francis Collins to stop funding perpetrators of sexual misconduct. Julie Libarkin has created a detailed spreadsheet of publicly available information on sexual misconduct in academia. Maryam Zaringhalam and Angela Saini are trying to bring Saini’s book Inferior, which details how gender bias in STEM fields have been constructed over decades, to public schools in the US to educate the youth, and especially encourage girls to pursue scientific careers. These trailblazers are, unsurprisingly, all women. It is also critical to note that neither these policies nor a critical examination of the pervasiveness of sexual harassment in academia would have come to light without these young women scientists blowing the whistle at great risk of their careers. Ultimately, the effects of gender violence and gender bias affects all sexes, and we should all be doing our part, especially the male scientists, to fight against it and not leave the burden on those who are affected by it the most.

articles, Mentoring & Outreach, October 2018

Coffee & Conversation with Dr. Laverne Melón

3 Comments

Written by Alyssa DeLeoNEUR. Coffee & Conversation is a series of informal chats with women faculty on campus, hosted by Tufts GWiSE. 

Our last Coffee & Conversation of the year featured Dr. Laverne Melón, a post-doctoral fellow in the Maguire lab and a TEACRS scholar. She will joining Wesleyan University as a faculty professor in neuroscience in the Fall. Laverne was born in Trinidad and moved to New York when she was 10 years old. In high school, Laverne helped establish the science club, which she insists was the most poppin’ after school extracurricular at the time, and she knew she wanted to work in research before even knowing what that was. The science club gave her and her peers the chance to support each other in the search for research experiences and ultimately lead her to volunteer in a cancer genetics lab at Columbia University. As she reflects on her first experience in science, she also acknowledges that it was also her first exposure to the sexism and racism that exists in scientific institutions. It’s difficult to turn a blind eye to these situations when all you want to do is put your head down and do the work in front of you. But, she didn’t let this taint her passion for the field and her experiences spoke to her resilience, which would be noted by several scientists later in her career.

Laverne went on to earn a BA in neuroscience at Middlebury College, a MS in Behavioral Neuroscience at Binghamton, and a PhD in Addiction Neuroscience at IUPUI after her lab at Binghamton moved. She lost a Binghamton fellowship in the move and had to teach at IUPUI, which she found frustrating as anyone does when they’re forced to do something. However, Laverne began to enjoy the process and her career path in academia became increasing clear. Laverne has been a post-doc in Jamie Maguire’s lab for the last 4 ½ years studying effects of stress on reproductive health and the role of the GABAergic system in alcohol addiction. As she moved into her post-doctoral years, she was really fueled by a research question which she presented to Jamie along with some data to score her current position. Now, she’s fielding multiple offers for faculty positions and learning to navigate this new part of her career.

As always, we chatted about how early life experiences brought our guests to their current positions, how crucial the role of mentors played in this trajectory, and the vital importance of self-advocacy. But, we kept coming back to this idea of producing good, reproducible science and how that is only possible if the field really cared about the people behind the data. It’s no secret that scientific institutions have not been the best advocates for the health of their workforce. Levecque et al. published a study in May of 2017 reporting one in two PhD students experience psychological distress and 1/3 of graduate students are at risk for a psychiatric disorder. An online survey of graduate students in a recent March 2018 study by Evans et al. reports graduate students are more than six times as likely to experience depression and anxiety compared to the general population. SIX times! It’s exceeding clear that health of scientists across fields and levels are struggling in this environment. This begins by hiring scientists that are more than a good researcher, but are inspired teachers, passionate mentors, and expert managers who are in touch the health of their lab.

As Laverne is beginning the next chapter of her career, she’s considering taking on an administrative position as a director of inclusion and diversity in addition to her faculty appointment. She intends to use her status to implement institutional changes to allow for better science through caring, supporting, and mentoring the next generation of scientists. When Laverne started to work in science, she admitted she tried to assimilate as much as possible, but it gets exhausting. It’s difficult to integrate into establishments and systems that have been hostile to the existence of women and minorities in science while trying to stick it out until you can get to a position to make changes. She’s been able to tap into her mentoring network over the years for support and instructed us to be vulnerable in our insecurities to allow these organic mentorships to grow.

If you’re interested in getting involved with GWiSE, follow us on Twitter @TuftsGWiSE, like us on Facebook, or email us at tuftsbostongwise@tufts.edu. Our next Coffee & Conversation is October 19th, 2018 at 5PM in Jaharis 913.