"By periodical and migratory meetings, to promote intercourse between those who are cultivating science in different parts of the United States....To give a stronger and... more systematic direction to scientific research in our country." - Louis Agassiz, on the founding of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1848 Last weekend I got to attend two wonderful conferences, one right after another. Both were student-focused, and so presenters offered not only summaries of the science taking place in their labs, but also valuable career advice. I plan to make a blog post about each. First and foremost, of course, SCIENCE!
The first conference I attended was the HHMI Med Into Grad Symposium hosted by the Leder Human Biology program at Harvard Medical School. The theme of the Symposium was "Metabolism: Fueling Translational Research." It was a pleasure to attend. I really enjoyed the chance to meet other translational PhD students from universities across the Northeast, and the talks were fascinating. The theme of several of the talks was diabetes and obesity. I was struck by how every single one of the speakers wanted to turn the conventional models on their heads, in order to approach this ancient problem with new eyes and fresh optimism. The fabulous presenters included Dr. David Ludwig, who advocates changing the view of cause & effect in obesity, so that the traditional advice to "just eat less and exercise more" is not only doomed to fail, but potentially harmful. Dr. Sudha Biddinger showed compelling molecular data that argued that in type II diabetes, the community has focused overly much on glucose, and that to prevent cardiovascular disease, we should perhaps be paying attention to FMO3 and the FOXO1 signaling pathway instead. And Dr. Morris Birnbaum advocated for a new model of insulin resistance, focusing on increased glucose in the liver causing higher levels of insulin, which overwhelms the system and causes defective insulin signaling. These creative approaches highlight the importance of scientists daring to question their forebears and approach old problems in new ways. I was also seriously impressed by the student presenters at MiG, a group which I was honored to be part of. If you had asked me about metabolism just a few months ago, I would have shuddered at the memory of biochemistry classes that failed to ignite my curiosity for anything smaller than a protein. After seeing these students present their work on a myriad of important translational topics in metabolism, I can say I am very happy that metabolism data managed to worm its way into my own project. Perhaps it is just post-conference glow, but it is hard to think of a topic more relevant to the health of living organisms than the creation and consumption of energy. On the second half my four-day weekend, I attended my graduate program's CSB retreat, which featured a wider range of topics. Dr. Zhipeng Wang presented extremely interesting work on detecting structural DNA variants from short-reads in Whole Genome Sequencing, Dr. Wendy Gilbert showcased her lab's work on differences in our RNA translation efficiency (something that I feel deserves more attention in our gene-expression-obsessed field), Dr. Brenton Graveley talked about alternative splicing in the Drosophila gene DSCAM (using the exciting new MinION sequencing platform!), and Dr. Otto Cordero described his new lab at MIT, where he focuses on modeling the ecological dynamics of microbes. We also heard from my awesome fellow students and, most interestingly, from program alumni (more on that in Part 2). For my own part, at both conferences I presented my work on OmicsIntegrator, a tool that the Fraenkel lab created to analyse several types of high-throughput data in one sample. It was a great experience to present my work (my first time speaking at a conference outside of my undergrad institution!), and to very engaged audiences. I was very pleased to see that several students seemed to be interested in trying our tool in their own projects. Attending well-organized conferences never fails to inspire me in my own work, and speaking at these conferences actually deepened my engagement with the conference as a whole. I took the opportunity to jot down ideas for my project as they occurred to me, and I hope to incorporate several of these into my work in the coming months. It is times like these I remember to think of science as a community, and to value opportunities to engage with it.
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"This is not a fairness issue or a politeness issue, this is a business issue" Deborah Dunsire, CEO Forum Pharma Last week I attended a conference on Women in Biotech at the Radcliffe Institute. Since I am leaning towards entering the biotechnology industry when I graduate (and the lines between academia and industry are becoming increasingly shaky in any case), this was a valuable look ino the gender environment of this field.
The biotech field is an interesting one in terms of gender representation. By all accounts, it should be pretty equal. Women have gotten more than 50% of biology undergraduate and graduate degrees for several years now. And indeed, stats about entry positions at biotech companies show that a roughly equal number of candidates are entering the field. As you get higher up in the company hierarchy however, women comprise only 10-20% of top positions. One of the panelists, Alison Wood Brooks from HBS, presented two hypotheses that could help explain this. One is the perception of women (men, especially conventionally attractive ones, are more likely to receive funding from investors, even in a controlled environment where their pitches and ideas are exactly the same), and the other is women's perceptions (women were more likely to focus on the negative sides of a potential big promotion, such as less time for other pursuits). I think this is a very interesting way to look at this problem, which is prevalent in several fields. The conference went a step further, though, and actually featured an entire panel on potential solutions to the gender gap. Victoria Budson made a compelling argument to avoid solutions that merely offer advice for helping women "navigate the system", or "Fixing the Women". As she said, "women negotiate badly... not because they lack confidence, but because [showing less confidence] is an effective way of presenting yourself in a culture with intense social repercussions." As long as there are consequences and obstacles for women who seek advancement, there will be a gender gap. Instead, the women on the panel argued, we should focus on Fixing the System. Robin Ely presented on her efforts at HBS (which were publicized in the New York Times recently) and characterized efforts like these as "deep, ongoing, transformational work". These kinds of structural solutions are not easy, but seem to be very effective. One suggestion that several panelists brought up is to motivate this kind of work by outcomes for the businesses. Several studies have shown that businesses with at least 2-3 women on their board of directors do better in every sense, including getting a better bottom line. Complex problems, like those being addressed by the biotech industry, are better solved by diverse groups - both in terms of gender, race, and country of origin. Motivating the work of gender equity in this way may be the most effective way to get the larger industry on board. As Deborah Dunsire said above, this goes beyond fairness and equality - our businesses and our society will do better if we have more diverse people at the top. I am very happy to have had the opportunity to attend this panel. It included a wide range of extraordinary panelists, from women like Deborah Dunsire who have made it in the biotech and VC industries, to socal scientists who study the gender gap in this and other industries. Changing the culture surrounding gender is, as always, messy and difficult work, but I left optimistic that such a passionate intelligent group of people is putting their minds to the problem. For more data on the gender gap in several contexts: Gender Action Portal "For me, the connection to cancer patients has been a driving force in my career. They compelled me to work harder and faster and to be their advocate for new and better therapies." -Dr. Brian Druker Yesterday was my first class in a seminar I am taking this semester (despite having finished my class requirements), "Molecular Medicine". The class is co-hosted at Harvard and MIT through the Health Sciences & Technology program. It seems like it will be a great experience, including lectures from big stars in several areas across the biomedical research field.
"Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials" -Avicenna, influential 10th century Persian scientist I am envisioning this blog as a place to keep track of my thoughts and experiences as I enter the final phase of my PhD. I am just entering my 4th year in the Computational and Systems Biology program at MIT, and I am attempting to re-focus my energies on my thesis project. which has a new direction - Combining Omics Technologies in the Study of Huntington's Disease. Huntington's Disease is one of those rare disorders where we know the cause and beginning - a mutation in the Htt gene that causes neurodegeneration. What we don't know are, as Avicenna says, the "accidents and accompanying essentials" which will make our knowledge complete. My goal is to dive into the abundance of data coming out of high-throughput technologies, and look for a complete picture.
Here I will write about my papers as they are published, conferences or symposiums I attend, papers or books that I am reading in the field, and general advice for graduate school. My goal is that this will be a record of my time here for me to look back on (especially come thesis defense time!), but if other people stumble onto this, I also hope they find it helpful! |
AuthorAmanda Kedaigle's work in the Broad Institute focuses on leveraging brand new biological data modalities to study novel models of human brain development. Archives
February 2022
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