Research update
As an undergraduate, I worked in a large, well-funded microbiology lab. I mostly worked as head lab tech, but I also did some research studying the function of a particular protein in E. coli in collaboration with a much smaller lab. Then I went to Tufts for graduate school. There I worked in a funding poor lab and did behavioral energetics work on paper wasps, focusing on behavior with a side of physiology.
Now I'm working on behavioral genomics in paper wasps, and it's an interestingly different experience from either. I'm working in a very new lab that is not flush, but has a new grant that it needs to spend on things to get the lab up and going. It's a fascinating combination of poor and rich: lots of money that needs to be spent, lots of things that need to be bought, but a high level of awareness that this won't last forever, and that working money needs to be conserved.
One of the fascinating things about working in this lab is that the lab it replaced was still full of stuff when Amy moved in. So, some things got given away, some things got kept, and some cabinets are still strange and dusty treasure troves. Everything I do is a bit of a treasure hunt, often in a good way. Recently I was looking for something that could passably substitute for the relatively expensive tubes that I didn't want to buy, and found exactly the tubes I wanted in an unlabeled cabinet that I had never thought to check.
I've been enjoying getting back to genetics work. It's very satisfying in a way that behavioral work rarely is. When you clone a gene, you sequence it, and it's either there or it isn't. It's clear, and, once you have done something, it's done. Animals are much less clear.
Speaking of cloning, I've really been enjoying seeing the technical advancement of the past 7 years or so. When I was doing my senior research, cloning a gene of interest was probably about 1/3 of my project. Now, start to finish it took 3 weeks, including a false start. And I've been doing other things at the same time. Science is awesome.
I'm also jumping in the deep end of the big problem of genomics work right now: more data than we know what to do with. It's cheap and easy to get tons of sequence, but once you have it, it's a much harder task to figure out what it means. If there are any biology literate computer geeks out there interested in project ideas, I think there is a piece of software that is desperately needed right now. Everyone I know who is trying to assemble sequence is running it on multiple assemblers and getting different results from each one. There doesn't seem to be a program to take the results of these assemblers, compare them, and say "ok, of these four results, this is the best-guess consensus." A program that did that would make a lot of biologists much happier about their sequencing data.
All in all, things are going well, and I'm having a lot of fun. I've been starting to see paper wasps flying, and I'm looking forward to field season.
Now I'm working on behavioral genomics in paper wasps, and it's an interestingly different experience from either. I'm working in a very new lab that is not flush, but has a new grant that it needs to spend on things to get the lab up and going. It's a fascinating combination of poor and rich: lots of money that needs to be spent, lots of things that need to be bought, but a high level of awareness that this won't last forever, and that working money needs to be conserved.
One of the fascinating things about working in this lab is that the lab it replaced was still full of stuff when Amy moved in. So, some things got given away, some things got kept, and some cabinets are still strange and dusty treasure troves. Everything I do is a bit of a treasure hunt, often in a good way. Recently I was looking for something that could passably substitute for the relatively expensive tubes that I didn't want to buy, and found exactly the tubes I wanted in an unlabeled cabinet that I had never thought to check.
I've been enjoying getting back to genetics work. It's very satisfying in a way that behavioral work rarely is. When you clone a gene, you sequence it, and it's either there or it isn't. It's clear, and, once you have done something, it's done. Animals are much less clear.
Speaking of cloning, I've really been enjoying seeing the technical advancement of the past 7 years or so. When I was doing my senior research, cloning a gene of interest was probably about 1/3 of my project. Now, start to finish it took 3 weeks, including a false start. And I've been doing other things at the same time. Science is awesome.
I'm also jumping in the deep end of the big problem of genomics work right now: more data than we know what to do with. It's cheap and easy to get tons of sequence, but once you have it, it's a much harder task to figure out what it means. If there are any biology literate computer geeks out there interested in project ideas, I think there is a piece of software that is desperately needed right now. Everyone I know who is trying to assemble sequence is running it on multiple assemblers and getting different results from each one. There doesn't seem to be a program to take the results of these assemblers, compare them, and say "ok, of these four results, this is the best-guess consensus." A program that did that would make a lot of biologists much happier about their sequencing data.
All in all, things are going well, and I'm having a lot of fun. I've been starting to see paper wasps flying, and I'm looking forward to field season.