My mama rocks
So yesterday I googled my mom.
I was looking for her dissertation, thinking that maybe it was uploaded to her school's website, so I googled her first name, middle initial, last name. Instead, I found all of these scientific articles that she co-authored when she was a biochemist sequencing proteins at the NIH National Cancer Institute. I couldn't pronounce the titles of them; half the abstracts were in science speak, not in english. Stuff like "Reaction of N-Acetylimidazole with L-Asparaginase" in the journal Molecular Pharmacology (Vol 8, 561-564, 1972 in case you were wondering.). I think there were four articles in my initial search, and when I called her to tell her about it, she said, "Try my maiden name. There are a few more there." So I did, and there were. Including one in Nature. (Dissociation of β-Galactosidase by Thiols 227, 608 - 609 (08 August 1970)).
"Mama, you were in Nature? Meghana's trying to submit to Nature. Nature is one of the most important, most prestegious scentific journals out there." I may have gushed like a groupie.
"Yeah, there should be some in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, too." She thinks there should be some more out there, since her lab at NIH was pretty prolific.
I knew that my mom worked at NIH after she graduated from college. I knew that she was a biochemist for eight years there before she went on to get her Doctorate at the School of Public Health. I just never realized that she was doing all this publishing. It's pretty awesome that with only her undergraduate degree in zoology from the University of West Virgina she was able to contribute so much to general scientific knowledge.
I don't think it occured to her that her publications would be googleable. I mean, they're over 35 years old, and google didn't exist back then. I think she thought that they were safely ensconced in Medline, maybe a few libraries.
My mom rocks.
I was looking for her dissertation, thinking that maybe it was uploaded to her school's website, so I googled her first name, middle initial, last name. Instead, I found all of these scientific articles that she co-authored when she was a biochemist sequencing proteins at the NIH National Cancer Institute. I couldn't pronounce the titles of them; half the abstracts were in science speak, not in english. Stuff like "Reaction of N-Acetylimidazole with L-Asparaginase" in the journal Molecular Pharmacology (Vol 8, 561-564, 1972 in case you were wondering.). I think there were four articles in my initial search, and when I called her to tell her about it, she said, "Try my maiden name. There are a few more there." So I did, and there were. Including one in Nature. (Dissociation of β-Galactosidase by Thiols 227, 608 - 609 (08 August 1970)).
"Mama, you were in Nature? Meghana's trying to submit to Nature. Nature is one of the most important, most prestegious scentific journals out there." I may have gushed like a groupie.
"Yeah, there should be some in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, too." She thinks there should be some more out there, since her lab at NIH was pretty prolific.
I knew that my mom worked at NIH after she graduated from college. I knew that she was a biochemist for eight years there before she went on to get her Doctorate at the School of Public Health. I just never realized that she was doing all this publishing. It's pretty awesome that with only her undergraduate degree in zoology from the University of West Virgina she was able to contribute so much to general scientific knowledge.
I don't think it occured to her that her publications would be googleable. I mean, they're over 35 years old, and google didn't exist back then. I think she thought that they were safely ensconced in Medline, maybe a few libraries.
My mom rocks.