Grad school Life..

[oldhen]

Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know.
Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know.
Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about.

Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

With this promising prayer begins this esoteric textbook - The Neurobiology of an

Comments

[subtle_blues]

fellow fly pushers.???
what exactly do u do?

*sigh*
Even before I begin, I am starting to wonder what I am gonna "not know" in the next 5 years!
:-|

[oldhen]

what exactly do u do?

What I do is a sublime marriage between art and high science, no less. :-) More mundanely: To manipulate flies, we need to anaesthetise them, you sort of put them on to a CO2 pad, and sort them using an artist's paintbrush, picking the ones with the characteristics you want. This whole process of doing genetics is called Fly Pushing. The lab fly has a pretty good life, to quote Shakespeare:

The wren goes to't, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight.
Let copulation thrive.

:-)

am starting to wonder what I am gonna "not know" in the next 5 years!

Let me not scare you - grad school can be fun, really! My peers have had their work featured on the BBC and all! I think the key is to have a balance between work and non-work.. :-)

[mrsgollum]

have fun and I hope there is more activity than fly-swatting at the conference:)..

[oldhen]

Thanks, mate! The conference isn't till October, so there's a ways to go yet, but yeah hopefully it'll be useful - could sure use some guidance :)

[shortiyergirl]

I'm not a fly pusher but I'm curious about your work and have some understanding of the field. I'd be happy to hear more about what you're going to present and your work in grad school (dumbed down appropriately for me of course ;))

I'd almost forgotten about piled higher and deeper. It used to be a favorite of mine but sometimes a depressing read because when it hit too close to home, I wasn't able to laugh at it!

[oldhen]

My work in grad school is (*sigh*) unfortunately still very much a work in progress..

One of the twin focii(?) of the lab is a class of genes called SOX genes. These proteins are transcriptional regulators, meaning they regulate the activity / levels of other genes. We humans have about 20 such genes (the humble fly has about 8) and they are known to be important developmentally, the term that is oft bandied about is "multi-functional developmental regulator" i.e. they're involved in pretty much every developmental process that people have cared to look at, everything from sex determination to nervous system development. That's the sales pitch that these are Very Important Proteins Indeed. (VIPs if you will ;) )

So, while these genes have been extensively studied for their (undoubtedly important) roles in development, almost nothing is known about their potential roles in the adult nervous system. Enter yours truly, who decides rather naively that this would be A Very Cool Thing To Do. We use fruitflies as a model as

[shortiyergirl]

who decides rather naively

Why naive? Sometimes I think the best things come out of first year grad students. When I was in my fifth and final year, I'd pretty much conclude that something was not possible whereas a first year who didn't know any better might actually make it happen!

Thanks for elaborating on your line of work.

I survived grad school :) Yay! Now I'm a researcher in industry.

[oldhen]

Yeah, I agree being young and inexperienced does come with the perk of believing that anything is possible. In my case though, it's been much harder than I thought it would be when I started on this in my second year. Hindsight is always 20-20 I know, but I should've probably dropped it cold and done something else..

Now I'm a researcher in industry

What industry, if you don't mind my asking?