Spring 2015

5/08/15 – Last week we had a former He lab post doc, Weiqing Zeng, visit us from DuPont.   Weiqing provided us with great information regarding what qualities we need to be competitive for a career in industry, as well as some of the challenges and benefits associated with life in industry.  Whether preparing for a career in industry or academia, we are learning that many of the qualifications are the same (See “The Void”).

5/01/15 – As Maren and many of her Lab members were away this week, we decided to postpone their introductions to a later date when more of them are able to join us.  Instead, we took the time to discuss our plans for the summer, including creating a discussion topic and guest speaker list, setting BBQ dates and compiling our conference schedules.  This information will be added to the website in the coming weeks, so check back for the details.

Here at The Pub Club we are very fortunate to have regular access to highly distinguished members of the scientific community.  Following our summer schedule discussion, we took time to properly congratulate Sheng Yang He on his recent election to the National Academy of Science.

4/24/15 – Dr. Arnosti and members of the Transcriptional Journal Club stopped in.  Also there were The Mighty Arabidopsis Hunters (Jane & Gautam) from the Wiegel Lab.  These guest brought new insights and perspective to the discussion and contributed to record attendance.  Thanks to all who participated in our first open house.

4/17/15 – The Bonito lab did an excellent job describing their research on plant-fungal-bacterial interactions with us.  It stimulated some great conversations and generated some new ideas.

We also discussed building our summer schedule, including BBQs and conference preparation.  To aid in planning these fun and helpful events, please write your conference and vacation dates on the calendar (on the living room whiteboard) or email them to Bethany.

Also, if you are one of the fearless few who wants to take advantage of a fun opportunity to develop your leadership skills, volunteer to be a “BBQ PI.”  As PI, you can select from The Pub Club members to build your “lab,” who will then work with you to create a menu, establish a theme, find a location and everything else that is necessary to organize the event.  Hope to hear from you soon!

4/10/15 – As we head into the 2015 conference season, Joe led a discussion on how to get the most out of these valuable meetings.  We discussed the added value of not just presenting a poster, but whenever possible, giving a presentation.  Joe pointed out that while presenting a poster is not to be diminished, adding a presentation increases the likelihood that your poster & work will be sought out.  This is only a sample of the useful discussion to increase the return on our summer activities.  This topic held the interest of our gathering  past the 5:00 hour this week.  Hope you were there!

4/3/15 – Marcelo led our second PI Q&A session with an impressive 5-PI panel, including our new PI, Greg Bonito, and visiting PI, Maren Friesen!  The questions focused on how each of them chose a career in academia, what they like most and least about the job and of what accomplishment they are most proud.

The discussion also included advice on how to set priorities, how to avoid over-committing and how to be efficient with our time.   A recurring topic of interest at The Pub Club is time management.  The irony is we always seem to run out of time before we run out of questions!  This Q&A was no exception.  Thanks to Marcelo for selecting questions from our PI Q&A box, and thanks to all the PIs for continuing to allow us to benefit from your wealth of experience.

3/27/15 – Last week some members of The Pub Club took Dr. Jake Malones advice and moved our gathering away from the bench to The Hop Cat.  (Be sure to thank Alex for making the arrangements.)  A good time of casual discussion on our individual daily experiences was had by all.  We also enjoyed the company of Greg Bonito.  Seeing the value of The Pub Club’s Mission, Greg agreed to join us, both to contribute and benefit from our community.  Indeed Dr. Malone was right, it was “not a waste of time.”

3/20/15 – Jim Klug came to visit us at The Pub Club.  Jim talked to us about all things MSU greenhouse/growth chamber.  Thanks, Jim for taking the time to hang with us and answer our questions!  We appreciate all you do on our behalf.

03/13/15 –  JP Jerome (former He lab post doc) visited us from Rubicon Genomics, which is a biotechnology company in Detroit, MI started by two University of Michigan faculty members.  JP shared with us the types of responsibilities he has at Rubicon as well as the pros and cons of working for a small company.  He also told us about his own company, Detroit City Distillery LLC (click here to check out the website).  Thanks for coming over to hang with us JP!

03/06/15 – Koichi takes the Pub Club to school on snack hosting, or as Brad says he just “raised the bar.”  We should all thank Koichi for showing us what commitment looks …& tastes like. 
While we’re at it let’s say thanks to Ian for leading a great discussion on propagation error.  The two main examples we discussed were how to properly propagate error for gene expression fold change comparisons and log transformed data.  For those of you who missed or didn’t quite get all the equations written down, click here for a link to the Wikipedia page listing them all out.

2/27/15 – The Pub Club enjoys our first Pub Day at Dublin Square.

2/20/15 – James Kremer from the He lab shared with us about the 3 months he spent in Germany in Paul Schulze-Lefert’s lab.  Brad held down the fort as our other two PIs are out of the country this week.

2/13/15 – Ian Major led a discussion on authorship.  We discussed what counts as “significant contribution” and the importance of communicating up front what the expectations for authorship are before contributing to a collaborative project.

02/06/15 – At Brad’s request, we moved our regular meeting of The Pub Club to the MPS Atrium & the agenda was to present Lab Posters so we could support our PI’s in their recruitment efforts.  Sheng Yang and Brad use lab posters to summarize the various research in their Labs for new recruits.  Thanks to all who participated in the assembly of the posters and/or their presentation.

1/30/15 – Our first Brainstorming Session was a success!  Thanks to everyone for your input.

1/23/15 – Dr. Corny Barry talked with us about the NSF-funded REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) here at MSU.  There are several ways you can get involved!

• Mentor an undergraduate (your PI will need to contact Corny)
• Serve on the Graduate Student panel during the program
• Help with the Welcome and Good-bye parties
• Go to lunch with an undergraduate

1/16/15 – Qiang Guo of the Howe lab is getting ready to take his preliminary exam and wondered how the various departments represented by The Pub Club members handle this.  We had a lively discussion on the different approaches, the types of questions asked, and the purpose behind the exam.  There were also several tips for students preparing for and during the exam.