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News
Want to teach eugenics history in your genetics class? Advice and resources to take the leap!
Guest post by Michele Markstein and Gregory Davis. A summary of the May 26, 2020 TAGC 2020 Online workshop, “Raising a Woke Generation of Geneticists: How and Why to Include Eugenics History in Genetics Classes.” In the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minnesota police officers, the nation has been wrestling with how to identify and combat…
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Don’t close the borders to science
Our safety and prosperity are more dependent than ever on scientific breakthroughs. Medical advances like vaccines, rapid diagnostics, and new drugs all require a robust and innovative STEM workforce, as do other endeavors that hinge on genetic research, including agriculture, biotechnology, and conservation. The contributions of immigrant and visiting scientists in the US have substantially…
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How a lab studying Down Syndrome created an important resource for COVID-19 research
Guest post by Jennifer Tsang. Years ago, Sarah Edie and Norann Zaghloul pored over 50,000 zebrafish embryos, examining them for developmental phenotypes. They had previously injected each of these embryos with a plasmid expressing a gene from chromosome 21. Their goal was to understand how overexpression of specific genes on chromosome 21 affected early development1.…
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James F. Crow Award talks at TAGC 2020
The James F. Crow Early Career Researcher Award recognizes outstanding achievements by students and recent PhDs presenting their work at the Population, Evolutionary, and Quantitative Genetics (PEQG) Conference, which was part of TAGC Online in 2020. The 2020 winner and finalists for this prestigious PEQG award spoke in a high-profile session at the conference. Check…
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How bioinformatics can help fill the therapeutic drug pipeline
Written by members of the GSA Early Career Scientist Communication and Outreach Subcommittee: Angel F. Cisneros Caballero, Université Laval; Adelita Mendoza, PhD, Washington University; Narjes Alfuraiji, University of Manchester; Anna Bajur, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics During the current global pandemic, public attention is increasingly falling on the process of drug…
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Recap and resources from the TAGC 2020 Science Communication workshop
In late 2019, Thomas Merritt approached the members of the Communication & Outreach Subcommittee of the GSA Early Career Leadership Program about submitting a proposal for The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC) 2020. The members of the subcommittee jumped at the opportunity, and a group of six submitted a full proposal, which the Genetics Society of…
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GSA’s commitment to dismantling racism in science: building a plan for sustained action
The Genetics Society of America outlines its goals for anti-racism actions.
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Gonzalo Castro de la Mata: Life is about working and living at the same time
Gonzalo Castro de la Mata works across disciplines to balance economic development and environmental conservation. Here we talk about approaching problems from different perspectives and making time to live while you work. In the Decoding Life series, we talk to geneticists with diverse career paths, tracing the many directions possible after research training. This series…
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Video Highlights from TAGC 2020 Online
From April 22–25, TAGC 2020 Online brought scientists from multiple research communities together to share their research and stay connected. Videos from select TAGC cross-community sessions are now available on YouTube. Those who weren’t able to participate in the conference in April, check out the recordings below! Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Speakers: Scott Barolo, University of Michigan…
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Looking for teaching ideas? Check out genetics articles in CourseSource, Summer 2020
Guest post by Erin Vinson, University of Maine and Michelle Smith, Cornell University Are you teaching genetics and looking for some new ideas? Check out CourseSource, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal that publishes field-tested articles describing undergraduate biology activities. All the activities are aligned with learning goals written by life science professional societies, including GSA. Many…
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Community Voices
Understanding our eugenic past to take steps towards scientific accountability
Guest author Rori Rohlfs describes a unique classroom project for exploring the eugenic history of our field. I was a fourth-year graduate student when I found myself asking a librarian for the archives of the journal The Annals of Eugenics. I got to that point by climbing back through a chain of references on fundamental…