Articles by Guest Author (166 results)

As COVID-19 spreads across the world, members of the GSA community have had to face unprecedented challenges in their professional and personal lives. To stay connected during this socially distant time, GSA invites the scientists in our community to share how they are meeting these challenges, as well as their questions and worries.  If you…

Guest post by CourseSource Editor-in-Chief Michelle Smith and Managing Editor Erin Vinson. In partnership with Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) meeting, CourseSource is hosting an ONLINE Writing Studio Short Course. We have switched to an online setting because the SABER meeting will no longer be taking place in Minneapolis, MN this summer. We will offer this online…

Guest post by Alyssa Scott, Amanda Engstrom, and Teresa Lee.   As scientists, we know that social distancing is the best way to combat COVID-19. But as human beings, we’ve found that social distancing is an efficient way to quickly drain our mental health. We have a friend who, Castaway-style, puts a sticky note on the…

Guest post by Abha Ahuja, Assistant Professor of Natural Sciences at Minerva Schools at KGI. As on-campus meetings for laboratory courses are canceled, you might be wondering if you’ll be able to meet your goals in a virtual environment. It will take some adjustment, but it is doable if you are strategic about what you want…

Guest post by from Kenneth C. Burtis (University of California, Davis) and Mariana F. Wolfner (Cornell University). We note with great sadness the death of one of the giants of 20th century genetics, David Swenson Hogness, who passed away in Stanford, California on December 24, 2019 at the age of 94. The title of this blog, Genes…

Guest post by Charleen Adams. The Trump administration has proposed legislation that would make it legal to forcibly collect DNA from hundreds of thousands of migrants held in detention centers at the US-Mexico border [1,2]. This type of mass genetic surveillance is unprecedented. The closest comparison we have for it is the routine screening of…

We are pleased to announce the election of five new leaders to the GSA Board of Directors: 2020 Vice-President/2021 President Hugo Bellen Professor, Molecular and Human Genetics, Neuroscience, and Developmental Biology, and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute, Baylor College of Medicine Hugo Bellen is a Drosophila geneticist who has…

Guest post by Irini Topalidou, Senior Scientist at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington, Seattle. I first met Martin “Marty” Chalfie in January 2004, when I visited his laboratory in the biology department of Columbia University to interview for a postdoctoral position. At this point, Marty was already a professor of biological sciences, studying…

Increasing support for parents in science means making conferences more child-friendly. Guest post by Elisabeth Marnik and Julie Claycomb, members of the GSA Conference Childcare Committee. The scientific community works on the cutting edge. We implement new techniques and methods as soon as we can with the understanding that—though there may be challenges along the…

Guest post by Cassidy Villeneuve, Wiki Education. A Wikipedia writing assignment is a great opportunity for instructors to teach science communication skills on a world stage. In this kind of assignment, genetics students create or improve Wikipedia articles related to course topics. They’re especially well equipped to translate scientific concepts this way for a general audience,…

Guest post by Susan Gerbi, George Eggleston Professor of Biochemistry and professor of biology at Brown University, and Virginia A. Zakian, Harry C. Wiess Professor in the Life Sciences in the Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University. Patricia J. Pukkila September 28, 1948 – June 20, 2019 Dr. Patricia J. Pukkila passed away on June…