Articles by Guest Author (197 results)

Guest post by A.J. Marian Walhout, PhD. Massachusetts, March 2020: The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic that would profoundly affect us all. Labs shut down abruptly, assay trials were disrupted, some experiments in progress were thrown out. Now what? With pipettes unused on the bench and the foreseeable future unclear, how long would this…

This is a guest post by Sarah Marshall, originally published in the Undiagnosed Disease Network’s Participant Engagement and Empowerment Resource (UDN PEER). In April 2021, I had the pleasure of interviewing Drs. Hugo Bellen [2021 GSA President] and Shinya Yamamoto about their work at the Model Organisms Screening Center (MOSC) at Baylor College of Medicine,…

What scientists can learn from pandemic communication failures.

Guest post by Emma Hinkle. The field of genetics has provided some of the answers to life’s biggest questions. However, discovering the base pairs that define us has more often driven us apart instead of together. Genetics should be for all people, but this field lacks equity in three specific ways: education, research, and representation. …

Quick tips for making vaccine science understandable to non-scientists. Guest post by Elisabeth Marnik, Ph.D. It’s been more than a year since the world started shutting down in the wake of widespread COVID-19 cases. We are still living through a pandemic, but the United States is finally starting to see a light at the end…

Insider tips on how to make your postdoc application stand out from the pack. Guest post by B. Duygu Özpolat. While some graduate students have resources and institutional support to help them navigate the transition to postdoc life, not everyone has a mentor to guide them through the many unwritten rules of this complex system.…

For every rule, there are exceptions. The same is true for how organisms organize their genomes. From how DNA is packaged in the nucleus to what genetic code is used for translating proteins, notable exceptions are found all across the tree of life. Most organisms use the standard genetic code. A few, such as ciliates,…

When you’ve been in science long enough, you become part of a certain generation: people with whom you were roommates at Gordon conferences as postdocs, discussed your latest data and shiny ideas during session breaks as a young faculty, and looked forward to seeing at meetings as established scientists. Angelika was part of my generation;…

GSA member Lea Kanner Bleyman died on November 6, 2020, three days short of her 84th birthday. Lea was a Professor Emerita in the Department of Natural Sciences at Baruch College and a past-President of the International Society of Protozoologists (now the International Society of Protistologists).  Lea was born in Halle, Germany on November 9,…

Guest post by Rebecca Mandt. Being a scientist can be incredibly rewarding. As a PhD student who studies the genetics and evolution of the malaria parasite, I am motivated to go to the lab every day because I believe the research I do will contribute in some way to our future ability to address a serious…

Guest post by Meredith M. Course* and Irini Topalidou.** The career success of graduate students and postdocs (referred to here as “trainees”) is largely dependent on just one or two principal investigators (PIs). PIs influence how trainees think about science and whether they choose to stay in the field. The fundamental purpose of mentorship is for a…