Community Voices

I have always been passionate about science and outreach is something I think I’m good at. So when I received an email from GSA saying I was on the shortlist for a very important advocacy and outreach event, I thought about how I might be the best scientist to represent GSA. I drafted the following…

As a geneticist, when I get asked by a friend or neighbor to explain what I do for a living more than just being a biologist, I might say something like: “I work on understanding how proteins function using yeast and other model organisms.” Besides that look of incomprehension that suggests I may have absent-mindedly…

New Faculty Profiles showcase GSA members who are establishing their first independent labs. If you’d like to be considered for a profile, please complete this form on the GSA website. Javier Apfeld Assistant Professor (since 2015) Biology Department Northeastern University Lab website Research program: My lab seeks to dissect the interplay between redox processes and…

A couple of weeks ago I presented a poster at an unusual event, entitled “Wasteful” Research? Looking Beyond the Abstract which was sponsored by the Coalition to Promote Research (CPR) and the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF).  It was unusual (at least in my experience) for two reasons. First, because I was accompanied by…

American titans of industry are approaching the business of medical philanthropy just as they do their day jobs: in a big way. It’s not unusual to hear of gifts in the hundreds of millions of dollars, if not the occasional one with close to yet another digit to the left. The inevitable institutes and research…

New Faculty Profiles showcase GSA members who are establishing their first independent labs. If you’d like to be considered for a profile, please complete this form on the GSA website.   Folami Ideraabdullah Assistant Professor (since 2013) Department of Genetics University of North Carolina School of Medicine Lab website   Research program: My lab studies epigenetic mechanisms…

If you’re reading this, you’re likely passionate about genetics. Now if I ask which of your passions cause you to donate money, some of you might say public radio and the Sierra Club. Or Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International. Or World Vision and Habitat for Humanity. But my guess is your answer won’t include…

New Faculty Profiles showcase GSA members who are establishing their first independent labs. If you’d like to be considered for a profile, please complete this form on the GSA website.   Jennifer Garrison Assistant Professor Buck Institute for Research on Aging Lab website   Research program: We study the relationship between the anatomy of neural…

This guest post from Sue Jinks-Robertson describes a personal experience with the NIGMS MIRA program. If you wish to share your perspective on MIRA or any other topic of interest to the GSA community, please consider authoring a guest post; send your ideas to blog@genetics-gsa.org.   Contributed by guest author Sue Jinks-Robertson I’ve been on…

Last year, GSA launched a new initiative to support our student and postdoc members who have ideas for local workshops on topics related to genetics research. The Advocating Translational Genetics/Genomics Conference in St. Louis (ATGC-STL) held at Harris Stowe State University (HSSU) was one of the first Trainee Organized Symposia to be funded through this…

When I was 21, I spent a year in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, at the end of which I hoped to stay on in Cambridge for graduate work. The Biochemistry curriculum included a set of lab-based projects, and so I found myself one fine spring morning spreading E. coli onto…