Hello PhD

The 2016 presidential election was divisive, dramatic, and distracting.  That’s why you probably missed a series of rulings and regulations that could have a profound impact on your research.

But fear not, Daniel and Josh are back with news on the recent legislation and how it affects your funding and focus.

Fair Labor for Postdocs

First up, the Fair Labor Standards Act, or “FLSA”, was scheduled for an update that would raise salaries for full time employees.  Way back in Episode 2, we outlined how President Obama’s proposed changes would apply to postdoctoral researchers.  Universities and institutions like the NIH would be required to either boost postdoc pay to $47,476, or treat them as hourly employees and start tracking their overtime pay.

Staring down the barrel of additional paperwork, many universities made plans to simply increase postdoc pay above the threshold before the December 1, 2016 deadline.  But on November 23rd, a US District Judge imposed an injunction, blocking the implementation until further review.

Many universities and research organizations decided to go ahead with the pay bump, but a few balked.  You can find out what your employer decided by visiting the Future of Research website.  They’ve compiled school-by-school reports on FLSA compliance and they’ll maintain that list moving forward.

For recent grads seeking out a new lab for your postdoctoral work, be sure to consider the ever-widening pay gap that exists among otherwise comparable universities.  Vote with your research, and make sure you are compensated appropriately for your valuable work.

21st Century Cures

As of this writing, the 21st Century Cures Act has passed the US House of Representatives with bipartisan support.  This omnibus health care and research bill cuts a wide swath, touching everything from basic research to medical device marketing.

Before we unpack the parts of special interest to the HelloPhD audience, let’s let President Obama give us the tl;dr.

In addition to lots of money flowing into treating opioid addictions and cancer, there’s a $4.8 billion authorization for the National Institutes of Health over the next ten years.  In fact, the first section of the bill is devoted to “Discovery,” which translates to basic scientific research carried out in universities like yours.

We cover some of the relevant earmarks in detail in this week’s episode, but here’s a quick link-list for anyone wanting to learn more:

* (Sec. 1002) The NIH must establish an Innovation Prizes Program to fund areas of biomedical science that could realize significant advancements or improve health outcomes.

* (Sec. 1023) The NIH must reduce the administrative burdens of researchers funded by the NIH.

* (Sec. 1028) Each national research institute must conduct or support high-risk, high-reward research.

* (Sec. 1041) A loan repayment program is established for health professionals engaging in research.

There’s no denying it: science is hard work. After a long week of 3AM time-points, contaminated cell cultures, and the ‘simple PCR’ that failed for the fifth time, you might lose sight of why you got into this business in the first place.

But, with Thanksgiving on the horizon, we decided to pause and consider all of the GOOD things going on in life and lab.

On the Bright Side

We asked our listeners and our favorite subreddits why they love grad school and working in science. As the responses poured in, we remembered just how great a life of research can be as long as you take the time to notice.

Lab workers love the flexibility of their work schedule. Instead of the 9-5 rat race with 30 minutes for lunch, we get the benefit of planning our time around experiments and results. Need to make a doctor’s appointment or spend some time with family? There’s no form to fill out – just go!

Listeners also found joy in the amazing people around them. As a group, scientists tend to be a quirky, curious, and intelligent bunch, which makes for great conversation. Add the stress of graduate training and you see students and postdocs forming lifelong bonds with their labmates.

We’re in this together, right?

Other common themes in your feedback centered around the perks of the graduate lifestyle. The chance to travel for conferences and the myriad opportunities for free food came up regularly in the conversation.

Daniel shared a very personal message of thanks with everyone who pursues basic research in the sciences. When cancer recently touched the life of his loved-one, he found hope in a clinical trial built on more than 100 years of scientific research in fields from virology, cell biology, neurophysiology and medicine.

With our day-to-day experimental successes and failures, it’s so easy to lose sight of the importance of our work. But know that this holiday season, the work you do provides hope to thousands of people whose lives depend on innovation and discovery.

So what are YOU thankful for this week?

More Causes for Thanksgiving

This week, we stick with the holiday theme to taste the Dogfish Head Punkin Ale. It’s not the cloyingly sweet pumpkin-spice monstrosity you expect from most pumpkin beers, so it’s safe to enjoy with dinner. Just save room for the pie!

And Josh shares some not-so-new-news about how scientists are growing unusual bacteria species outside of the incubator. It’s an inspiring tale of bargain basement materials that fuel priceless discoveries.

Dear Dr. Scientist,

I’m writing to tell you how much I admire your work in the field of science that you study.  Your lab has done some tremendous work researching very important topics of significance.  I just loved your latest research article and I’m sure it made your university or institution proud!

In any case, I’m looking for a postdoc position in a lab like yours.  Please let me know what day I can start.

Sincerely,

A Grad Student

If you want to end up in University spam filters, then just copy and paste this email to everyone in the department.

If you’d like that postdoc advisor to take notice and invite you for an interview, we have some tips for making contact and getting a response!

Take me to your mentor

This week on the show, we hear from Tessa, a nearly-minted PhD student who is on the hunt for a postdoc advisor.  She wonders about the rules and etiquette for reaching out:

I’m very close to finishing my PhD in physics. I would love to know your thoughts on cold calling academics in the job hunt. I know this is done a lot, but personally I always feel a little awkward reaching out to researchers at the top of their field, who I’ve never met before. 

Some of the questions I’ve been pondering are:

– How might this first email sound?

– Whether you should ask directly about opportunities to work together or just express interest in what they do.

– How to explain how my research interests aligns with theirs in few words.

– How to stand out amongst the crowd.

– Whether there are other things I should be doing like creating an online presence, webpage, etc.

We start at the beginning, by reminding you to think about whether you actually need a postdoc to achieve your career goals.

Assuming a postdoc makes sense for you, we share advice for identifying eligible advisors by mining your existing network of research contacts.  Ask faculty members and postdocs in your department who they’d recommend based on your research interests.  You might discover labs you’d have overlooked in a web search, and you’ll have a ‘warm’ introduction rather than calling cold.

If your colleagues can’t help, there are a handful of do’s and don’ts to consider when crafting an email.

Do:

* Open with a personal connection – “I saw your talk at the recent convention” or “Jim suggested I contact you.”  Making it personal and targeted will get them to read past the first paragraph.

* Let them know you’re looking for a postdoc opportunity – There are times to be coy and times to be direct. In this situation, hinting your way into the job is going to be difficult and confusing. Let them know you are looking for a postdoc position and how your research interests will align.

* Include an updated CV and references – Make it easy for the advisor to see how your background and skills are a great fit.

Don’t:

* Contact them by mail – No need for a snail-mail package with your CV and recent publications.  It’s not 1802. Everyone has email now.

* Spam a big list of labs – You shouldn’t email that advisor if you aren’t interested in the lab.  Yeah, I know it’s scary to put all your eggs into just a few baskets, but you’ll get a better result with focus and specificity.

* Expect a response after one email – Look, people are busy.  Even if they’d love to have you in their lab, they may have forgotten to reply.  Send a gracious follow-up email or hop on the phone to let them know you’re truly interested.

Do you have suggestions for how to contact PhD or postdoc ...

In some jobs, one day at the office looks a lot like the next. You could look through your calendar and optimize your meeting schedule and to-do list without much thought.

But working in a lab is different: your projects are in constant flux, experiments lead to other experiments, and you need to balance bench work with meetings, mentoring, and writing.

That busyness can lead to inefficiency as you tackle the items on your list one after another.  Worse, you’re forced to plan overlapping activities to fill the ‘downtime’ during incubations and time points.

This week, we encourage you to take a step back, look over your list of competing priorities, and ask some hard questions about what’s really important.

You might find you have more free time on your hands than you ever imagined…

Throw it in the Focus Funnel

Managing your time in lab goes beyond just making each experiment efficient and effective; you need to choose what tasks to take on, and which to let go.  That’s where the Focus Funnel from Rory Vaden’s Procrastinate on Purpose comes in handy.

Just take your to-do list, and ask the following questions:

* Does this task actually need to done? If not, eliminate it.

* Does it involve a repetitive task that a computer could do?  If so, automate it!

* Can someone else do it just as well as I can? If so, delegate it.

* Does it need to get done right away? If not, procrastinate.

If you answered no to all of the above, you’ve got a task that is important and requires your attention ASAP.  Now’s the time to set your pomodoro timer, and get the job done.

As you work through this mental checklist, you’re sure to find activities that are best eliminated, automated, delegated, and procrastinated.

Skip the fifth repetition on that Western blot that just won’t produce a pretty hot-dog shaped band. It’s okay, they’ll still publish your paper.

Make an Excel template that runs all of your favorite statistics after a qPCR.  It’s better at math than you are anyway.

Train your local undergrad to split your HeLa cells.  I promise you can get more if the first few batches get contaminated.

Wait until after you talk with your PI to finalize those PowerPoint slides.  You know he’ll find something to criticize – why not make it something you were planning to fix anyway?

The Focus Funnel can’t get you out of all of your work, but it will help you put each task in perspective and help you maximize the time you spend on the things that matter most.

The Pirates of Alcosynth

This week, we’re sampling the Hornigold English Style India Pale Ale from Mystery Brewing in Hillsborough, NC.  It derives its name from a piratical source which we reveal on the show.  The brewmaster at Mystery is none other than Erik Lars Myers, author of North Carolina Craft Beer & Breweries, so you know he knows his stuff!

We also learn about Professor David Nutt’s research on synthetic drugs without the side effects.  He’s created a compound named “alcosynth” that has all the fun of alcohol without the hangovers and liver damage.  He believes psychoactive substances have been part of human culture for millennia and will continue to be important for the foreseeab...

On those days when you manage to take a break from bench-work and call home, you will almost certainly get ‘The Question:’

“So, how is your research going?”

If you’re new to grad school, you might make the mistake of telling your parent or loved one exactly how your research is going.

“Well, I was up until 3 AM doing time points but then one of the buffers was contaminated so I had to throw out my last two weeks of work and start over.”

To which your parent will reply, “That sounds awful!  You must be so upset.  Are you sure a career in science will make you happy?”

And you’ll stop and ponder that last question.  Will a career in science make you happy?

Will you prance from bench to bench giggling to yourself, high on the sheer exhilaration of learning?

Or is it much more likely that you’ll face roadblocks, confounding data, experiments that only sometimes work, and that every once in awhile, you’ll push the boundary of your knowledge into new territory.  In those moments, you might feel proud or relieved or curious, but not exactly ‘happy.’

Does that mean you should leave science to find a career that can make you happier?

Or is Mom asking you the wrong question entirely?

And the Pursuit of Unhappiness

When a friend or loved one reflects on your life in the lab, it can highlight some of the challenges you face every day. Asking whether science makes you happy requires that you answer with a yes or no, but in fact, you may not be pursuing a research career because it makes you feel warm and fuzzy.

You may have chosen science because you have a burning curiosity that won’t let you sleep when there’s a puzzle to solve.  You may have seen the effects of a disease that you feel compelled to cure.  Or perhaps you’re the type of person who believes in the purity of the scientific method, and you want to apply that enlightened thinking to more of the world.

Whatever the case, you probably didn’t sign up for graduate school because you believed it would give you a permanent feeling of bliss.  So how do you explain your motivation and drive to friends and family?

This week on the show, we talk with Deirdre Sackett, a fourth-year student who recently reflected on her meaningful unhappiness in grad school.  She drew inspiration from The Oatmeal’s recent comic outlining his own lifestyle of busy, fascinated unhappiness.

Science isn’t about being happy or unhappy, she says.  “You will face failure in your studies, no matter what you’re doing.  Don’t let anyone define what your worldview of happiness is.  That’s for you to find and it’s not happiness, it’s meaning. That’s deeply personal to you and it’s not something that anyone can tell you to feel.”

The Science of Fitbit

This week, we also learn about the effects of activity trackers on weight loss.  These days, everyone wears a Fitbit, Jawbone, or Apple device to count their steps.  Perhaps it comes as no surprise that the actual outcomes of fitness tracking are complicated.

And to tip the scales in the other direction, we enjoy a bottle of the Smuttynose Peach Short Weisse.  They use a two-step fermentation process with Lactobacillus, so the beer is tart and crisp with just a hint of peach.  It’s not sour enough to cause your lips to pucker, but it is an acerbic surprise on your first sip.

When we imagine what life is like for people who are blind, our first reaction might be paralysis. We consider just how difficult our lives would be without sight; preparing breakfast, dressing for work, and navigating from home to the lab sound like insurmountable obstacles.

And if those trivial tasks seem daunting, consider your work day.  Could you keep up with the pace of scientific research, running experiments and publishing papers with your eyes closed?

In our imaginary blindness, many of us would despair and find an alternative career path, but we’re missing a very important distinction between the thought experiment and reality.

The fact is, people who have been blind since birth have developed the skills to leap each and every hurdle we’ve listed. It’s a normal part of every day to commute to work or read a scientific paper.

Their biggest struggle may be overcoming the decidedly limited imaginations of their sighted peers.

Expect Success

This week on the show, we interview Kevin Currin, a second year grad student in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology who also happens to be legally blind.

Kevin’s passion for science started at a young age, and he spent time building his research skills prior to applying to graduate school. Importantly, he also used that time to build a network in the science community. As he got to know other students and faculty, they learned about his drive and perseverance, as well as some of the tools he uses to get his work done.

Taking a few minutes to understand how Kevin interacts with the artifacts of scientific research goes a long way toward helping his sighted colleagues understand why he’s so good at what he does.

* Reading papers: Screen reader software recites the content on the computer line by line at whatever speed he chooses.  He’s trained his ear to listen at higher speeds, so he’ll read an entire paper in the time it takes most people to get through the introduction.

* Programming: Similar answer, but the code he writes is echoed back to him as he types.

* Data Analysis: Data visualization is out, but he argues that many scientists use graphs and summary statistics in a way that actually obscures data. Depending on the data set, he’ll either consume the raw table, or define the metrics that answer his questions.

* Presentation: Giving scientific talks is no problem, but he will enlist outside opinions when making his slides.  He initially spent time considering whether a bar chart or scatter plot would appeal to his audience, but since this is not how he perceives the data, he leaves that choice up to others who have a vested interest.

Of course, Kevin’s road to success hasn’t been without bumps.  He’s encountered his share of misunderstanding and bias (one faculty interviewer completely dismissed the notion that Kevin could conduct research at all.)  Still, he’s found a community that supports his scientific aspirations, and he’s doing his part to make the path easier for other blind individuals.

Kevin is passionate about changing the expectations for the blind.  He says that our culture, and even parents of blind children, see career success as a happy anomaly, reserved for the few savants and geniuses of the blind community.  Mediocrity is the expected default.

But to change that, he calls for all of us to expect blind students and colleagues to perform as well as their sighted counterparts.  It reveals our own implicit bias when we say things like “I can’t believe how well you did on that test” or “It’s so impressive that you were able to get into graduate school.”  We certainly would not repeat those phrases to other minority groups!

In addition to resetting our expectations, Kevin calls for broader and better outreach efforts.

When we think of scientists, we often think of the lone researcher plodding away at the bench late into the night.  We imagine Alexander Fleming scrutinizing his penicillium molds or Einstein pondering the latest equation he’s written on the chalk board.

We go a step further when training new scientists: we ask them to complete an ‘independent research project.’  We tacitly perpetuate this notion of the solitary scientist, making her own success or failure.

The side effects of this lone-wolf approach to research are painfully manifest: projects that stall on a single experiment, money wasted teaching everyone the same techniques, and students who burn out due to frustration, lack of direction, or just plain loneliness.

In Part 3 of our goal to modernize the PhD process, we propose a radical 180º turn from the independent project.

Let’s turn science into a team sport.

Though ‘group work’ was a dreaded sentence in your undergrad classroom, teams themselves are essential in most modern industries.  Can you imagine a manufacturer who expected one person to think up a product, design the machines, assemble the widget, box it up, and launch an ad campaign?

Yet that’s our vision of an ‘independent scientist.’  A scientist needs to identify the important questions in his field of study, design experiments, execute them, publish the results, and score grants from various funding agencies.

Imagination Laboratory

If we draw parallels to the lab, a new way of doing academic research arises.  We see a cohort of students, postdocs, technicians and PIs who team up to solve the same problem.  They map out the figures for a paper, and then divide up the work.

Instead of laboring away alone at the bench, experiments become an intricate dance.  An undergrad prepares the media while the PI (who has good ‘luck’) makes the clone.  A tech transforms the bacteria, inoculates the flasks, and teaches the undergrad to do a miniprep.

A grad student, who has flawless aseptic technique, is responsible for transfecting the mammalian cells without contamination.  She hands off analysis to the postdoc who has had ten years of experience at the microscope and prefers that quiet, methodical work.

They gather at lab meeting to assess the results of their team effort, and to chart a path through the next week.

Experiment by experiment, figure by figure, they divide and conquer the paper and publish faster than their competitors.  Everyone works to her strengths.  No one is left to flounder when an experiment fails.

In fact, it’s in every person’s interest to help the others.  Never again does a student sit stymied by the transfection that just won’t work; the whole lab needs that step to succeed, and everyone pitches in to diagnose the problem and break the bottleneck.

Of course, this system has its pros and cons.  While it’s possible to move more quickly from idea to paper, it requires a level of coordination that won’t happen by accident. And PhD programs would require a tweak to graduation criteria.  First-author papers would no longer be common, or meaningful, in such a team-based approach.

Tell us what you think – would you be willing to team up with others in your lab?  Have you ever worked in a setting where teamwork was the standard?  Leave a comment below, or tell us about your experience via email.

Some good news, and some bad news

In this episode, we round up some recent ‘science’ news you might have missed.

First, the FDA banned antibacterial additives commonly found in soap.  News flash: all soap is already antibacterial, thank-you-very-much.

Today, a graduate student will make a terrible mistake.

He’ll blindly commit to a long-term relationship that will make him miserable.  He’ll be too shy to ask his partner the painfully awkward questions that could predict their ultimate failure as a team.

Does this person have time for me?  Is she enthusiastic about helping me succeed?  Do our goals align?

Of course, this is not a romantic relationship: it’s the commitment formed between a grad student and his advisor.  And though it’s not a marriage, it can cover some of the same emotional ground.  When it’s healthy, you’ll both grow as people and you’ll achieve more than you would alone.

When it’s unhealthy, you might bear the emotional scars for the rest of your life.

With just a few simple changes to the graduate-advisor relationship, we can make sure more students, and their mentors, reach their full potential.  Why leave it to chance?

If we want to improve PhD mentorship, we have to consider how the relationship forms and finds support at all levels.

1. It’s not “you,” it’s “us”

Though it may be a stretch to describe the graduate student/advisor relationship as a marriage, it does have some useful parallels.  The first is that both sides are responsible for the relationship.

Often, we decry a ‘terrible PI’ or a ‘mean advisor’ and forget that the student forms half of the relationship.  The two must work together as a team, and there are a few ways to ensure a good fit.

The Wisconsin Mentor Training Core offers a checklist that mentors and students can talk through when assessing fit.  It seems trite, but many graduate training experiences have risen, and fallen, on such simple questions as:

* Can I commit adequate time to mentoring this person?

* Does this person have access to the kind of opportunities that can support my learning?

* Am I committed to developing my own mentoring skills?

Though it might feel awkward, having an honest conversation with your intended advisor could save you from years of disappointment, depression, and anxiety.  You don’t have to use the clinical-sounding questions in your conversation, but you should rephrase them and understand the answers before you commit.

2. It takes a village

We need to stop thinking of the PI or advisor as an army-of-one.  That creates an unhealthy codependence, and leaves the student with very few resources if the relationship turns sour.

Instead, every student should identify a mentorship team – the three to five advisors, coaches, and cheerleaders they’ll lean on during their training.

Your PI might be your academic advisor and help you navigate the world of peer-reviewed research.  But you may also want to find a friendly post-doc that can recall the tricks of completing a dissertation or to diagnose why your mini-prep always fails.

Do you want to pursue a career off the faculty track?  Then you’ll certainly need to identify a science writer, industry researcher, or policy wonk to show you the path.  Your PI doesn’t have the same resources as a seasoned professional in that alternate field.

3. Follow the lighted exit signs

Universities and departments can significantly improve training outcomes by giving students the option to move if their research-relationship isn’t working out.

Too often, there is a stigma associated with ‘changing labs,’ and it’s so pervasive that many students prefer to quit graduate school rather than ‘starting over.’  But sometimes, a fresh...

Scientific training has its roots in the ancient world.  From Aristotle’s natural philosophy to the modern biomedical research lab, science training has relied heavily on an apprenticeship model.

Senior scientists take promising young students into their labs and train them, hands-on, in the practical activities of research.

The assumption has always been that the aspiring scientist will ‘grow up’ to be like her mentor – running a lab of her own someday.  And for a long time, that made sense.

But in the modern world, PhDs go on to a much wider variety of careers.  Sure, some seek faculty positions, but others teach, consult, work in industry, and influence policy.

Is it time to rethink the PhD process?  Can we modernize scientific training to support the diverse interest of today’s scientists?

#modernPhD

That was the question posed by The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) in their push to modernize scientific training.

We rise to the challenge with a Trilogy of Solutions.  This week, we unpack the first idea: revising the graduate school curriculum so that training is more standardized, and time to completion is fixed.

Imagine a world in which your PhD program was limited to 5 years.  What type of training would build your research skills and make you ready for the workplace?

The fact is, our current system is extremely variable – each student has a unique project with individual successes and failures.  One student might sail through in 3 years, while another is forced to change labs and stays through year 9.

Is the first student smarter? Better equipped to succeed?  Or is the second student better trained by the additional time?

The reality is that ‘time to PhD’ is not synonymous with skill or training.  And if time isn’t correlated with success, then there’s an opportunity to tighten up the training schedule without sacrificing pedagogical quality.

We share a handful of ideas an concerns about a fixed-five year PhD, but we’d love to hear what you think!  Is it worth standardizing scientific training, and where should we start?

Big fruit, small bottle

Josh took a trip out west (but not too far!) to pick up this week’s brew: Wicked Weed Watermelon Saison from Asheville, NC.  It’s big on watermelon flavor, and makes us long for one last weekend trip to the beach.  Grab some before summer melts away!

It’s a compelling promise: take a few drops of blood, and tell the patient what hidden diseases are lurking in his body.  If only we could have an early warning system for cancer, Alzheimer’s, or myriad other diseases, then we could treat them before they took hold.

This is the narrative of Theranos, a company that wants to make medical testing affordable and fast for everyone.  They’ve taken the notion so far that they actually publish a price list for hundreds of tests right on their website.

Recently, the company made less favorable headlines when the Wall Street Journal revealed that many of the tests were performed on industry standard equipment, rather than the space-age technology Theranos markets.

The company’s troubles deepened when federal regulators announced plans to revoke the license of one of its lab facilities and to ban CEO and founder Elizabeth Holmes from the industry for two years.

But technology and regulations aside, there’s a more fundamental question we should all be asking: is wider access to routine screening a good thing?

The math says no.

Damn Lies and Statistics

This week on the show, we discuss a recent article from fivethirtyeight.com that makes a bold claim: “We don’t need more blood tests.”  The reason comes down to some counterintuitive probabilities.

Fundamentally, the value of routine screening for rare diseases comes down to just a few numbers: the sensitivity of our test, the specificity of our test, and the prevalence, or rareness, of the disease we’re trying to detect.

Even if sensitivity and specificity are high, they can lead to unintended consequences when we screen truly large numbers of people.  We walk through an example on this week’s episode with a made-up test and a made-up disease.

But the impact of broad scale screening is very real.  In fact, the recommendations for routine mammography and breast cancer screening have been changed recently due to the outsized side-effects of false positives in the screen.

There’s value to testing, but we have to make every effort to test the right people at the right time, and to help them interpret their results.  Our intuition is not always a helpful guide.

This Beer is Hot Hot Hot

This week, we turn up the heat with a Habanero IPA from Dingo Dog Brewing in Carrboro, NC.  Dingo Dog grows some of its own ingredients onsite in a “zero waste” production facility, and they use the profits to fund grants to local, “no-kill,” animal rescue organizations.

Their mission is cool, but this beer is hot!  It’s got all the bitterness you love in an IPA with a little kick of spice on the back of the throat.  Keep another brew on hand as a chaser!