Kudos to all fellow CSGians as different parts of the world celebrates International Workers’ Day or Labour Day this month. This week we applaud all the hard work we scientists put in, day in day out to make the world a better place.
World leaders and their stories
As we prepare to face yet another week at work, Apple CEO Steve Jobs emphasises how figuring out what he wanted early in life helped him climb the ladder of success, while Pepsico CEO Indra Nooyi describes the 5 C’s that made her such an effective leader.
Funding fever in the US
Earlier this week the Congress buffed Trump’s call for cuts in science funding and NIH is promised $2 billion funding. While this was a good enough news, the funding scenario seems hopeful with NIH limiting grants each scientist can receive, opening up more opportunities for early to mid career researchers.
Designer babies legalised in the UK
Mitochondrial genetic disorders can be prevented as UK approves ‘three-parent’ babies where the maternal mitochondria carrying the diseased gene can be replaced. This is a huge leap forward in combating with genetic disorders opening doors for the concept of “designer babies”. As we move towards the future here’s a flashback of the evolutionary tango of animal gentilia explaining the whys’ and hows’ of reproductive evolution.
Cancer in natural white light
Scientists at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru synthesise ‘Disarib’, a small molecule that selectively kills cancer cell better that its FDA-approved competitor, while IIT Madras goes natural and generates while light from pomegranate and turmeric dyes post UV excitation at 380nm.
Resume Roadmap
Post-docs narrate their experiences on making a park in alternative careers and myths on leaving academia. For those in love with the bench Vignesh Narayan explains how to dealing with research stress while pursuing your creative instinct. Here’s a list of recruiters to help you land in you dream industry job, with tips on preparing an effective cover letter, an interview for a job on stretch, entry level MSL jobs, application scientists, science communication and science policy. For the ones who are in the job application phase here’s some advice on surviving rejections, to keep up your spirit in the process.
CSG: the new Hogwarts
This week at CSG we congratulate our Gurukool-mentor mentee program on its success in the January cycle. The next cycle starts in June-July, for aspiring job seekers who wish to be mentored for a career transition. For people with US visa queries, please sign up on the CSG visa signup sheet for advice from our volunteers.
Opportunities
Post-doctoral positions available at
National Institute of Plant Genome Research, India
Medimmune AstraZeneca and more coming up in the new R&D centre at HQ Cambridge next year.
Fellowships available
Doctoral scholarships at New Zealand
Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers, Germany
NASA MoBE Postdoctoral Fellowship
Internship in Roche
BioBusiness School for life scientists at Amsterdam, Netherlands
Editorial jobs available at
Elsevier : NA-USA-MA-Cambridge
About the cover image
This week’s cover image is by Vinita Bharat at Fuzzy Synapse.
About the author
Nisha Peter is a recent PhD graduate from Genome Damage and Stability Centre,UK and is now working as Research Fellow at Sussex Drug Discovery Centre,UK. Her research interest involves cell biology (I’ve spend a lifetime admiring mitotic cells during my PhD!!) and oncology. She works for Club SciWri as a freelance writer to pursue her love for “words”. Apart from being bench scientist she actively participates in science communication events, enjoys teaching, globetrotting and experimenting with music.
