With the start of summer in the northern part of the world, CSG announced its first Annual Symposium- ‘STEMPeers: Connecting Scientists’ on Saturday, September 23, 2017, at the Aeronaut Brewery (Somerville, MA). Addgene’s co-founder, Melina Fan, is going to be the plenary speaker – get inspired with her story of building organizations to help scientists work more efficiently.
How soon can total open access really work? On one hand, European leaders have asked for complete open access to scientific papers by 2020. But in the current open access model how do we get around the huge payments for publishing the open access journals? SciHub, the Robin Hood in Science, has been recently issued a penalty of $15 mn for Elsevier copyright infringements by US court, for making scientific papers illicitly available to public.
Adding to the woes of researchers troubled with paid access to scientific literature, non-reproducibility of pre-published data calls for immediate action towards better information. Those who are fretting over a horrible western blot result before the weekend hits, will appreciate the efforts taken by Biocompare to tackle the reproducibility issues of antibodies. While we appreciate efforts taken towards making the scientific community more informed about picking the right reagents and protocols, Chinese government went another step by announcing severe penalty, that can also lead to execution for scientists found fabricating their data – in an effort to restore scientific data integrity in the country. Data fabrication, a problem that plagues the community, might only be aggravated if such harsh measures are taken instead of tackling the root cause of it.
The rise of the age of nanotechnology in food sector – encompassing nutritional content of food to judging its freshness – also calls for the society to embrace newer technologies with newer regulations to understand. While most people still stay unclear about the moral and ethical concerns around gene editing, the CRISPR story gets more melodramatic with Doudna’s A Crack in the Creation. With more and more non-novel technologies being developed, it is also imperative for scientists to embrace easier forms of communication with public. Here is an example of a scientist’s pursuits of reaching people by drawing science. SciViz, NYC, USA is another avenue where you can be a part of network of people who work towards visualizing science.
The healthcare consulting enthusiasts might want to take a look at a list of top-rated firms in the field. The other life scientists among our readers might want to take a sneak peek at the companies that employees have valued in life science sector. Alfreda James, from Stony Brook University, gives insights from her experience as a career education professional.
Take a look at the opportunities shared on CSG –
- PhD programme in Biology at Ashoka University
- Postdoctoral fellowship, Scientific project management, Harvard Program in Therapeutic Science, MA, USA
- Postdoctoral fellowships, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, linked with Marie Sklodowska Curie Individual Fellowship Actions, Madrid, Spain
- Postdoctoral Scholar, Stream Hydro-Ecology, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, Berkeley, USA
If you are interested in the above positions, you well might want to know what it takes to write an impactful proposal for postdoctoral fellowship.
- Head of Stem Cell Engineering, CRTD, Dresden, Germany
- Scientist, Analytical Chemistry, Rathway, NJ, USA
- Scientist, Cancer Immunology, Stratacuity, Greater Boston area, USA
- Program Officer, Crohn’s disease, Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, USA
- Product Manager Premier Partners, MilliporeSigma, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Associate Scientific Liaison, US Pharmacopeal Convention, Maryland, USA
- Associate Specialist, Ecosystem and Sciences, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, Berkeley, USA
- Senior Program Manager, HHMI, Maryland, USA
- Senior Medical Writer, MediTech Media, Philadelphia, USA
- Field Applications Scientist, Flow cytometry, Beckman Coulter, LA, USA
- Intellectual Property Manager, Synthetic Genomics, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Bioinformatician, Oxford Vaccine Group, Churchill Hospital, Oxford, UK
And in case you feel dissatisfied with your performance – remember sometimes it is better that you just work, and let others evaluate your work – you are not always the best judge of your work. Keep calm and keep maximizing on your happiness. Everything else will have to fall in place!
Featured images are by IpsaWonders (on Facebook and Instagram) and Fuzzy Synapse (on Facebook).
About the author:
Somdatta Karak works with Club SciWri as a project coordinator and Corporate Liaison. She is a doctorate in Neuroscience from Georg August University, Göttingen, Germany and has been a Teach for India fellow (2014-16). She loves putting her analytical skills to build newer and more sustainable solutions, enjoys traveling and communicating and takes every opportunity to expand her horizon.
You can reach her here.
