Of mice and the noob

Posted on June 11, 2010 by biochembelle

Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have sensed a disturbance in the Force earlier in the week. The lab I work in does a great deal of in vivo work using an array of different transgenic and knockout animals. Typically we have a tech who maintains strains–mostly controls–that multiple people in the lab use. Other strains are the responsibility of the trainee who will be the primary user. About a year ago, we obtained a strain from a biotech/pharma company for a new direction of our work. A fellow in the lab was given responsibility of the strain, which was then transferred to another fellow, and ultimately transferred to me a few months ago. Coming from a biochemistry lab, I had absolutely no experience working with mice or maintaining strains, which I made clear to all parties involved and asked for help along the way. It was the understanding of the tech and other postdoc that the deletion was stable, the breeders were homozygous deficient, and thus there was no need for genotyping. So I proceeded under this presumption.

Perhaps you see where this is going.

Someone in the lab wanted to use these mice for another project. At this point, we needed to check the genetic background for the strain. There is a handful of inbred lines that are commonly used for manipulating the genome and maintaining strains. Different inbred lines are not genetically identical; in fact, the same strain inbred at different companies may not even be genetically identical. Genetic differences between strains can translate into widely varying responses in your disease model of choice. So it’s kind of important to know your background. When I asked for some sort of documentation on this strain, our tech produced a health report sent from the company, and on the report, the background was listed as FVB/N. So we bought this strain and have been breeding them for about 6 months or so.

When I started doing in vivo work a few months ago, I realized something was a little odd. FVB/N mice are white and fluffy. The knockouts were sleek and black. I brought this up with another fellow and essentially was told not to worry about it. Sometimes these things happen–maybe it’s an artifact from the backcross. Blah, blah, whatever. Moving on.

I was a planning a pretty big experiment with these knockouts this week. But that little niggling doubt just wouldn’t go away. So I emailed the fellow that initially received the mice–he had nothing. Then I started tracking back through our breeding records–and dead ended at the mice from the company. I took a closer look at the health report that had been produced previously and realized that (a) the mice on it were way too old to have been the ones we initially received and (b) they were all female. Where was the info for the males? Clearly there were males in my breeding cages because they were producing litters. With some help from our trusty lab admin, I was able to contact the company’s vet manager, who emailed me the info they had on record within an hour–informing me that the strain was on a B6 background and that they had sent us 2 males and 2 females… all heterozygous for the mutation.

That was the point that my head almost exploded. Not only did we have the background wrong, we had the genotype wrong. I promptly requested a genotyping protocol,  received one almost immediately, and got to work sorting out this little clusterfuck. Fortunately Mendelian inheritance seemed to prevail, and even though we no longer had the original breeders, I still had a mix of +/+, +/-, and -/- mice. All was not lost as I had feared.

Even so, all this meant:

  • I spent approximately 1.7 days sorting out this mess instead of doing other experiments I had planned for the week.
  • Results from the handful of experiments this strain had been used for have to be thrown out since we have no idea what genotype those mice were.
  • We bred and maintained a strain of mice for 6 months that we never needed.
  • I will be waiting a minimum of 8 weeks to the experiment planned for the knockout strain.

So what’s the lesson here?

Be careful what information you trust. And be sure that you have solid documentation of what you have. Documentation and records management is something that, in my experience, most academic labs really suck at. Don’t be afraid to push a little to get documentation, even if multiple people relay the information verbally–they might know or they might simply be repeating what someone else has said. You might think that as a grad student or postdoc, you’re here to do research–it’s not really your job to track down records. Make it part of your job. It will save you tremendous headaches and lost time down the road.

Posted in biomedical research, cranky postdoc moment, documentation, good laboratory practice, lab management, responsibilities | 9 Comments

Humanization of biomedical research

Posted on June 5, 2010 by biochembelle

Every research scientist has his or her own reasons for choosing a research path. Some of us love solving puzzles. Some want to figure out how things work. Others may be looking for that chance at a trip to Stockholm to pick up some bling. Regardless of our other reasons, most of us, I believe, were/are driven in some small part by the desire to impact society. In biomedical sciences, that desired impact is often centered around improving the quality of human life, whether by understanding disease mechanisms, developing diagnostics to detect crises before they become critical, or discovering a drug that improves treatment–or maybe even provides the first major therapy–for a disease. Whatever the angle, the goal is improving human life.

The irony is that biomedical research–especially basic research–has a way of dehumanizing its driving impetus. We break down individuals and populations into diseases and conditions. We divide the person into systems, the systems into organs or compartments, the compartments into cells, the cells into collections of information or even individual molecules. It is perhaps merely logical to reduce an immensely complex system into simpler components. But maybe it is also a defense mechanism, a way to keep us from being overwhelmed by the slow pace of progress in the face of an intense need, by the thought of the lives affected by or lost to a disease in the time it took to design, run, and analyze an experiment that failed miserably.

Putting a name, a face, a personality with a debilitating or deadly disease can be distracting. It is one reason I have stayed away from cancer research in my postdoc. My mother’s life and death with metastatic colorectal cancer made it difficult to sit through intros for seminars and group meetings related to the subject during the last half of my Ph.D. training; at the time, I could not imagine working on the subject without a constant tinge of pain or guilt. (Fortunately, there are many highly qualified individuals working in that area and many other subjects in need of high quality basic biomedical research.) Others, though, find inspiration in such situations. They see working on a disease that has affected someone they know personally as a way of honoring that individual’s life, strength, and courage.

Just as with the system or disease of interest, we often lose the story and the human connection of the experiments and reagents that make our work possible. In particular, if we are working with cell lines or samples derived from human donors, these reagents are stripped of identifying marks. Although generally intended to protect the privacy of the donor, it has the unintended consequence of stripping away its humanity as well. Several months ago, Abel Pharmboy (a.k.a. David Kroll) suggested that steps should be taken by scientists to honor the gifts that make our work possible. He comments, “[it] might be considered maudlin by some, but I think is very important for basic scientists to understand that much human suffering was associated with the tools they now use.” And he had the opportunity to do that very thing this year, in attending the memorial dedication service for Henrietta Lacks–an African American woman, anonymous and unkonw for decades after her death, whose cancer cells, without her knowledge or consent, were used to generate the first immortalized human cell line, an astounding milestone in biomedical research.  Abel graciously and eloquently shared his experience. He states, “Put simply, this was the single most moving day in my life as a scientist.” Maybe it is time we all start putting a bit of that human element back into biomedical research.

Posted in biomedical research, humanity, motivation, subconscious messages | 13 Comments

Job security

Posted on May 31, 2010 by biochembelle

I would guess that most people view laboratory research as a reasonably safe job. It’s certainly not without hazards–toxic chemicals, fire and explosive risks, and in some cases, exposure to radiation or infectious diseases. For most of these, we take (or at least, are supposed to take) precautions to minimize these risks. We don personal protective equipment when working with chemicals and biohazards. We utilize shielding when working with radiation.

But how often do we consider security in our workplaces? Perhaps if you do animal (especially non-human primate) research, you might think of this more often than the average scientist, given the extreme tactics targeting scientists conducting animal research. And if you do stop to think about this, it might make you a little nervous, especially if you work in academia. Because at many academic institutions, security is lax at best and nonexistent at worst. At my graduate institute, you could walk into any research building, any lab, during “regular business hours” without being stopped. The only time security was tightened was when (a) PETA was planning protests or (b) POTUS was visiting the neighboring children’s hospital. At my current institute, you have to flash your ID or sign in at the main entrance, but generally, once you’re in, you can go just about anywhere you want. At both institutes, theoretically the only way to access the buildings after hours was/is through card access–but there’s usually at least one way in that isn’t locked.

Perhaps more disconcerting, though, is the failure of campus police and individual departments to alert students and staff to more generic security concerns. Recent events have reignited my furor about this. The space where I work is shared by about half a dozen labs. From what I’ve gathered, a postdoc in one of these other labs had a rather heated confrontation with hir adviser–so heated that the adviser terminated hir immediately, called in campus police, and had the postdoc’s access to the lab revoked. All this information came 24+ hours after the catalytic event. The rest of us had noticed that we now had to use swipe our IDs through the card reader to access the labs, but no one knew what was going on until comments and details filtered down from the lab in question. My issue here is this: If you feel threatened enough by an individual to have your lab space put on lockdown, don’t you think it might be a good idea to apprise those your lab shares space with? Because I know this postdoc. If s/he had approached while I was on my way in, I would have held the door for hir. It’s not like I’m letting a stranger into the lab.

And this highlights a broader problem with security at academic institutions, which is they like to keep all the dirty little secrets, the problems, the indiscretions quiet. They seem to prefer keeping their image clean over looking out for the safety of the people who work their. Perhaps this is an overly cynical view, but I have heard too many things, witnessed too many lapses to trust that this is a simple oversight. It is a calculated response by the institution and department, and one that has the potential to place students, trainees, and staff at risk–and that I fear already has. We are expected to take appropriate precautions in our research to minimize the risks of the hazards we face. So why aren’t institutions providing the information and the resources to minimize the security risks that are there?

Posted in responsibilities, security | 8 Comments

Celebrate the small stuff

Posted on May 30, 2010 by biochembelle

For the June edition of the Scientiae Carnival, rocketscientista is hosting a celebration! She raises the point that too often in STEM (or maybe just in life), we spend bundles of time dwelling on the hurdles, the failures, the bruises. She thinks it’s time we talk about the good stuff, the accomplishments, the hurdles cleared. I, for one, think it’s a great idea!

First, something to get you into a celebratory mood:

Now, to my celebration post!

Some of you who followed this blog at its previous locale probably noticed it’s been a little quiet for the past few months. And before that, there were some negative vibes. I can’t quite pinpoint it, but over the past few weeks, things have been changing–for the better. My PI seems to have a certain level of trust and respect for me that I had not felt previously. And I have been pushing myself to be more open-minded yet confident and assertive. Our conversations have become less one-sided, becoming more like discussions and less like assigning of orders. He has even acknowledged the technical challenges of the methods I’m using and that it will take time to get them to work.

After months of little progress, a side project–involving the dark arts of molecular biology–has finally started working. One element of my main project has shifted focus in a direction that I personally find more interesting and that I think would have broader impact and relevance in our field. Plus we’re now developing aims that tap into some of the expertise I developed in grad school. All of this culminates with me actually being tentatively excited about my work. I say “tentatively” because there are still some anxiety and trust issues there, but Paramed has commented that the fire is back in my eyes.

And the confidence is beginning to emerge outside of the lab as well. After a recent seminar, I forced myself to stick around at the reception until I had the opportunity to work my way into a conversation with the speaker and introduce myself. It’s a very small thing, but six months ago I would have simply run away, so it’s progress.

Oh, and there’s one other thing to celebrate. This week marks 7 years of marriage to Paramed. Our marriage has survived one round of grad school, so I think we can take just about anything 😉

What are you celebrating?

Posted in advisor/trainee interactions, attitudes, for the love of science, Marriage, networking, Scientiae carnival | 2 Comments

Asking for it

Posted on May 15, 2010 by biochembelle

It goes without saying, There’s a massive set of skills that you need to succeed and to move forward in science that you’ll never learn in a classroom. Many of them you’re not even going to learn at the bench. High on the list are the arts of marketing (or self-promotion) and negotiation. These represent a major hurdle for many early career scientists. Women particularly seem to struggle with these things.

I recently attended a talk given by Sara Laschever, a writer and editor who co-authored (with Carnegie-Mellon economist Laura Babcock) Women Don’t Ask and Ask for It .* It was an interesting talk about how and why women (don’t) negotiate, with Laschever relating many anecdotes from business and academia that drove home the message in many of the statistics. Laschever made the point that it’s not that women are incapable of negotiation, that we are somehow “broken”. In fact, she commented, that women are fantastic negotiators–when it comes to asking on the behalf of others, advocacy for clients, friends, family… The problem is when we have to ask for something for ourselves.

Why do you (not) ask?

Most of us want to believe that life is like school, that there are specific expectations that when met earn us some reward. We want to hold onto this altruistic view that if we just keep our heads down and work hard and do awesome science, it will be enough to get us a job, a promotion, a grant… Sometimes we have the dream that life is like this:

Photo from an annual meeting of the Mutual Admiration Society

But… you know.

Based on Laschever’s and Babcock’s surveys, for many women, the very idea of negotiation is uncomfortable. It certainly is for me. I hate asking for anything. I would rather take the extra time to figure out how to do or get something on my own. Part of it is feeling like I’m inconveniencing someone, part fear of being told no, part worry of being perceived as selfish. Personally one of my biggest hurdles is self-promotion–an essential element of negotiation and a successful career, in general.  Although there are exceptions on both sides, this seems to be a particular vulnerability for women. Part socialization, part personality, we tend to feel that advancement should be based on past, not potential, performance. We believe that if we have done something worthy of reward, then it will be awarded… and if we’re not rewarded, then we must not be doing enough or we’re doing something wrong. To an extent, that may be quite true.

On average, men negotiate on their own behalf four times as often as women. They will go through more rounds of negotiation, and when they negotiate, they ask for more. During childhood, Laschever argued, “Boys learn that they work for money, whereas girls learn that they work for love–which we all know doesn’t pay nearly as well.” Laschever further attests that, in general, women feel that they should be evaluated and rewarded on the basis of their previous work; we feel that if we have to ask for it, then surely we don’t deserve it. She related anecdotes of a few female professors who became very upset when their male colleagues with similar track records were promoted before them or paid much more. Once the indignation of these women pushed them to speak to department chairs or deans about why this disparity existed, the answer was simply, “They asked.”

Obviously there are many factors that come into play–politics of the department or lab, qualifications, performance, funds–but one of them may be as simple as asking. Most often the worst that can happen is being told no. Failing to ask will hurt us more in the long run. Despite strides to diversity and gender equality in the workplace, gender disparities in compensation and promotion** remain, and they’re often sizable. From the salary standpoint, grad students and postdocs in the sciences are insulated from gender disparity, since departments or institutes typically have a fixed salary (often linked to NIH or NSF paylines) for all trainees. However, salary isn’t the only thing negotiable item. For faculty, it might be lab space, start-up funds, protected time. For trainees, it might be conferences, mentoring or teaching opportunities, authorship, and so on. Even small things can confer advantages–whether by adding a line to your CV that pushes you past the next guy or gal in line or establishing connections with key players in your field.

Before you ask

Just as we develop a plan of action for a project or experiment, we have to plan for negotiations as well. Laschever provided several items to consider in preparation for negotiating; though geared toward negotiating a job or promotion, some things are more broadly applicable.

  • Don’t accept the status quo; assume everything is negotiable. As highlighted above, negotiations are not always about titles or money. In today’s economy, what may be equally (or more) important are intangibles, things like leadership or management opportunities, lab/office space, options to stop the tenure clock… The list goes on.
  • Establish your priorities. You have a long list of things you can negotiate. Before you walk into a negotiation, figure out what matters most to you and what things you would be willing to concede.
  • Do your research. To know whether you’re asking too much or too little, you have to know where other people have landed. For some items such as salary, the web provides excellent resources, but you shouldn’t depend only on that. Use your networks–personal, society, and alumni. Laschever stressed the importance of talking to men because (just in case you missed it) women usually ask for less and hence have a skewed perception of how much one can/should ask for.
  • Know your sources of negotiating power. In other words, understand what you’re bringing to the table, which goes back to the self-promotion thing. It may be certain skills, traits, reputation… Just know what it is. If you’re negotiating a job you currently hold, hiring and/or training someone to replace you is usually much more expensive than retaining you. In many places, Laschever suggested, being a woman is becoming a strong source of negotiating power.
  • Understand the dynamics and adapt. Sometimes this may be as simple as re-stating your request or what you have heard in a different way, to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Other times this means changing your approach. Whether negotiating with men or other women, women are often considered more persuasive when are viewed as affable. Does it suck that women have to act differently than men to get what they want? Sure. But sometimes you have to work within the system to get ahead.
  • Build your negotiation skills, starting with the small stuff. Laschever and Babcock propose a “negotiation gym” plan in Ask for It. Essentially the idea is to get more comfortable with negotiating by asking for small things, outside the workplace, like haggling with a salesperson over a price. Laschever highlighted that in two-career households, women are still doing 2/3 to 3/4 of work around the home–chores, childcare, etc.–so the home is an excellent place to start negotiating.
  • Learn that you can survive hearing “No”. The fear of hearing this tiny word is keeps many people from asking in the first place. As you become more comfortable with the idea of negotiating, ask for something you know you’ll never get so that you can learn that those two-letters really won’t destroy you.

Now go forth and negotiate!

    * Some of that statistics from the talk (and books) are listed on these sites. I have not read either of these books, but if you have, leave a comment about what you thought of the book(s).
    ** Yes, I cherry-picked two pieces of interest. To locate and link all the data out there would take more time than I have.
    Posted in negotiation | 11 Comments