“…had you told me when I was 25 years old that I would be the director of a cancer center I would have been incredulous, given that I was totally into chemistry”

This is an extract from an interview that originally appeared in Disease Models and Mechanisms (available here Open Access)

Paraminder Dhillon, DMM Scientific Editor

Lewis C. Cantley, Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine, is a world leader in cancer and metabolic disease research. His seminal discoveries have shed light on the regulation of ion pumps and other transport proteins, insulin-mediated regulation of glucose metabolism and the role of signal transduction networks in cell transformation.

In this interview, he documents his journey from serendipitous discovery of the pathway to determining its diverse physiological functions and role in cancer – an incredible odyssey that has laid the groundwork for clinical trials based on PI3K inhibitors.

I once read that, as a child, you worked out how to build fireworks. Did you always know that you would end up as a scientist?

Firecrackers were illegal where I grew up in West Virginia. When I was around 10-11 years old, I wanted to buy some, so my dad said “why don’t you make your own?” He wasn’t a chemist, but he was a very smart man and he figured out from reading the encyclopedia that we needed just three ingredients. I went to the drug store, bought the ingredients and made my own gunpowder. It wasn’t very effective in blowing up, but it burned very well. I started using my homemade gunpowder as a fuel to try to launch rockets – and it worked, although I didn’t get them very high. Today I would probably be arrested based on the buying pattern I had at the local drug store!

I did know I wanted to be a scientist from very early on. I was largely influenced by my father who, whenever I asked a question about how things work, would always come up with a logical explanation rather than resort to saying “because God made it that way”. If he didn’t know the answer, he would refer to the encyclopedia. By the time I started school I realized that I actually knew a lot more science than most of my teachers. I had a talent for it, particularly chemistry. One of my presents growing up was a chemistry set, and I loved mixing things together and seeing colors change and causing occasional explosions. I just found that amazingly fun.

When did you start using your talent for chemistry to answer biological questions?

I was always interested in biology, too. I grew up on a farm and loved growing tomato plants, which made me wonder how photosynthesis works. I found it a magical thing – that the sun shines on a plant and it takes off growing. I thought if we could figure out how this works, light energy could be captured to do all kinds of things. But I found high school biology very boring – we memorized a whole lot of things without getting any real mechanistic insight into the processes. I swore at that time that I would never take another course in biology. I decided it would be much better to learn chemistry and, ultimately, I suspected that there would be nothing in biology that couldn’t be explained by chemistry. I liked to understand kinetics and how reactions happen, so I decided to go into biophysical chemistry. In the end, that was the right path to take, although had you told me when I was 25 years old that I would be the director of a cancer center I would have been incredulous, given that I was totally into chemistry.

Read the rest of the Open Access Interview here:

http://dmm.biologists.org/content/9/9/911

(1 votes)

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On Monday, September 19th, a group of early career researchers from across the UK and across the sciences gathered at the Royal Society in London to discuss the future of research at a one day conference.

As the Node’s Community Manager, I was lucky enough to be allowed to join in. I’ve only recently left research, and many of the issues raised were all too familiar, from publishing to career angst to representation and participation. What was encouraging was the number and diversity of ideas that came out of the debates, a lot of hope rather than despondency.

As a record of what came out of the day, I collated some of the hundreds of tweets that came out of the day (using #RSsciculture; there really must have been some sore thumbs by the end of the day).

It’s a rough and necessarily selective approximation of a conference report, but I think it covers most of what was discussed on the day.

Have a read here:

https://storify.com/the_Node/the-culture-of-research-and-the-future-of-science/preview

Aidan Maartens

(2 votes)

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Technology is quickly changing many parts of medicine, giving people more power to take charge of their health care. Taking isotope labeled peptides as an example, stable isotope labeled peptides have been widely applied in the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS). The combination of SIL peptides with NMR spectroscopy allow for the incorporation of NMR active nuclei which can reduce the complexity of spectra, and then help researchers to obtain novel correlations between atoms for more structural information.

Technology has changed people’s daily life to a large degree. In current days, people can use smartphones to track their blood sugar. And in future days, apps and accessories may be available to check cholesterol or track the heart’s electrical activity. Instead of the doctor’s office or lab, people could soon be showing up for checkups with the info already in hand, gathering information about their health. In addition to the use of new technologies, there are also some other parts of health care where doctors and patients agreed, such as the use of genetic testing for diagnose problems.

Against the backdrop of health care reform and a controversial medical device tax, medical technology companies are focusing more than ever on products that deliver cheaper, faster, more efficient patient care. Many in the industry like Isotope Labeling process have long felt overly burdened by what they consider to be an unnecessarily complex approval process. In fact, modern medical technology has achieved great success in a variety of fields, including cancer diagnosis, clinical application, experimental advance and the like, which could bring safe and effective medical devices to market more quickly and at a lower cost. For example, Melanoma Biopsies, as a huge number of dangerous-looking mole, it has been used as a handheld tool for multispectral analysis of tissue morphology.

Clearly, there are also some other aspects should be considered, such as the efficiency, side effects, etc. Investigation and research of modern medical technology ethics under the guidance of the concept of scientific development could be extremely necessary. Medical and health services to achieve long-term development, health care facilities, medical technology and health security has been significantly improved. While the development of healthcare facility is always in a dynamic process because of the influence of medical needs, medical technology, healthcare system, and other unpredictable factors. And for companies that sell medical technology, the arrival of the digital hospital has signalled a new era. Thus, maybe Integrilin can attract increasing attention in life sciences groups.

Along with the social economy prosperity and medical technology advances, medical ethics has made brilliant achievements, but currently still face a predicament in the course of development. In other words, medical technology advance not only means the medicine but also the medical spirit.

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As you may have seen, we at Development have recently announced a change to our peer review process, introducing a cross-referee commenting step. This should be in place within the next week or two, and we’re hoping it will help us to make better decisions on papers, and to make the revision process easier for authors.

We were approached by Retraction Watch, who regularly run features on various aspects of publishing, about this initiative, and they’ve just posted my interview with them. So if you’re interested in finding out more about what we’re doing and why, or want to see how I’ve managed to squeeze chocolate and wine into a Q&A about peer review, please head on over to Retraction Watch for the full interview! Obviously I’m happy to answer any other questions you might have about this process, so just leave any comments or queries below, or in the RW comments feed.

And we’ll be monitoring how well this initiative works, so I expect you’ll be hearing more from me about this once we’ve had a chance to review the process and look at its impact on the papers we handle…

(1 votes)

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Department/Location: Wellcome Trust – Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge, UK.

Salary: £25,023-£28,982

Reference: PS10184

Closing date: 17 October 2016

Fixed-term: The funds for this post are available until 30 June 2017 in the first instance.

The Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute is an international centre of excellence for stem cell research and regenerative medicine. Scientists in the Institute collaborate to advance our knowledge of various stem cell types and to perform pioneering work in translational research areas, providing the foundation for new medical treatments. The Institute currently comprises 29 research groups based across 6 sites in Cambridge. In 2018 all researchers will move to a new building on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
Applications are invited for a computational biologist to join the SCI’s bioinformatics group. We apply state-of-the-art experimental and computational methods toward understanding the biological properties and biomedical potential of stem cells.

The vacant post is at Research Assistant level and would be suitable for individuals with either a computational or biological background. The post holder will bridge the research groups within the SCI and will analyse next generation sequencing data using cutting edge software tools on internally (SCI)-produced data. He/she will work in a team of bioinformaticians dedicated to the application of modern bioinformatics techniques to stem cell research.

Candidates should be able to work in a UNIX/Linux environment. Proficiency with a scripting language (e.g. Perl/Python) and statistical data analysis tools (R, Matlab) would be a strong advantage. Additional experience with analysis of high-throughput sequencing data is desirable. The post holder will be involved in the development and interpretation of multilayer genomic, transcriptomic and epigenomic data. Necessary training in specialist computational tools will be provided; the main criterion is an enthusiasm to use bioinformatic approaches to advance stem cell research.

To apply online for this vacancy and to view further information about the role, please visit: http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/11530. This will take you to the role on the University’s Job Opportunities pages. There you will need to click on the ‘Apply online’ button and register an account with the University’s Web Recruitment System (if you have not already) and log in before completing the online application form.

Please upload your Curriculum Vitae (CV) and a covering letter in the Upload section of the online application to supplement your application. If you upload any additional documents which have not been requested, we will not be able to consider these as part of your application.

The closing date for all applications is the Monday 17 October 2016.

Informal enquiries are also welcome via email to: jobs@stemcells.cam.ac.uk.

Interviews will be held towards the end of October 2016.

Please quote reference PS10184 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.

The University values diversity and is committed to equality of opportunity.

The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.

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DMM is looking for an enthusiastic intern who wishes to gain experience in science publishing, including writing press releases, contributing to our social media activities, and supporting our Reviews Editor with commissioned articles. The internship is envisaged to last for up to 1 year at a salary of £15,000 p.a.

Our interns have a great track record of continuing on into important publishing roles.

Joining an experienced and successful team, the internship offers an ideal opportunity to gain in-depth experience on a growing Open Access journal in the exciting and fast-moving field of translational research. DMM publishes primary research articles and a well-regarded front section, including commissioned reviews and poster articles, thought-provoking editorials and interviews with leaders in the field. We also have an active social media presence and will be growing our press release programme. The intern will work alongside an established publishing team in our Cambridge offices.

Because the journal serves both basic biomedical researchers and clinicians, applicants will have a PhD or MD, ideally with some relevant research experience, and a broad knowledge of model organisms and disease issues.

Is the role for you? You would be expected to…

Support our Reviews Editor:
• Identify and commission topical front-section content from top-ranking scientists, see articles through peer review and work closely with authors to finalise articles for publication.
• Travel to international scientific conferences and research institutes, representing the journal, keeping abreast of the latest research and making contacts in the DMM community.

Develop your own areas of activity:
• Spot newsworthy articles, write informative press releases and handle any media enquiries.
• Interview high-profile scientists in the biomedical arena.
• Contribute to our social media output.
• Be creative – contribute other ideas for the journal’s development and promotion.

Essential requirements for the job are enthusiasm, commitment, judgement and integrity. Candidates should have excellent interpersonal skills and confidence, excellent oral and written communication skills, and a broad interest in research and the research community. They should also be willing to travel. Previous editorial experience is not required, but we would expect candidates to be able to demonstrate an interest in scientific communication.

For details on how to apply, go to: http://www.biologists.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/DMM-Intern.pdf

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: 3rd OCTOBER 2016

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A post-doctoral position is available in the Franz-Odendaal Bone Development Lab to study the developmental basis of the vertebrate ocular skeleton in a comparative context. Highly motivated and independent individuals with excellent interpersonal skills are encouraged to apply. The successful applicant will take a key role in our research program which interests spans evo-devo, developmental genetics and phenotypic variation.

We are seeking a recent doctoral student in Biological Sciences or related fields with experience in Molecular Biology, Cell and Developmental Biology. Experience with zebrafish and/or chick embryos is desirable but not required. Opportunities to supervise students will be available.

Please send curriculum vitae and summary of research interests via email.
Dr Tamara Franz-Odendaal
Franz-Odendaal Bone Development Lab
Mount Saint Vincent University,
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Email: Tamara.franz-odendaal@msvu.ca

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