How to make a Superbug
9 September 2022
It is always scary when someone in your family is admitted to hospital, even if it’s just a routine procedure. No-one wants to stay longer in hospital than they have to, and healthcare-acquired infections happen all the time. These are infections that immunocompromised patients catch while in hospital, which are increasingly caused by superbugs that cannot be killed by any drugs on the market. Prevention is always better than cure, so how do we prevent superbugs from emerging in the first place? Today we are talking about superbugs - what they are, why they are becoming more common, and how a scientist can create a superbug in the lab to better understand this whole process.
Troubles (Part 1)
19 August 2022
Laboratory training is a rare, expensive, and time-consuming process, especially in research and development or R&D. You’re not just repeating someone else’s perfected standard operating protocol, it is up to you to design all the steps and make sure they are foolproof. In learning it’s not enough to copy the perfect version of events that someone else has mastered, you have to know all of the ways something can go wrong so you can reverse engineer and troubleshoot any situation. Troubleshooting experiments is a complicated topic, and over the next few weeks I am trying to break this down for students across different lab techniques. Today the focus will be on antibiotic sensitivity testing - the experiments that will flag any new superbugs that will cause havoc in the population because none of the available drugs we have can kill them.
Home Alone
28 July 2022
Study hacks, and quick and easy ways to learn are all over the internet. “Why I stopped going to class and so should you” is one of the more clickbaity titles, and it sounds like the dream - learn at home, at your own pace, and spend the extra time getting paid for work experience while you study. I’m travelling right now, and in many ways my job is flexible enough to accomodate this. I can watch short videos, tweet, respond to email queries, and livestream my conference talk remotely, all while travelling. If it works for the teachers, why doesn’t (or shouldn’t) this work for students? The truth is that it does work for some students, but they are the exception, not the norm. Let’s talk about why this is the case, and dive into a few study strategies that may help you study online more efficiently.
Time Off
20 July 2022
What do teachers and professors do in our time off? Well it depends on what we’re taking time off from. It’s currently the week before the teaching semester officially starts, but I’ve been preparing for this unofficially for months. What type of preparation do we need to do before a single student shows up to class? Let’s dig a little deeper - a teacher’s day in the life leading up to the start of semester.
The “Controllables”
15 July 2022
Biology and the molecular biosciences is a discipline of nuance and subtlety - our “breakthrough” discoveries are not dramatic in the moment - a slightly darker colour change, a small band appearing, or a reading that is slightly lower or higher than we expected. This reflects the complexity of organisms and how tightly constructed every part of our biology is. Even a 5-10% shift in gene expression can mean the difference between normal cell growth and cancer. A 5-10% difference might also mean nothing - it could just be the statistical margin of error. The thin line that separates genuine breakthroughs from random background noise only exists if we can control as many experimental conditions as possible.
The Mimic
8 July 2022
It’s your first time in a lab, seeing all the chemicals, liquids, glass beakers, and sharps - all you’re trying to do is not get hurt or break something expensive. You’re somehow supposed to follow a huge list of complicated instructions using equipment you’ve never seen before to do an experiment you’ve never heard of before. Everyone says lab skills are essential for finding jobs, but is it this hard for everyone? Feeling like you don’t know where to start is very common. You need a plan and systematic strategy for learning, especially when it comes to complex professional skillsets like lab techniques. Today let’s assume we’re all novices starting from the beginning, and talk about how to get the most out of lab classes using the mimic or copycat method.
Nature vs Nurture
29 June 2022
Despite my original plans at the start of my training, I am by no means a bioinformatician. I studied degrees for both science and information technology, but I quickly found out that i would be better suited as a bioinformatics end user rather than a developer. All the software engineers in my classes had been coding since they were toddlers, but for me it felt like learning how to ride a unicycle upside down. It’s pretty embarrassing to struggle so much in programming 101 but some people’s brains are just innately better tuned for computer programming, just like others are naturally talented at music or art. It doesn’t mean we should avoid the things we aren’t naturally talented at, in fact there’s a lot to be said for knowing how to learn under non-ideal conditions, and having an interdisciplinary overview of different skillsets. Biologists need a better understanding of bioinformatics, just like software engineers need to know more about biology.
Closing the Loop - Conference Diaries Vol III
22 June 2022
I’ve just finished up presenting at my first in-person conference in over two years, and I’ve connected with many amazing teachers and contacts. As I wrap things up on the trip I need to make the most of the fleeting moments of network building and make sure the trip was worth it for my professional development. Travel has a baseline level of stress already so it can be really easy to lose track of every new thing you learnt or any new connections you’ve made. How should you close the loop and solidify all of the progress you made on this work trip after you’ve come home?
Why I Became a Teacher - Conference Diaries Vol II
15 June 2022
There has been a wave of transformation across education to say the least. Our new normal is trying to predict the unpredictable - class sizes, delivery modes, technology, all can change or evaporate overnight. As much as teachers champion life-long learning at university, I don’t think we quite bargained for a life-time of learning condensed into such a short time. With so many things up in the air, it is more important now than ever before to reflect on our origin story in education. What motivated us to become teachers in the first place has to be what keeps us going in this time of uncertainty.
In Transit - Conference Diaries Vol I
9 June 2022
Travel is just opening up again, I recently attended my first in-person conference in over two years. I’ve been to my fair share of conferences, but it’s been a minute and I felt a familiar sense of nerves creeping back in. I’m sure students and ECRs about to attend their first conference have similar sentiments of anxiety, and are a bit tentative about what to make of the whole experience. What should you be aiming to get out of this conference? What I’ve found over the years is that shifting the focus away from my own neuroses towards what I can do for others allows things to click into place. How can you help the conference organisers, your supervisors, or other students on the trip? How does your work allow others to accomplish something meaningful? When you do this consistently, you’d be surprised how much value you get out of the experience for yourself.
Teacher vs YouTuber
2 June 2022
“I want to be a YouTuber” is not what any parent wants to hear from their kids, and it’s an open secret that YouTube causes burnout. It’s hard to build a following and even harder to keep one, and you’re essentially a free-lance contractor at the mercy of the algorithm. However learning all of the skills needed to make YouTube videos and run a YouTube channel has transformed my ability to do my day job in very real ways. Teachers who need to communicate to a diverse range of students and audience in particular have a lot to benefit from YouTube, so today let’s talk through 5 reasons why Teachers should dip their toes into the YouTube world.
Stolen moments (Vol 2)
28 May 2022
I’m in the process of designing a brand new lab course for Semester 2, and the next series of blog entries will be my attempt to “think out loud” and steal some time away from the pressure of looming deadlines... Last time we talked about recombinant DNA technology and how molecular cloning of specific genes can be adapted for citizen science projects. Following on from cloning novel plasmids that encode genes of interest, students can work with their own plasmids, or characterise existing plasmid libraries generated by your research labs to express and purify novel proteins of interest.
The Search
20 May 2022
Researching and finding new information should be a student’s bread and butter, but it’s not always as simple as a “Googling it”… or is it? Some topics have decades of literature to trawl through, and you have to know what’s already out there before you can figure out the last piece of the puzzle. Peer-reviewed articles are the gold standard, but you have to go through hard copies in physical libraries or use online databases with expensive subscription fees. Academic Search Engines like Google Scholar are trying to disrupt this model of information access, but are they worth your time? Can they be a “one-stop-shop” for your reports and assignments, and help you work smarter, not just harder?
Stolen moments (Vol 1)
13 May 2022
I’m in the process of designing a brand new lab course for Semester 2, and the next series of blog entries will be my attempt to “think out loud” and steal some time away from the pressure of looming deadlines... The focus will be on inquiry-based learning in molecular biology labs classes - starting today with DNA + Molecular Cloning. In molecular cloning, if one step fails, everything fails. It is very tempting to have students follow cookbook recipes for each part of the process, but it is more valuable for their learning if you give students more autonomy in the experimental design. You can soften the learning curve by limiting the parameters that students can change.
Counting Birds
5 May 2022
What does Bird Counting have to do with Academia, Science Education, or Teacher development? It was Christmas Day, December 25th 1900, when the ornithologist Frank M Chapman, took hold of the bourgeoning Conservation movement in north America. Instead of hunting birds as part of normal holiday traditions, that year Chapman decided to count them instead. The Christmas Bird Count is one of the earliest examples of Citizen Science - a template of large-scale scientific participation involving members of the general public that is gaining traction across all areas of science. Today let’s walk through how teachers can use citizen science to promote active-inquiry-based learning.
Market Inefficiencies
27 April 2022
Every professional is being pulled in a million different directions, and we have to constantly re-prioritise what is worth our time on any given day. At universities and colleges, research versus teaching is the ongoing conundrum. Spending more time on one takes away from the other, and it can feel like a zero-sum game with you stuck in the middle. Surely there are skillsets shared across the teaching and research domains for early career academics to find new synergies in their professional development? Today’s focus is on communication - the market inefficiency in professional learning that benefits both your teaching and research.
Our Reality
20 April 2022
On the 1st of April in 2013, the front cover of Time Magazine was adorned with a bold proclamation: “How to Cure Cancer: Yes it’s now possible”. These claims were sparked by high-profile biomedical funding pushes and research projects, most notably the Human Genome project, involving an international consortium of scientists across 20 countries over a decade and $3 billion US dollars to complete. It promised to “crack the human genetic code” and unlock cures to all sorts of disease including cancer. In the latest Biolab Collective video, I walk through the basics of DNA sequencing, with specific emphasis on “traditional” sequencing – also known as Sanger sequencing, and highlight some points of comparison to next-generation DNA sequencing platforms that have taken over the industry. The Human Genome project was an incredible achievement in the historical context of biology, but unless you are working in the field of genetics or molecular biology, it can be difficult to appreciate its impact on your everyday life. What’s the disconnect here, and why are advancements in medical research not happening at the rate we were promised? Why does our expectation not meet our reality?
First Steps
13 April 2022
At times we all feel stuck between a rock and a hard place, but this is especially common early in academia. You’ve just finished your PhD, and hopefully you felt supported through that process by your supervisor, colleagues, friends and family, but now as an ECR or MCR, you need to prove that you can be independent. Your supervisor can be very well-intentioned, but they need to survive as well. Neither of you can afford to be unproductive, and before you know it you’re pulling long hours, working nights and weekends, and it feels like you never finished your postgrad training. There’s so much more in academia outside of your research that you need to learn - service, community engagement, teaching, leadership - where do you find the time? How can we work smarter, not just harder?
Managing Expectations
8 April 2022
When you hear about “cloning”, what’s the first image that comes to mind? Frankenstein-esque experimentation carried out in abandoned hospitals, or Clone Clubs filled with identical “sistres”? I want students to be excited by science, but also realistic about its everyday implications. Rather than making copies of whole organisms, animals or humans, the bulk of the cloning done in molecular biology labs is fusing tiny pieces of DNA together. It’s not exciting, glamorous, or particularly newsworthy, but it’s the necessary grunt-work that makes much of our experimentation possible. Scientists who are experienced in all aspects of molecular cloning and recombinant DNA technology are incredibly valuable across the sector.
Substance over Style
1 April 2022
You’ve been asked to present your very first lecture, and it can be a daunting process. The advice I’ve seen online seems to focus disproportionately on style – interesting or funny anecdotes, attention-grabbing graphics, and powerful quotes. These strategies may make for memorable moments, but can’t overcome inconsistencies in your learning or assessment design. My personal preference is to advocate for substance over style, and over the years my conversations with learning designers have improved my approach to teaching more than any quick tips on “how to be more engaging”. I’m not a learning designer, but here are some of their strategies that I’ve found to be most useful when getting started.