Nostalgic to be back at Bay Area Aging Meeting #BAAM. Shortly after moving to the Bay, I remember being blown away that this free, local symposium was of the same caliber as a Keystone meeting. Meeting is bigger than ever, as #agingbiology goes mainstream. #creatingtime.
@BrunetLab@wysscoray@czbiohub@RobertoZoncu@VilledaLab@DMSabatini And @calico is finally giving talks, after lurking at our meeting for several years😄 Scott McIsaac talking about their MAD machine for collecting old yeast cells out of a continuously replicating population. They can get millions of cells for genomics assays.
If you want to build a career in biotech, should you get a PhD after college or join a company directly (as a Research Associate/RA, usually)?
There's no single answer, but I have the conversation often enough that I thought I'd share some pros/cons... (1/n)
First, see this thread about different types of biopharma companies. For reasons I'll get into, I think early stage (probably founder led) biotech is your best bet unless you still want to do PhD later.
(PS if you want to be a professor, it's 💯 PhD) 2/n
PhD will give you more options.
Some companies (incl. @GordianBio) will help you grow from RA to Scientist role (and beyond). But many, esp larger, companies have a glass ceiling if you don't have a PhD. Even if you pick one w/o glass ceiling, you'll be worse off it if fails. 3/n
All these points resonate, for early stage biotech at least. @erlichya touches on this, but I think worth separating "industry" into different clusters that will feel quite different to someone coming from academia (still oversimplified, of course):
Pharma (eg Pfizer) vs biotech:
You wear fewer hats, see less of the company but company as a whole spans wider range of expertise, fewer changes in direction, often higher income but no chance of getting rich. Both have job insecurity: pharma doesn't go die but programs do.
Clinical vs R&D stage biotech:
Clinical may still have R&D but it's no longer the biggest driver of success vs failure. Assay validation/rigor > assay development/invention. Clinical can feel more like pharma, but with more urgency/stakes: one program = life or death of co.
#SciTwitter After a lot of research and asking around, I'm making the lab equipment recommendations 🧵 I wish I'd had 2 months ago. RT/share with a #newPI or startup 🔬⚗️🛒
Note, much of the equipment hasn't arrived yet, will add comments after actual use.
-20 #freezer
Less clear, many viable options. We ended up getting a split of PHC MDF -30 (recommended as quieter) and much cheaper Corepoint Scientific/@VWR, will see which we prefer. Thermo hasn't failed #MBCbiolabs, but $$$ and several people said poor customer support.
As with all experiments, I expect that some of these will disappear and that others will be a central part of science in ten years.
But them happening at all is enough to renew a conversation about how science is funded and conducted.
🦸🏽 While I've been doing most of the tweeting, the Longevity Apprentices @LNuzhna@kush__sharma@edmarferreira & Tara Mei are the real heroes for running the operations.
This has been a great Apprenticeship project, merging action and exposure to research martinborchjensen.com/apprenticeship
🚅 The review + awards process was fairly smooth, thanks in part to @kush__sharma's custom reviewer UI. Several reviewers told us unprompted that it was their best review experience ever; the UI took 2 wks to make, so there's low hanging fruit for other agencies in that area.
Thrilled to announce the Longevity #Impetus Grants, $21M+ towards basic research that could accelerate our understanding and control of human aging.
We welcome proposals from researchers in- and outside the #Aging field. Please share!
Impetus Grants are $10k-500k (w max 10% overhead). Smaller requests favored, to support more projects. No project period and no strings attached. Scientists at non-profits worldwide can apply with ideas that shift perspectives & capabilities in #Aging research, starting Sep 13th.
Inspiration came from @tylercowen & @patrickc's #COVID19 Fast Grants. Their team made funding decisions in 2 weeks, and the grants have already led to both discoveries and better tools for #testing.
If it's feasible to fund science this way, shouldn't we? future.a16z.com/what-we-learne…