Lab Expectations

Culturing cells in the lab? Following these tips will add to your success and help you avoid wasted time or the dreaded cell contamination!

In collaboration with Cell Press, we are excited to announce a new educational resource that will make it easier for biology students and researchers to navigate their careers, get published, and strengthen their laboratory skills to enable experimental success. That new resource is called Cell Mentor™.

Any form of cell culture contamination can ruin your day and destroy your hard work, but mycoplasma contamination is particularly devastating.

Finally, the finish line is approaching! You have completed your specific aims, significance and innovation, and the bulk of your research strategy. You have sent those files for numerous rounds of pre-peer review by your trusted colleagues and mentors. Now it’s time to focus on some smaller, yet still very important details.

In the previous post, we described how to write an effective significance and innovation section, focused on defining the problem and providing a high-level overview of your proposed solution. In this post, we’ll outline the approach, wherein you’ll expand upon the solution and illustrate exactly how you plan to conduct the research.

The significance and innovation section is a recent (within the last 10 years) addition to the NIH and most other foundation grant applications. It is a place for you to showcase WHY the work should be done – WHY there is a significant need for your study, and HOW the work is different from everyone else’s approach. What makes it groundbreaking, original research, work that will advance our scientific knowledge?

So you’re thinking of writing a grant? Or maybe your mentor has politely suggested that it would be in your best interest to do so?

Where do you start?

I’m a Product Scientist at Cell Signaling Technology (CST). My typical work day no longer looks like my fellow scientists’ daily grind, and at times, I even find it difficult to describe in words what I do, but I’ll give it a shot!

Tamar Aprahamian is an interesting study in the professional opportunities available for young scientists. She's worked in academia, industry, and most recently, founded a company of science writers called JetPub. She has been a contributor to our blog and was nice enough to share her story.

I’d once heard a great analogy for the pursuit of knowledge: it’s akin to finding yourself in a pitch-black room. As you explore the contents of the room, finding objects and obstacles new to you, you happen upon not just a single doorknob, but many. Some are locked, others feel as though they might budge open given extreme effort, but one turns easily allowing you exit from the room. You come to realize that you were merely in one of countless rooms, halls, and corridors, all of which warrant exploration and understanding.