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Scientific Training in the Kielian Lab
Students and postdoctoral fellows in our lab receive experimental
training in a wide variety of methods and approaches including virology,
molecular biology, protein chemistry, and cell biology. The lab is very
interactive, and reagents and methods (and chocolate!) are shared. There
are also many opportunities for training in the important skills of
scientific writing, reading, and presentation.
Each member of the lab meets with me on at least a weekly basis to
discuss experiments and results. After initial planning, lab members
write the first drafts of their papers and prepare figures, and we work
on subsequent drafts together. We also work together in preparation for
work-in-progress talks in the department or presentations at meetings.
We have a weekly lab meeting in which one person presents each week,
covering everything from the rationale of their project to detailed
technical aspects. Once a month we have a lab journal club in which we
all read and discuss relevant papers in virology and cell biology in
depth. This has been very useful in helping people learn how to
critically evaluate papers and also in bringing everyone up to speed on
the important background for our research. We also read and discuss
manuscripts of most of the papers that the lab submits. This is very
helpful for the authors of the papers, who benefit from the lab’s
suggestions, and it also helps to enhance everyone’s writing skills. Lab
members attend and present at a variety of national and international
meetings, and subsequently report on the meeting to the lab.
Recent awards to lab members:
Maofu Liao received the 2006 Julius Marmur Graduate Research Award.
Gwen Taylor received the Cellular Microbiology prize for the best poster
at the 2006 FASEB Meeting on Virus Assembly.
Don Gibbons received the 2004 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student award
(http://www.fhcrc.org/science/basic/weintraub/ ).
Don Gibbons received the 2003 Julius Marmur Graduate Research Award.
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