When selecting a graduate program, it is vital to consider more than just research. Factors like mentoring, wellness/cousenling resources, community, career development, funding, stipend, location, etc., should also be considered. Based on your decision on what matters to you.

The peer review process is a flawless system that has no issues whatsoever /s

New preprint! Ben Adler and I @doudna_lab, in collaboration with Emily Armbruster and @JoePogliano, unveil a mechanism for Hachiman immunity. The punchline - Hachiman is a genome integrity sensor. College of Chemistry @igisci HHMI biorxiv.org/content/10.110… 🧵 1/14

Hachiman is hot off the (preprint) presses! Owen Tuck and I in @doudna_lab present a model for how this broad-activity defense system recognizes genome integrity, a core feature of phage infection. Check out the preprint and Owen's thread for the news:

🌟 We had an incredible time connecting with exceptional visiting applicants during Discover UR SMD Weekend 2 of 2024! 🎉 Thank you to our dedicated team for making it an unforgettable experience. Your passion and commitment to showcasing URochester SMD is inspiring.

You pulled yourself out of a dark place on your own when others should have been there for you. That’s strength.

Remember who stood by your side as you rebuilt yourself. Those are your people.

Thanks for your unwavering support on both my personal and scientific endeavors. Very lucky to have had a great PhD advisor. The MOC lab will always be home and I can't wait to be back soon.

As first-gen college students, we often feel a sense of commitment to supporting our families and setting a precedent for future generations. This self-imposed pressure can sometimes become overwhelming/unhealthy. We must prioritize our wellbeing so we can lead the way for others

Congratulations, Dr. Smith! Dr. Nathan A. Smith

One of the few things you can count on during your PhD 😅

PhD student watching the PI present a technically impossible solution to a collaborator

Keep watch… plenty starting to happen with the #CRISPR conference in NZ next February.

Strong evidence showing that getting a PhD is extremely bad for your mental health. A new paper uses Swedish medical records and matches them to the full population of PhD students for which the authors could get gender and birth year data from 2006 to 2017. After some exclusion

#AcademicChatter #AcademicX

GWAS for Nobel prize laureates.

Which do you find the most demotivating? funding, publish or perish, or unrealistic expectations?

Biologists, stop putting UMAP plots in your papers! UMAP is a powerful tool for exploratory data analysis, but without a clear understanding of how it works, it can easily lead to confusion and misinterpretation. Link to Simply Statistics blogpost below.

Meet one of our speakers: Mitchell O'Connell is an Associate Professor at the University of Rochester. The O'Connell lab focus on RNA targeting CRISPR systems expanding our knowledge of the intricacies of these defense systems. ⚔️🧬⚕️ #CRISPR2025

Check out our new paper describing rAcrVIA1: an RNA anti-CRISPR that mimics guide RNAs to inhibit Cas13. Very fun project with stellar UW undergrad Victoria Hayes and collaboration with Ning Jia's group! science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…