Category → Women in Science and Medicine
Visualizing Chemistry Education with Untamed Science
Well, I’m coming up on 10 days on my new job at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences working on science communications for our new wing, the Nature Research Center. Beyond my creative and uniformly brilliant co-workers, I’m blown away by how many remarkable people I’ve met from around the state and world by just being at the Museum.
Among those were the filmmakers from the visual science education operation, Untamed Science. Co-founders Rob Nelson and Jonas Stenstrom. I learned that I was very fortunate to get an audience with Jonas as he was visiting from Sweden where he coordinates the team’s international science education efforts. He first met Rob, a native Texan & Coloradan, while both were studying in Australia. Joining them was their local documentarian partner, the talented Michelle Lotker.
Fun, free, and scientifically accurate.
Untamed Science describe themselves as “a group of scientists and filmmakers that have united with one simple goal – communicate science in a fun way to the next generation.” Their portfolio of free video and text content covers the spectrum of biology, physics, chemistry, earth science and technology.
Their target audience began as middle-school students but many of the details are those that parents (yes, me) might not know. I had a fabulous time sitting with our nine-year-old daughter last night to go through about a dozen of their videos and podcasts. Bedtime was delayed significantly – thanks, folks.
Betsy Bennett: Bringing Science to the People
A belated Happy New Year, folks! May 2012 bring you high yields, great happiness, and good health.
The first day of the year brought wonderful news to everyone at my new place of employment, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and its new wing, the Nature Research Center.
Museum Director Dr. Betsy Bennett was named Tar Heel of the Year by the Research Triangle area newspaper, the Raleigh News & Observer. Bennett was recognized for her leadership and transformation of what has become the largest museum of its kind in the southeastern United States.
Since being appointed as director in 1990, Betsy has led two major expansions of the Museum from its humble home in the state agricultural building. N&O reporter Jane Stancill did superb work on this feature which graced page one of our Sunday paper. Betsy’s life story starts as does so many of ours in biology and chemistry, with a love of nature and how it works. I can’t do justice to Stancill’s writing – I absolutely love the imagery and metaphor of this concise thesis of her feature:
“Bennett’s skills developed on a natural path, a trail that meandered through science, education and politics.”
But I’m not telling you all of this to suck up to the new boss. Yes, yes, she’s a truly remarkable person and unmatched in her ambassadorship of the state’s central institution for science education. What I want to stress is that scientists are central to the daily life of citizens and should be recognized for these efforts as much as any sports figure, business leader, or politician.
Drugs of Abuse Tag-Team at Skeptically Speaking
A brainy, free, and fun online and radio chat-type call-in show on all things science. Hosted by Desiree Schell and edited by K.O. Myers. Awesomesauce. From Canada, of course.
I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Canadian radio host Desiree Schell for her wildly-successful show, Skeptically Speaking. The episode on which yours truly appears can be accessed here.
Launched in March 2009, the show airs live on Sunday evenings at 6 pm Mountain Time on UStream where one can discuss the show and asks questions by live chat. The show also includes a previously recorded segment with another scientist and is then edited and distributed for rebroadcast to stations and networks across North America. The shorter pre-recorded segment where I appeared to speak about my most popular topic of the last two years on this blog, synthetic marijuana compounds.
I’m not entirely guilty of self-promotion here because I primarily wanted to mention that the first two-thirds of the show – the live part – was an interview with my neuropharmacologist friend, Scicurious, author of The Scicurious Brain blog at the Scientific American blog network and Neurotic Physiology at Scientopia. Sci has a gift for offering laser-sharp science in a hip, conversational manner.
Here’s how the Skeptically Speaking team describes the show:
With humour, enthusiasm and a lot of curiosity, Skeptically Speaking guides you through the fascinating world of science and critical thinking. We interview researchers, authors and experts to help listeners understand the evidence, arguments and science behind what’s in the news and on the shelves. A basic understanding of science, combined with a little bit of skepticism, goes a long way.
Note: The term “skepticism” may be new to you. If that’s the case, click here.
Gooood morning, Santiiiiago!
My new Chilean colleagues: First-year medical students at the Universidad Finis Terrae in Santiago, Chile. Credit: Xaviera Cardenas
Last Friday morning, I had the delight of Skyping in to a medical school bioethics class at Universidad Finis Terrae to discuss the virtues and pitfalls of animal research. I was contacted earlier in the week by an email from Xaviera Cardenas, a first-year medical student at this university in Santiago, Chile, who was looking for an international scientist to hold forth on this topic.
Readers of CENtral Science know that any novel chemical you synthesize must undergo some animal testing before it can be used in people. This is not our choice as individuals but, instead, a requirement of our regulatory authorities. Despite advances with in vitro technologies, testing in a limited number of rodent and non-rodent species is absolutely required.
Continue reading →
Call For Social Media Success Stories in Academia
"Do you know the way to San Jose?" (with apologies to Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach, and Hal Davis, 1968)
We’re packing up the world headquarters of Terra Sigillata this afternoon and high-tailing it out to San Jose, California, for the annual meeting of SACNAS – the Society Dedicated to Advancing Hispanics, Chicanos, and Native Americans in Science. It’s a tremendous organization comprised of several of my former students and faculty colleagues from over the years and I’m ecstatic about reconnecting with them.
With the initiative of my colleagues – Alberto Roca of MinorityPostdoc.org and Danielle Lee of The Urban Scientist at Scientific American blogs (plus a whole host of online activities) – we pitched and were accepted to present a session on Blogging, Tweeting, & Writing: How an Online Presence Can Impact Science and Your Career.
I’ll be discussing how a responsible, online presence on blogs, Twitter, and Facebook can enhance networking opportunities for graduate students, postdocs, and faculty. Specifically, I’ll introduce how I’ve increased the exposure of my students who are RISE Scholars at North Carolina Central University. In this NIGMS-funded grant, I’ve been helping my students capture their research experiences in their own words (with previous review by their P.I.’s of course, to prevent accidental disclosure of unpublished data). The students have been surprised by the level of engagement and support they’ve received in the comments from scientists all around the world.
But I know of many other students who use blogs and Twitter to engage with the scientific community in ways that brings them positive recognition outside of their academic and laboratory work.
To better prepare for this session, I’d like to gather some advice from you, Dear Reader:
Who are some of students, trainees, and junior faculty, who best exemplify the use of social media for career advancement?
Are you a student who has had Good Things happen to you because of your social media activities? How did that transpire?
If you have any responses, please drop a link in the comments with a brief explanation – or longer if you’d like! And also feel free to recommend the sites and stories of others. I’ll be sure to promote your responses in tomorrow’s talk and direct attendees to this post for future reference.
The three of us thank you so much in advance for your suggestions!
Bryostatins: Panacea?
Bryostatin was first popularized by Bob Pettit at Arizona State University. Click on the picture for Halford's profile of Dr. Pettit.
I just had the delightful pleasure of participating in the C&EN Advisory Board meeting late last week. Among the outstanding C&EN writers and editors at the DC headquarters, I got to meet several others who are stationed around the US and the world.
One of these new friends based in New Jersey, Bethany Halford, has this week’s C&EN cover story on the marine natural products, the bryostatins. These complex compounds were originally studied for anticancer activities but, as Bethany tells us, are now showing promise in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease.
And while Bethany tells us that the first bryozoan source of these compounds was collected in 1968 from Gulf Specimen Co., she resisted the urge to tell us that the company is in Panacea, Florida. (Here’s a definition and etymology of panacea.)
Go forth and read.
References:
Halford, Bethany. Chemical & Engineering News 89(43): 10-17 (24 October 2011)
Cover story - The Bryostatins’ Tale
Profile on George (Bob) Pettit - Pioneer: Undersea Treasure Hunter
Natural product drug development – Drug Development: Taking the Long Route
Project SEED student having a sweet summer
One of the lovely pleasures I have as a prof is serving as principal investigator of a NIH-funded program to encourage students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue doctoral training in the biomedical and behavioral sciences.
As one aim of the project to encourage student writing skills and engagement with the public and scientific communities, we keep a blog over at the Scientopia network, NCCU Eagles RISE, to chronicle the progress of these wonderful young folks.
Today, NCCU rising sophomore Victoria Jones holds forth on her current research experience at the Penn State Medical Center at Hershey.
Why do I write about Victoria here?
Well, she is a product of the ACS Project SEED program (Summer Research Internship Program for Economically Disadvantaged High School Students).
Fingolimod (Gilenya; Novartis) for Multiple Sclerosis
A very well-written review of an orally-active drug for multiple sclerosis has just appeared in the April 25th issue of the Journal of Natural Products, a publication of ACS in conjunction with the American Society of Pharmacognosy.
The review, Fingolimod (FTY720): A Recently Approved Multiple Sclerosis Drug Based on a Fungal Secondary Metabolite, is co-authored by Cherilyn R. Strader, Cedric J. Pearce, and Nicholas H. Oberlies. In the interest of full disclosure, the latter two gentlemen are research collaborators of ours from Mycosynthetix, Inc. (Hillsborough, NC) and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. My esteemed colleague and senior author, Dr. Oberlies, modestly deflected my request to post here on the publication of this review.
So, I am instead writing this post to promote the excellent work of his student and first author, Cherilyn Strader. As of this morning, this review article is first on the list of most-read articles in the Journal. This status is noteworthy because the review has moved ahead of even the famed David Newman and Gordon Cragg review of natural product-sourced drugs of the last 25 years, the JNP equivalent of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (the album known for its record 14-year stay on the Billboard music charts.).
HeLa T-shirt and button design contest
Wanna put your mad Photoshop skillz to a good non-profit cause?
Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, (and I) need your help for scientist give-away items to support The Henrietta Lacks Foundation. Scroll down to the end of the post for information on the Foundation’s mission or just click here.
I’ll be at the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Orlando during first week of April and will be manning a booth to promote the Foundation to raise awareness about our mission and, hopefully, cultivate philanthropy among individuals and companies who may care to support the cause (Disclosure: I am a non-compensated member of the Foundation’s Board of Directors).
We want to offer two types of promotional items that are beyond my graphic design skills:
Quinetta Shelby “exhibiting the utmost class” in finishing at DePaul
Assistant Professor of Chemistry Quinetta Shelby (far left) and her student assistant Elizabeth Sisler (far right) attracted the interest of Trustee James Czech, Father Holtschneider and Trustee Connie Curran on their exploration into helping medicines work more effectively. (Photo and caption from DePaul Newsline Online, 13 July 2009)
Academics who live on principle and persevere through adversity with dignity and pride may not always finish first, but their strength of character earns respect.
We wrote last November about the case of Dr. Quinetta D. Shelby, a DePaul University chemistry professor denied tenure. Although a university appeals panel recommended to the DePaul president, Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, that the decision be overturned because of “numerous procedural violations” at the department level, the decision was left to stand. In the controversial aftermath, a group of faculty came out to support Dr. Shelby claiming that she and other minority faculty members were denied tenure because racism. During this past academic year, tenure was denied to six faculty: two African-Americans, two Asian-Americans, and two Latino professors. In contrast, no white faculty members were denied tenure this year.
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