More on research, and upcoming stuff...
Thank you everyone for your encouragement! Haha that was just an example of how messed up experiments can foul up mood, especially when under stress... Things have gotten better - actually the blots all worked excellently well! I have been really happy for the past couple of days and now what I have to do is to get the
in vivo and
in vitro time point data done, wait for results from the transgenic mice, and I would be able to start writing up.
There are two ways now which the paper can be structured:
1) Reporting expression only
2) Report expression + first couple of studies regarding function.
If we were to go by strategy 1, the paper would be good for places like Journal of Urology; not very good journals but well we get to publish it first. If we were to do it the second way, it will take a little longer but it can go into a better journal, not Developmental Biology standard though - still have to think about that.
Problem is, we know that THERE IS SOMEONE OUT THERE DOING A SIMILAR THING WE ARE DOING. It is a race now - which would be lame if we lose it.
The BMP4 story is neat - we might include it, but I guess the main thing should still be: what on earth is the PTEN doing there - as it doesn't seem to be playing its regulatory function through pAkt, and that excludes the whole downstream pathway. We will find out.
Haha my whole life is revolving around these stuff now, to an extent that I do not feel like doing homework and studying for exams at all (which explains why I have been putting off studying all the time until the very last minute; honestly, I don't care already, if I get all A-es or B+es for this semester, so be it - will not kill me completely :P). Anyway, I am going to take a week's break from 13 March to 22 March, in which the first 7 days will be spent on HCF's urban plunge (community service project - I will talk about it when it is done, together with the whole idea of urban ministries and Christian community development), and the last three days in Madison WI (and the amazing thing is that Gerald is also going to be there - completely by coincidence). Then Kenneth will be coming over in April (awesomeness - I am hugely thankful for that! He is choosing to fly over the Atlantic to come see us for his week-long Easter break!), I am graduating at the end of May, and going home at the end of June.
I will start the application process for Duke-NUS and the graduate schools pretty soon too - I have gotten my MCAT score, and I probably will take my GRE some time soon as well. All these will start when Spring break is over!
Labels: Life, Studies and Career
Life has never been, and will not be, fair.
Because it is meant to be that way.
(We have actually already got a pretty large increase in our allowance this year! :P)
Yesterday was A*STAR day - the directors were here and we went down to somewhere near BWI to eat fantastic crabcakes (they loved it - luckily...). I went to speak to Prof. Bernard Tan and Prof. Miranda Yap privately about my Duke/NUS plans; I got a lot of valuable points to think about from both of them. It definitely wasn't a waste of time.
I didn't get to talk about the money issue (because it was running late...), but I got to tell Cheryl about it pretty thoroughly. I think she understands why we are so upset about it now...
Hopkins builds character! Surviving here itself is a test of faith. The competition is extreme, yet still we have to worry about money and safety, in addition to the ubiquitous problems like travelling 6 miles everyday to lab, experiments not working, managing with household chores... We have the same amount of responsibility towards A*STAR compared to others who might not even have 50% of the problems we have. I didn't even include things like missing home and relationship issues...
And to bring in the materialistic side of it, it is not as if I can include 'cleaning house almost every week and cooking almost everyday' into my CV? When I am doing all these, others who do not have to (having enough money helps) can spend their time doing things that can be.
But those people who know me will know - I chose everything myself. I could have stayed in the Homewood for my research; I chose A*STAR + Hopkins over Cambridge and NUS med; I chose to have a car. No one forced me to do anything; everything just happened. I don't even remember why I applied to Hopkins. It is as if - I am supposed to go through all these.
If two years from now I will really choose the route that I am the most passionate about, it would be almost confirmed that my whole life will be something like that. When I am training as a doctor I will still have to stay current with research (~surviving between lab + double major); I will have to juggle between family and work (~housework and work now); when my peers who are pure MDs are getting their third bungalow I might still only live in HDB (~comparing with people who get automatic raises every year); when my peers who are pure PhDs are professors I might still only be an assistant professor (~comparing with people who don't have to be distracted by various other issues except relevant work)...
Everything seems to echo thoughts that I ever had about my life over the three years here, albeit at a much larger scale.
Numerous events accumulated to channel me here... If A*STAR didn't stop the MBBS/PhD scheme in 2004, if I had decided to go with the crowd to seek the most prestigious to become LKY's alumni, all the way back to if I hadn't had Mr. Yue as my VP when I was in Sec. 3 - I wouldn't have come to Hopkins at all, I wouldn't have gained all these experience, life skills and realisations.
I actually didn't plan to write this - and I didn't realise the match that you have just read as well when I began writing this...!
Labels: Life, Studies and Career
SICS related stuff.
Je m'appelle Hélène: should become the new SAD theme song. The 'no matter who I am no other fellow human being ACTUALLY cares about me and loves me' feeling is overpowering in the song.
How many of us actually have that feeling? That is, the feeling that your whole person is supported only by who you are in the eyes of others, and once that is gone, there is nothing else of you - and it's the end.
I know where to run to though, and I am extremely thankful...
Anyway, spoke to Prof. Swain from SICS - will be meeting her when I come back to Singapore to discuss opportunities and also will be asking her for some opinion and advice. Will also be meeting Prof. Gluckman on another occasion, waiting for the administration side to reply...
She also referred me to a Cambridge professor dealing with epigentics who was newly appointed as an adjunct professor in SICS. I went to chat with her on Wednesday (which seemed strangely like a Tuesday to me the whole afternoon when I was out); it was a pleasant meeting - and she told me about what they were hoping to achieve in SICS through the growth, development and metabolism programme.
One exciting aspect of it is that they are moving from rodent models to non-human primates - long-tail macaques - as they study the sustained metabolic effects (type II diabetes mellitus) of early epigenetic changes within the foetus even before it was born. Literature is dotted with data from rodents - rats and mice; Prof. Anne uses imprinting as the model, I am not sure what Prof. Gluckman does though.
I was telling her, it would be good for me if I can do a project in that area for my one year - because, despite my coursework in molecular biology and development (there will be more...), I have NEVER touched anything remotely resembling a ChIP assay, a bisulphite PCR, and designing any experiment that has anything remotely related to epigenetics. I don't even know how they actually study the acetylation or methylation status of the lysines in the histone tails - protein sequencing? Structural analysis? There must be cleverer ways. Actually the answer lies in the methods section of a paper that I have - too lazy to read it now :P
So now comes the question - what should my PhD be. Since I am interested in translational research - should I go get myself properly trained as a basic scientist as I do my MD (if I ever), or should I just go straight and learn the business of translational research right as I start graduate school? Haha if doing both is possible of course that will be awesome :D
I can think about it later - it depends on whether I can get my medical training done though...
And she asked me to apply for Gates. Errr I will definitely try, but whether I can get it is another problem... Anyway I will need to become a Singapore citizen first!
Sushi is coming tomorrow!! :) :) :) And Midsummer Night's Dream is hilarious :D
Labels: Life, Studies and Career
More Rambling.
This is what Singapore wants us to do:
The Straits Times
July 11, 2008
Grooming tech grads with business skillsBy Sumathi V. Selvaretnam
.......
Spring Singapore chairman Philip Yeo, who helms the school's advisory board, said
that many fresh graduates in science and engineering have a strong technical
grounding.
However, they lacked equally important skills in other areas, such as training,
managing and retaining staff, for example.
'We want future technical people to become CEOs of start-ups,' he said, calling MBA
training a necessity, not a luxury.
.......
I will make it clear: I AM NOT INTERESTED IN BECOMING THE CEO OF A START-UP.
Training, managing and retaining staff - yup I will need those skills; everyone needs those skills. But that doesn't mean that I have to become the CEO of a start-up.
If you are interested, good for you - go sell your astariximab, astaravir or astarozipam, or the new machine that can make proteins like PCR, whatever - leave me out of the whole business and politics thing please.
When they start asking me 'so, when are you going to create something of economic value?' (apparently yes they asked the PhD students [in Oxford?] precisely that during a lunch meeting), it would be the time for me to start preparing myself mentally to leave. This is not something that I can 'hope' won't happen to me - anyway their idea is not to create a strong academic centre like Hopkins or Cambridge but START-UPS that will generate economic revenue.
Though I don't understand how do you create start-ups that produce good and respectable products without a critical mass of good and respectable people supporting those stuff that are going to be sold. That means you will have to first create a strong academic centre like Hopkins or Cambridge (a bit of history: most biomedical companies set-up in the 70s in the US came from the Bay Area and Cambridge, MA).
It annoys me when I think back - I decided to join A*STAR because I preferred research over clinical medicine (since I do not have an option to do both then), it is as simple as that, because the world of an 18-year-old is simple.
Well, as the world becomes more and more complicated as it reveals itself - there is nothing I can do about it because of the contract; and it annoys me even more when I realised that the only way to stay happy and contended is to continue to blatantly ignore things that you find out along the way so that I can still live in the world of my 18-year-old self. Unfaltered strong and unquestionable loyalty to the government of the Republic of Singapore will definitely help too, especially when my values do not match theirs.
Unfortunately I do not ignore things that happen around me - worse I THINK about them and sometimes too much. It is not always bad, it made me decide to follow Christ, but sometimes it really makes me worry - how do I reconcile my bond obligations and my vision of my future? I do not have an unfaltered strong and unquestionable loyalty to the government of the Republic of Singapore either - if I do, there will not be any problem at all, because I will still be happy even if they ask me to sell laksa in the Biopolis foodcourt.
And the government of the Republic of Singapore is not like God: they do not have plans that are definitely the best for you. They have plans (amendable at any instant) for you that are definitely best for THEM - come on, believe this, economic development and investment return is paramount, so they have to follow corporate rules...
(Singapore DOES NOT EQUAL TO the government of the Republic of Singapore - in case you still do not realise.)
So how? Since God always has the best plans for us, I actually do not have to worry - whatever will happen will happen right? All I need to do is to let go and trust him...
I know. Tell me a better option if you have one. Breaking bond is out of the question.
Labels: Policy and Politics, Studies and Career
3 things:
1)
Organ trading: Singapore just recently sued 2 Indonesians for selling their kidneys. However, before you start to question how on earth those two guys managed to get through the committee interviews, there is a more fundamental issue that ought to be given due consideration:
Tang Wee Sung is not going to have another chance to survive if he can't find another kidney that matches him, and he is sure to be charged. Under current moral standards, he is more guilty than the two guys selling their kidneys.
But see, if you are the patient, would you rather die or would you rather break the law and take the risk? And more fundamentally, why is the commodification of human body parts considered morally deplorable? Is it actually necessarily morally wrong and must be banned by law?
GCS has written something on this, as an extension to a discussion we had last year:
Organ-trading: RevisitedI have written something on it too, it is published in 'The Triple Helix' in a few schools. Here's the link:
The Triple Helix: University of Chicago, 2(1) (2008)Pages 40 - 42.
(I would like to draw your attention to Yaofeng's article on human evolution too! Pages 35 - 37.)
2)
Cambridge: I am falling in love with this place. No wonder Grace kept saying that she wants to come back.
Saturday KH and Chen Li went for a tour to Stonehenge, Windsor and Oxford. So I was alone:
Thus, after doing groceries, I came back, packed a box of biscuits, a flask of tea and some stuff to read, took my bike and cycled down to Grantchester, found a tree by the river, and sat there until the wind got too strong.
Today the sun was shining and it was all warm and nice - so our whole lab took our lunches and went outside to sit on the grass and picnicked. Haha this isn't the first time: sometimes a couple of people will also just go out and sit in the sun to have tea after lunch or during teatime.
It is never hot - today it was 28deg and I asked Marianne whether this is considered hot. She said, 'YES it is almost 30!' It is never cold - Kelvin told me that night after formal that at 5 deg he would have needed to wear some I-don't-know-what-but-I-know-it-must-have-been-something-really-warm coat. And snow doesn't even accumulate - when it snows.
There is no need for a car at all - a big backpack + a bike are all you need for groceries. Nowhere within city limits is more than 40 minutes bike ride from where you started... That would be roughly the time required to get from Milton to Trumpington. Yet you get almost everything you need, including decent Chinese food and groceries, great concerts, cinemas, bowling alley, pubs, and of course places for picnic. If you have a railcard, London is 50 minutes and can be as cheap as £9.50 away.
Europeans are in general a lot more environmentally conscious too. I have seen people literally digging out a huge bunch of reusable bags at Sainsbury's, a sight that I have yet to see in America. It might not be very obvious in Cambridge but if you travel outwards, especially in Germany, you can really feel it.
In my lab PhD students seem to be very well mentored! I am not too sure of the full picture but I feel that the working environment here is indeed good. Like I told Joseph, where in America can you find a place where breaking 3 times a day is official (Anna: is ENCOURAGED) and work still gets done :P He doesn't find my other reasons very good but this one is the ultimate.
Another thing: clinical researchers here are very conscious about applicability of their work within the NHS. Which means, they have to find cheaper ways to do things. It is a problem: it limits the kind of work that can and will be done, and I can definitely sense that Cambridge still can't match Hopkins in terms of resources. But considering Singapore's situation - where resources WILL BE an issue - to learn how to work effectively within generally limited capabilities can be crucially important. And I certainly do not doubt the brains here, and because of the Cambridge tradition, student support will definitely be there.
(Research is important, but extending quality patient care to everyone regardless of economic and social status is even more important! At least this has to be true in Singapore!)
3) Hogfather revisited: Small lies, big lies, the sun and the flaming ball of gas. Believe.
The book is a lot better than the show. Got the DVD for £6 - and the show, well, completely removed the suspense and destroyed the jokes. Some parts even seem abrupt. But if you have not read the book or have no time to, it is still a show worth watching...
Labels: Life, Policy and Politics, Studies and Career
Work!
The lab that I am in now is a translational lab - excluding students on rotation, there are more doctors in the lab than scientists.
This is not the easiest lab to work in - because, since a large proportion of them are doctors and they do the main work, when they start talking about doctor stuff, I can only listen. And in journal clubs they present clinical papers.
But this is the kind of work that I am interested in! This is what I want to do!
I actually see clinical relevence in what I am doing - my job is pretty routine at the moment (what can I expect for the first 4 weeks...), involving loads of Q-PCRs while still waiting for antibodies. But I know why I am doing it - the lab wants to identify genes and proteins that can be used as biomarkers for Barrett's oesophagus from a second microarray screen they have previously done. They are going to apply those as possible diagnostic markers for samples taken using a novel, non-invasive technique (vs. endoscopic biopsies) that they developed.
And I see how basic biomedical science fits in - two graduate students (both are doctors already) are working currently on 2 groups of genes that are obviously upregulated in the screen; in the screen there is also a third group, another very interesting, functionally-diverse, yet poorly-studied group of genes, that currently no one in the lab is studying yet.
The lab is working on actual human samples - people from the lab routinely go to theatre to get specimens to bring back to the lab. There are boxes of slides on the shelves with those samples on them (I hope I can eventually lay my hands on them). I am currently using cDNA made from samples provided by patients recruited for the study.
When I go for forums and seminars, people analyse clinical trials, statistical methods, diagnostic and treatment techniques and options. There are going to be great people coming to talk too; they brought in Tim Hunt 2 weeks ago, and they are going to bring in Andrew Wyllie and David Lane next Friday for the Cambridge Cancer Centre Symposium.
To be fair - not all talks are good, there are some I can't help falling asleep. But there are ones that are brilliant; like Tuesday's presentation on Bayesian analysis was great.
I am actually learning valuable things!
I am also given the chance to observe what exactly are the roles of doctors and scientists in such a setting. At this point it seems like scientists play the role of 'advisors' or 'collaborators' - advising and helping on the techniques and knowledge and procedures - but they don't set the direction of where the research goes.
Fundamental fact: there are things that scientists cannot do - even if we know how to do it we cannot do it. But there is no restriction the other way round - as long as the medics are willing to learn, they are can do anything a scientist is capable of doing.
Which means, if I were to go into this field without a MD, I have to be contended with a secondary role - which is making me rethink whether it is worth it to make the MD thing happen (with specialisation obviously). Most probably I will still do my PhD first, and I am NOT going to stay in Singapore for that - but this make speeding up the PhD an extremely good idea. Anyway, medical students who have PhDs are common both in the US and the UK.
This is what I want to do - and I have picked a long route towards it. I won't say that I am happy about it (I have tried hard but I have never really sucessfully gotten over this), because my decision then was partially driven by inconsistent A*Star policies (at least microscopically-speaking) and information that was fed to me then (people were so very extremely sure that there is no way of getting a medicine scholarship except the ridiculous SAF one, they were also so very extremely sure in drilling into me that getting a medical degree in the UK will cost my parents at least £200,000, and people were trying to convince me that a medical degree is not necessary in translational research - yes it is not indeed, of course, in an administrator's point of view), but well, if I could have done what I think to be optimal now, my life might have been completely different.
And now even I am determined to pursue what I think is worth doing there are still layers and layers of obstacles for me to overcome. I have real stories from seniors with me.
Honestly, I think asking my dad for advice is better than asking A*Star for advice.
I'll see where God will lead me to next :P
Labels: Studies and Career
The Nature of Medicine: Part II
I have just completed the hardest paper I have ever written in my life.
The title of that paper is called '
Shelter Blues - Experience and Selfhood', and it is almost like a critical review of the book '
Shelter Blues: Sanity and Selfhood among the Homeless' by Robert Desjarlais. It was just a 6-pages double-spaced, 1800-word essay - and it took me 3 nights to complete it (normally I would take like, 3 hours?!). Guess what? Because of this paper I slept only 4 hours each night both Monday and Tuesday.
If you think questions like 'why did the author used rhodamine dextran instead of GFP as the fluorescence marker? what other alternatives are possible?' are considered 'critical evaluation questions' worthy of journal club time, wait until you get questions like:
'How and why are questions about “experience” so central to Desjarlais’ ethnography?'
'How does his theoretical approach play out in his ethnographic work in the shelter?'
'What does this all have to say about the concept of “selfhood” in relation to the homeless?'
I am so glad that I am done with the discussion leading for this class. It is getting harder and harder and more and more crazy that my history background ceased to become relevant and my regular logical ways of thinking ceased to work.
_________________________________________
> Shireen: This will sound like a reply to your most recent post and thus it is.
I was quite surprised as to how you wrote the last sentence - 'patients all have individual experiences of their illness' - that sounds so anthropological that I can't believe that it actually comes from you. I don't know if you mean what I usually interprete such a sentence as, because if I were to stress something scientific I would use words like 'clinical manifestations' etc. and not 'individual experience'. That is because a person's illness experience is not only shaped by the clinical manifestation of his illness but also the people around him, the cultural and political settings around him, his relationships with his doctor(s), and various other internal and external factors.
In this sense no patient falls into any stereotype - or the 'norm' - because everyone's circumstances are different. That leads me to the point in which there has always been criticisms against the use of a '35-yo Caucasian male, w = 60kg and h = 170cm' as a normal average human in clinical trials and then extrapolating all results from this average human stereotype. How valid are these results? But the dilemma would be: if you attempt to vary your sample group, what would be the basis of your choice of the criteria to be varied? Thus, how valid would your results still be - in either case?
Textbooks always tell us something, but reality is always different, and the danger about textbooks is that they make us feel too comfortable. That is in the everyday life of a biologist too because, sigh, things just don't work even when all published literature says that it should and you are 100% sure that you are doing the right thing. Sometimes I just have to blame the Hopkins water in having a strangely high concentration of the fifth element and thus affecting the buffering capacity of the buffers and the accuracy of the pH meter.
I have a friend who is allergic to metoclopramide, and once he had an adverse reaction to it in a hospital and they took almost a day to figure out why. Someone close to me passed away a few years back from sepsis - and the trigger was something as common as UTI. I was once given a regular dose of amoxicillin for an URTI, it didn't clear, the doctor switched to erythromycin, and it still didn't clear - and eventually I have to be hospitalised for pneumonia which eventually cleared with 4 days of IV penicillin and a 2-week course of Augmentin. Latest example was my aunt's laparoscopic hysterectomy.
Those are all exceptions to the standard common and simple stuff - there could have been possible complications listed somewhere but well, they are not what we see everyday. Grace has commented that 'biology is not logical', which I strongly contest because I think that medical biology is all about finding logic among a big meaningless mess; things will not be logical only because there is something we don't know or we simply don't care. But it also gets to show how random biology and medicine can actually be, and how much heart we have to put in in order to make something work.
Time to go home - I am typing this on B-level in the library :P There will be a Part III coming along!
Labels: Life, Studies and Career
More planning!
Registration for next semester will start 16 April - i.e. in less than 2 weeks. Currently this is my chosen course list:
1. 020.686 Advanced Cell Biology
(All aspects of cell biology are reviewed and updated in this intensive course through critical evaluation and discussion of the current scientific literature. Topics include protein trafficking, membrane dynamics, cytoskeleton, signal transduction, cell cycle control, extracellular matrix, and the integration of these processes in cells of the immune system.)2. 020.340 Genetics Laboratory
(This laboratory explores the genetics of living organisms, and students in each section will therefore be required to return to lab on succeeding days to observe and record the results of their experiments.)3. 140.105 History of Medicine: Antiquity to Scientific Revolution
(Course provides an overview of the development of Western medical traditions from Antiquity to the early modern period, with particular attention to the social and cultural factors that affected medical ideas and practices.)4. 140.349 The Laboratory
(You probably spend lots of time in one. Find out where it came from, how it works, and what makes it a distinctive place for research and teaching. Special attention to the history of the laboratory at Johns Hopkins, including medical laboratories.)5. 210.161 German Elements I
(Four skills introduction to the German language and culture. Develops proficiency in speaking, writing, reading and listening skills through the use of basic texts, multi-media and communicative language activities.)6. There is some dilemma in choosing between these 2 other classes:
6a. 150.219 Bioethics
(Introduction to a wide range of moral issues arising in the biomedical fields, e.g., physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, abortion, surrogacy, and human subjects research.)6b. 150.235 Philosophy of Religion
(Can one prove or disprove the existence of God? What is the relation between reason and faith? Are science and religion at odds with one another? We will consider historically significant discussions of these questions (for example, by Plato, Anselm, Aquinas, Pascal, Hume, and Kierkegaard) as well as important contemporary writings (for example, by Adams, Boyer, Plantinga, and Van Inwagen). Gilman Course in the Humanities)
Although I will only have 5 classes and a lab it'll still be pretty intense. The problem with the last class is that I am afraid that 150.235 will have too much reading - I will already have a lot of reading from the 3 classes other than German I - and my problem with Bioethics is that I am afraid that I won't get too much out of it (it's a huge class, tonnes of people - whether they are interested or not - will take it because the class will make their CVs/transcripts look more appealing to the medical school admission boards, and thus it has the propensity to become too GP-ish).
150.235 seems very interesting. It seems to be able to wrap up completely what I have been learning - I had a brief survey of the issue by Prof. Principe in Scientific Revolution, my background is in science and its history, and I am also doing bible study now... Also, it will equip me with the ammunition to throw at GCS when he starts his discussion about belief with me again (Plato is an effective cannonball when used as ammo because his stuff is so varied and so chim that it's hard to counter - Aquinas maybe not. I'll find out) :D
Help me decide if possible! Hahaha thanks :D
Labels: Studies and Career
Chill until become ice.
This semester is crazy! 2 midterms next week, and still 12 more weeks to go...
At this rate I am going most probably I will end up (again) feeling sick all the time from all the coffee that I drink, and will have to resort to eating tylenol and antacid to counteract that.
To ensure that I have a continuous supply of caffeine-charged drinks, I have bought myself a tea maker. I have a lot of various tea leaves with me - from English tea to various forms of Chinese tea, some from Singapore and some from unknown sources - which I don't know how to consume before the tea maker. So now other than instant coffee my arsenal just got powered up.
Was talking to yc just now. He was asking me why didn't I choose to go to Cambridge - he didn't apply because he thought it is very hard to get in (which is not true if you intend to do natural sciences; same as Hopkins at ~25 - 30% - and upon knowing that he went '**** I should have gone there to chill until become ice!' :P). Well I wanted to do something different, which is true - though now when I think back, if I have gone to England, these are the advantages:
1. Everyone knows where I am studying in. I won't get stares which probably suggest 'you must be some rich kid who cannot study that's why you go to the US right' and even more stares when I say my school is in Baltimore, which get relieved only when I add to that 'ohh it's one hour from Washington DC and it's on the East Coast'. And I wouldn't have to correct EVERYONE when they think that they are smarter than Johns Hopkins's father because they feel that 'John' shouldn't be spelt with an 'S' at the back.
2. I would be able to feel really powerful when it comes to the sciences because I would be devoting all my energy to it. I won't feel that I have lost out in something because I wouldn't have done ANYTHING in the humanities - hence I wouldn't have known.
3. I would probably have stepped onto every single conceivable European country by now. Probably except Bosnia and Kosovo. I might even have gone to Ukraine and Belarus.
4. I would be able to fulfill the 3 years residency requirement, get my UK ID card, identify myself as a real British, be eligible for fully-funded PhD studentships everywhere in the EU, and then be eligible to chill there for the rest of my life.
If we have known #4 way earlier I would probably have gone there with my parents' money. Though if that is the case I wouldn't be able to fulfill #3 - but I am eligible to work anywhere anytime so I might not live like a king but should still be pretty alright.
(See? That's why I have to go back to DHS and make sure that my juniors think properly before they take up scholarships.)
Going there to chill until become ice for master's is one of his options. Even if I ever decide to go there for graduate school I don't think I can chill to that kind of extent - but it is a fact that, in Cambridge, you cycle for 15 minutes in any direction you will find yourself in the middle of some field blooming with yellow flowers in spring but down here you cycle for 15 minutes in any direction you will reach a ghetto. Okay maybe not towards the north, but you get the idea.
There is this NIH - Oxcam thing sounds quite interesting (there is an Advanced Scholars track for non-US citizens who commenced studies in the UK), and since I am dropping the MD/PhD idea, I am considering the UK option again.
(Hahaha there is one great thing about the NIH - Oxcam thing. During the 2 years with NIH I will definitely choose to live in Rockville - 15 minutes Metro to Bethesda from there, is the centre of Chinese food in Maryland, and it is a very nice place :D)
Enough nonsense. Back to work :P
Labels: Life, Studies and Career
Thinking too much?
Had this interesting observation recently.
When I tell Americans that I am on scholarship and I have to go back to Singapore to work after I am done with graduate school, a lot of them will make this comment:
'This is good! At least you have a job waiting for you, not like us...'
I have to agree that yes at least I do not have to worry about finding my first job etc (which is a headache I know), but I also have to point out that this is not necessarily a good thing. Why is it not necessarily a good thing, well, there are too many reasons that I can think of and usually I will not elaborate too much, other than talking briefly about the restrictions that our contracts have on us.
Seriously, if I am an American at this stage, I wouldn't have to think and talk so much about various career related issues with so many people. It would be pretty straightforward (though I won't say simple) - continue doing what I am doing, apply for summer internships, study for MCAT, apply to as many MD/PhD programmes in the US as possible, and hopefully I can get into one.
Of course you can argue it the other way round - basically if I follow faithfully the path that is laid nicely in front of me I shouldn't have any trouble at all as well. It is just that, as I think back, a path chosen when I was just out of high school and was relatively ill-informed on various things cannot be the best path that I could have chosen for myself. Thus, what I am trying to do now is to maximise whatever I can get from the path that I am supposed to follow, and make use of it to the best of my advantage.
Actually I shouldn't be thinking about too many things too much. So what if Singapore's model of research funding is not sustainable? So what if it is simply unrealistic to expect us to start our own companies after 5 years working as a post-doc? It is not as if we can do anything about it at our level; why bother (Singaporean mindset)- unless we can find a group of dedicated individuals within the scientific community to become active in policy-making.
Sigh sometimes I don't know why I actually think so much. These thoughts don't actually help me a lot but sure they do make me worry about my future (and worrying is always unnecessary, because usually nothing positive comes out of it).
Anyway, I have (finally) settled my classes for this semester.
1. Developmental Biology
2. AIDS
3. Landmarks in Biochemical Research
4. Microbiology
5. Concept of the Patient in Anthropology
6. How Electricity Changed the World: A Cultural History
plus research.
This semester is packed with a lot of material dealing with the social aspects of medicine, and my biology classes are quite diverse - no choice, because these 300-level classes don't go as deep as I would want them to (if they are of similar topics, they tend to
repeat stuff) and I couldn't get myself into the 600-level classes. I'll make sure that I have a fair share of that next year.
School has started! My finals will end on 14 May, which is almost the last day...
Labels: Random, Studies and Career
Doctor? Scientist?
Realised something - which is important:
Lives of doctors in the US and the lives of doctors in Singapore are very much dissimilar.
I don't know why I didn't realise this earlier - actually I have some of the information at hand but maybe I am just too willing to accept the rosy picture and conveniently ignore the reality.
The current reality is this: Singapore is
short of doctors. Whereas the US has plenty.
Logical conclusion: if I am licensed to practise, will my boss (i.e. the Government of the Republic of Singapore) let me spend 75% of my time in the lab? Will I only have 2 cases in a morning to see or 13 cases a week to evaluate?
Hell no. I guess after all those work I would not even have the energy to read journals. Let alone all the planning, management, mentoring, problem solving, networking, etc etc etc. I know where my limit lies.
The medical school in Singapore is already over-capacity. Duke-NUS is only taking in that many students. To make up the numbers MOH still needs to source doctors from outside Singapore.
If the situation remains this way for the next 10 years - the problem is unlikely to alleviate with an expanding and greying population - there is no way a clinician scientist is going to have a good life. Unless A*Star says to MOH, NO YOU CAN'T TAKE AWAY OUR RESEARCHERS (in caps and bold) - under the current leadership this is extremely unlikely.
We can only count on the US professors in A*Star to do their job for this situation to turn towards our side. Not likely - because Singapore is not the US. If our healthcare system is supported by a whole bunch of overpriced medical insurance plans and we constantly have people like Howard Hughes, Andrew Carnegie, etc. we will be able to afford to train doctors and put them in labs only. Unfortunately, BUT fortunately for our people, our system is not like that. I don't want that to change.
(Economists please correct any factual or assumption errors - leave a comment.)
If I am the Government, I will deploy my resources to benefit the population the most, and the immediate need of the population is front-line health care. NOT research - putting you in a lab you might come out with something great in 10 years, but if I deploy you to the max now I can fulfill the needs of 40 patients a day. 40 x 52 x 5 x 10 - that is a huge amount of patients. The risk might be lower to just
buy solutions from other people than to come out with the solutions ourselves - we may not even succeed in coming out with these solutions in the first place. At least, in that case, the taxpayers will not doubt where their money went to.
No wonder Prof Ren told me: if I intend to hold a MD, a PhD in Singapore would be good enough (he said 'Singapore provides excellent PhD training'). He also says that my decision should be based on whether 'I want to spend more time in the clinic or in the lab'. Of course his is a perspective from Singapore - initially I don't really understand it but now I think I do.
It seems like in Singapore, if you are a doctor licensed to practise, research is secondary, not primary. It seems to me - the reason why they are providing resources to train MBBS/PhDs is that they need these clinicians to
bring what the basic/applied scientists developed into the hospital, develop it further and then inject it into the IV lines. It is not fully expected that they will come out with things the basic/applied people come out with. They want these doctors to have a PhD so that they can have the formal training to equip them with the ability to
understand the language of basic/applied science, so they can actually function effectively when carrying out the translation because they don't have to learn-as-they-go.
The Government needs them to complete the sequence of biomedical initiatives (no wonder A*Star says that this is 'Phase 2' of their biomedical initiative) - from the DH5a that I clone my lentivirus vector in to something that can enter someone's IV line and cure him - and Singapore's clinical researchers are at the end of this spectrum
only or at best,
mostly.
(Not a very good strategy in my opinion, if you have limited resources. Look, 3 - 5 MBBS/PhDs a year with heavy clincal duties is not going to make a lot of difference. If they really want A*Star to become something like the NIH, they need a whole group of
committed people with the enough experience and the right perspectives. And whoever funding must be committed too, and all these are long-term commitments. I am willing to be there if I can contribute and if they want me -
if they want me.)
This is not the only role a MD/PhD plays in the US. MD/PhDs are dotted all across the spectrum. They can be as clinically inactive as they want; Bert Vogelstein, M.D. is not actually practising anymore, from what I understand.
I don't think practising medicine can be secondary to lab in Singapore if you are licensed to practise. Thus, if I were to become a successful scientist, I have to do what a scientist does. My post-doc years are all in Singapore - thus I need to get my PhD training from a great mentor outside Singapore.
I will continue to gather information, and track changes in Singapore. In the meantime, it would be more wise to look out for more opportunities in the basic medical sciences. Haha and, history :)
Labels: Policy and Politics, Studies and Career
2008.
2008.
There is this general restlessness in me. I am already 23 and I am still an undergraduate - not the most productive thing a 23-year-old can do isn't it. I (or rather WE) can't help it but still, I just can't wait for graduate school to start. Whether or not that is for a PhD, MD, MD/PhD it doesn't matter - I just want graduate school to start. I consider that as the start of my career.
Also, with all my career goals and the flying involved it is almost impossible to find someone whom I can engage in a long-term relationship with in the near future. Because I am me I prefer to have plans way ahead - and that completely deters me from engaging in relationships that I know will definitely run into walls because I have to leave the place for good. And this contributes to part of the restlessness.
Haha it's just that, I'm not alone!
KH was asking me what keeps me motivated, and I told him stories about scientific discoveries and so on. Well, a simpler answer could be, I want to help people in need, and I want to contribute to the world. Since I am good at academics, and since I am interested in biology, I decided to enter the path of medical research. The thing that keeps me motivated is my strong belief that advances in medicine depends on research, and no matter what research we do, eventually the piece of the puzzle that we laid will contribute to the overall advancement of diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and patient care. Research forms the basis of clinical care - without research, we might still be prescribing mercury baths for syphillis patients and weapon-salve for knife wounds.
And I must really thank Mr Yue, the ex-DHS vice-principal, for giving me the initial opportunity that showed me the way.
So 2008?
1. Continue to prepare myself for the beginning of my career.
2. At least one Europe trip :P
3. At least one Hiking trip
Okay last year I took off from runways 17 times, and had been through 11 different airports (SIN, BWI, MDW, BUF, JFK, FRA, LHR, HKG, ATL, IAD, NRT). Let me see what will happen in 2008 :)
Labels: Life, Studies and Career
The Craziness Ended!
Finally. Was so stressed the past few days; seriously, was popping panadol and antacid every few hours just to make sure I don't fall apart from all the discomfort I was getting from staring at the computer screen continuously.
I already have so much to study for even when the exams aren't cumulative. I can't imagine what will happen if I get cumulative finals for my classes next semester... Med biochem, micro-b, d-bio, nervous system, basically all of them are memory-intensive. I hope that my anthro and history class will only require essays from me.
Haha have been hearing about phys-found 1. Kind of tempted to take it in fall because it sounds really interesting - though most prob I'll have to S/U it in the end. I definitely can't deal with the math fast and good enough to win those geniuses from BME - how is a bio major supposed to fight with a BME in solving problems that require strings of ODEs? It is good for me though because my way of thinking now is not quantitative; alright for a physician I guess, but definitely bad for a scientist. I have to brush that up :P
Good preparation for HBTM also - I know
nothing about systems biology which I might eventually need to know. Now I just know bits and pieces from my random experiences here and there. I am trying to take neuro stuff to give myself a systems perspective in the neuro sense, phys-found 1 will give me a systems perspective for the circulatory system. Cannot take phys-found 2 - I don't know MatLab :P
As you can see, running out of good classes to take from the bio department - unless I want to take plant biochemistry, evolution, ecology, glycobiology, etc (boring). I can progress to 600-level though; it is possible, but not next sem :P
Though there are just too many geniuses around. Singapore feels like a safe haven - I never had the feeling
wow this place is really filled with freaking geniuses when I was studying in Singapore. Compared to what I am getting now lab attachments in Singapore were just
relaxed - I was so highly supervised every time (i.e. get told what to do and how to do it). One of the reasons for me to be looking forward to graduation is the one-year attachment - I know, even if I will be stressed, I
definitely won't be as stressed as now.
I don't know whether that is good or bad - I just have to constantly remind myself of the geniuses in the rest of the world and keep in contact with some of them when I am back in Singapore eventually. We as scientists do not only compete within our company or organisation for position and salary raise - we, as individuals, compete with the world.
Well in order for me to get good grades I have to compromise a lot of things - I am not considered active on campus. Geniuses can still pwn everyone in exams with 2 leadership positions in clubs, regular volunteering and authorship in research papers (they might be the third or fourth author but then it doesn't matter because they're still undergrads - as long as there
is it is impressive).
I cannot outdo these people. But I can get to know them and work with them - though sadly I know this kind of people definitely exists (from the classes that I take!) I don't know them yet (doesn't mean that we take classes together we will know each other - this is America). Haha maybe during graduate school I will get to know some :P
Labels: Life, Studies and Career
Stem Cell Research.
This thing is exciting. Even Bush is excited. See?
One year ago a team in Kyoto, Japan successfully reprogrammed normal mouse skin cells into embryonic stem cells. I read the paper some months back; it was a
Cell paper and hmms as you can imagine the amount of data presented was overwhelming.
I will spare you the technical stuff - although I still can't remember everything even after lab meeting discussions and class discussions. Basically they turned on 4 stem-cell genes in these normal cells and through some miracle they became stem cells. Sounds simple: but they had to choose which genes to play with, put them into the cell, make sure the cells really became stem cells... That's why it's a
Cell paper. I still remember being quite amazed by it.
Now that original Kyoto team and a team from Wisconsin repeated the same thing in human cells. Those iPS cells are going to give them their Nobel Prize sooner or later - if their results can be repeated.
Basically everyone is excited. Today Molecular Biology class was completely spent on discussing the two papers. This technology, if indeed valid, will solve the ethnical problems surrounding stem cell research and also solve the problem regarding rejection by the immune system.
This is an artificial process, of course, as the 'de-differentiation' of cells in natural settings is still pretty controversial. There are also potential problems with the technology: it involves turning on a cancer-causing gene called c-myc. Also, it involves the use of retroviruses - they are not known to be a safe vector that can be used in humans - a safer gene delivery system might be needed. Among others.
Alright enough of stem cells. Back to p53.
And HERO exam next week! Not doing very well so far... Must practise more :P
(Don't seem to be doing very well this semester anyway... Sigh as long as my GPA won't drop below critical level I really shouldn't think too much. Like Kai said, getting A- in a writing class is already extremely good for Asians like us. Even Grace's was around there. I really shouldn't think too much :P)
Labels: Random, Studies and Career
Plans.
I am still thinking over my schedule for the next semester. Currently it is like this:
1. Developmental Biology
2. Microbiology
3. Medical Biochemistry
4. The Nervous System II (TTh 1:30 - 2:45)
5. How Electricity Changes the World: A Cultural History (M 1:30 - 4)
6. The Concept of the Patient in Anthropology
Alternatives:
2a. Introduction to Glycobiology (Direct substitution)
4a. Communication Between Cells: The Synapse As A Model System (WF 3 - 4:15)
5a. Sanitizing Culture: Hygiene and Sanitization in 20th Century East Asia (W 1:30 - 4)
It's going to be a well-guided but hmms mug-like-mad semester (note #1 - 4!). 6x 3-credit arts and sciences classes with definitely-more-than-120-hours of research (i.e. 21 credits of all-work) can even be more crazy than a 24-credits engineering schedule.
Cannot do medical tutorials already I guess. I will find one for myself next fall. Hopefully I can find a clinical position in JHH that makes rounds, or at least one that is involved in clinical trials. It's pointless to do a medical tutorial that is research-centered.
Anyway I have decided to drop the pre-med idea in the US. Totally too troublesome, and the opportunity cost is too high. It's not worth it. I will only do a MD if I can do it in Singapore and if I can still do my PhD in the US. Final decision.
If I'm not doing MD, my first choice would be the seems-rather-promising Harvard HBTM + LMS. Haha hope that Boston would be filled with friends by then! :) (Hey guys come on, apply to MIT and Harvard!) It's easy to get to Europe from Boston (it's totally possible to take a 5-day break (Wed - Sun) over Thanksgiving and go to Spain or Italy or France or London for <$800 in total). Boston is certainly nice, relatively safe and not boring. They have a Chinatown that serves good food, as well as easy access to New York. And also, I have relatives there :D
Hahaha so that's great! I'm freed from all the silly requirements which I am reluctant to fulfill in the first place. So hopefully I can do this in fall 2008:
1. Genetics Lab (top priority)
2. Advanced Cell Biology
3. Probability and Statistics
4. History of Medicine: From Antiquity to Renaissance
5. (Another history course)
6. German Elements I
7. (Medical Tutorial?)
And good classes to take for spring 2009:
1. History of Medicine: 18th to 20th century
2. Medical Sociology
3. German Elements II
4. Immunobiology
5. (another graduate level biology course)
6. (Medical Tutorial?)
Haha next year I can start playing around with my classes already; basically will be doing all sorts of useless things that sound interesting. Nothing will actually be a 'requirement'... I would have cleared all my biology requirements by the next semester, except the lab. And plans for German now is that I'll take a year of that here, a year of that in Singapore and then I'll see how it goes afterwards :)
Labels: Studies and Career
Experiments and CHL Poster.
Next week's schedule:
Monday: Genetics exam 10am, then lessons as usual until 6pm, EFR till 10pm. Paper due.
Tuesday: Lessons 10am - 3pm, lab from 3pm till late.
Wednesday: Lessons 10am - 12pm, lab till 4pm, then lessons again till 6pm. EFR till 10pm.
Thursday: Lab 9am - 1pm, lessons till 3pm, then lab again till late.
Friday: Camping in lab the whole day.
I have
a lot of experiments to do... I need to confirm the results that I have been getting, because I am confident that what I have been getting is true. Got myself a cell line today (so now I have more things to maintain), made a cell block, froze some mouse brain (which I have no idea how to dissect until Brian came to my rescue) - so that next week I can get the western blots running and produce the first set of data by Friday.
I am excited about my research. I want to spend more time downtown...
Well but history is cool too. I have been spending the past 2 days trying to put together a paper comparing Kepler and modern empiricism. Initially I wanted to write about reductionism (kind of inspired by Henry Schaefer) - but found it a little difficult to put forward a solid case for a short paper because of the heterogenous nature of reductionism. It is complicated stuff :P
What's the point of doing simple things that pose no challenge though? It'll be a waste of life, and a waste of taxpayer's money :P
Ohh let me tell you what I think of the Chairman's Honours List poster this year, from the point of view of a trainee historian heavily influenced by biology and medicine.
(I am not posting the image - common sense tells me that I am not supposed to. If you don't have the picture with you then just imagine first, and check out standard A*Star propaganda sometime in the very near future.)
A*Star's bias towards the biomedical sciences is reflected in 2 very obvious ways.
1. The arrangement of the photos: Those are not just circles. They resemble the double helix of DNA - I believe that is the first impression you should get too. The guy who designed this definitely had that in mind.
2. Look at the background: it is an image of Fusionopolis. However, nowhere in the poster states Fusionopolis - but we have a sign which says 'Biopolis' right in front. Well, if you are not an A*Starian, just by seeing the poster won't you think that Biopolis is the two magnificant buildings in the background?
There is one more symbol that might be a little forced - look at how individual photos and descriptions are structured. They look exactly like budding yeast -
saccharomyces cerevisiae - when they are budding. It might be unintentional, but if we assume it to be intentional, it can be metaphorically read as: 'these young people are our budding scientists'. Though do they
have to use a model organism to illustrate the point?
The use of these symbols are not coincidental. It reflects the general attitude of the agency that produced it. Imagine, if it is EDB that produced this, or if it is SAF that produced this - do you think you will see circles arranged in this way? What would you expect to see?
That's what a history major does all the time - finding patterns from primary sources, putting them together in the form of a story and draw a valid conclusion. Another myth exploded: history is
not just mugging. Basically nothing is just mugging. A-levels gave us a wrong world-view (or
Weltanshauung - 'an intellectual construction ... that makes you feel secure' - Sigmund Freud).
People ask me why don't I want to find something easier (like econs) to double major in. Haha what's the point of getting formal instruction on something that is easy (or consisting of mugging only)? Why can't I learn it myself - when I need it?
So it is very unlikely for me to make it into next year's CHL (I made it this year because last year was just too slack). If I do, well, I will have to thank God for that :P
Labels: Life, Studies and Career
Train Me!!
This guy is my hero.
Patrick Boon Ooi TAN, M.D. Ph.D.
He's the President's scholar for 1987, went to Harvard for his B.A., and got his M.D. Ph.D. from Stanford. He took 8 years to complete his M.D. Ph.D.
Came across this also:
Biomedical Sciences in Singapore:
Looking back, Looking forwardProf. Tan Chorh-Chuan gave this presentation some time ago to some Duke people I presume. Just take a look at the URL.
Basically he highlighted some important BMS policies in the presentation. According to him, building up our translational and clinical research capabilities is of
critical importance (of course it's about the economy and money and IP etc but I won't disagree).
And and, according to the news, they are setting up a new regulatory body to coordinate HR issues between NUH and NUS-SOM. This can potentially lessen the workload of clinician scientists rather substantially - they will still have dual responsibilities but at least they won't be overstretched as much as they are now. Hmms Dr. Berman is a clinician scientist (he's a practising pathologist and he is also my PI), Brian is a practising vet, and both their lives don't look stressful to me? :P
Ok. I am prepared to ride with the wind. I don't mind getting my M.D. in Singapore (which might be better actually if I were to practise in Singapore), on 2 conditions.
1) 11 years of bond is
simply too insane. I am not so desperate yet. I can still survive with a PhD only.
2) I want to do my PhD in the US, UK or Europe. For one simple reason: I need a graduate degree from a respectable institution outside Singapore. I might not stay in Singapore forever - who knows what will happen 20 years from now?
And basically Singapore cannot import all our M.D. Ph.Ds - I don't think an American doctor will know how to communicate with a grievous Cantonese-speaking 80-years old auntie that came to the hospital to accompany her husband who is getting treated for some sort of lung cancer. Well, no matter who the patient is Hopkins patients speak English?! And they will be mostly Americans :P
I can imagine how stressed the auntie will be when confronted by this ang moh doctor who doesn't understand her. Worse - she can't understand the ang moh doctor also. It's inevitable for practising clinician scientists to be in contact with patients. Hmmms bottomline is, as we are building up our research capabilities, our standard of care cannot be compromised. It should rise as we become better - if not the efforts will not serve its purpose and will be misdirected.
Singaporean clinician scientists are needed, whether local or foreign trained - and I am insane enough to offer myself to be trained (yeah to most medical students and doctors in Singapore people like me are insane). So train me! All you need to give me is the money. I'll settle the rest :D
Labels: Studies and Career
Life.
How I love life back in Singapore.
In Singapore, I have never had a Friday afternoon whereby I have one essay to revise (almost completely), 3 history papers to read and 2 exams to study for.
In Singapore, work has never been stressful so far. Although I might be busy, but I would almost be exclusively working for someone; meaning, I don't have to find literature to read myself, interprete literature myself, design experiments myself, find positive and negative controls myself, etc. All I have to do is just follow instructions and maybe design a bit of experiments.
In Singapore, I know what is going to be on the exams, because there are these things called 'practice papers'.
In Singapore, things come to me by themselves - like the $300 that A*Star just gave me. I don't have to work
very hard to get something.
In Singapore, someone would have done all my short-term life-planning for me. I don't have to think about 'what classes to take for next semester' or 'what to do for summer' etc.
Arghh America is not like that. America shows you all the possibilities of life, tells you how good you can possibly become, and all you need to do is work towards it. Though the catch is the 'working' part - you have to do everything yourself. You can choose to enjoy life and slack too - it's just that you know what the outcome will be.
Maybe I am a little too ambitious. If I had only aspired to become a doctor like the one I have been seeing since I was a kid probably my life would have been much easier.
Oh well. There is this cool (yeah glioblastoma is cool - not so much when you actually get it) lab in SICS dealing with
brain tumour stem cells. I never knew that someone in Singapore is interested in tumour stem cells - maybe I can work for them during my 1 year RA and help them figure out something (stain for nestin?) :P
Labels: Studies and Career
Coursework stuff.
Today there was this girl in class wearing a green pullover. For a moment I was thinking: what is this TKGS girl doing over here?
Goodness. I've officially started to hallucinate.
Had been pretty busy with work the past few days. The first round of midterms, papers, etc. were finally over yesterday and of course it is time to relax a little. This won't last long though... Judging by the fact that there are stuff piling up I would have to start clearing them before they reach critical level. Sigh I guess from now onwards I can only possibly relax when this semester is over.
It is hard to be an undergraduate because you don't seem to have enough time to pay full attention to anything. That is stressful. Oh well, I don't think the life of a graduate student is better though.
And I don't feel very confident about the classes this semester. It might be because I am not certain of what is going to be the format of the exams. I heard that history exams are mostly MCQs and fill in the blanks but seriously I don't know how the exams for the class that I am taking now is going to be like. The two biology upper-level electives are more analysis based than anything. We need to write short essays for my signalling class exam, and I expect short essays too for molecular biology. Finally essays hit - it's not true that Americans only know how to do T/F or MCQ. There goes another myth.
Genetics is supposed to be relatively simple, and indeed it actually is, but I have no idea why I still kind of screwed up my first exam a bit. It's not fatal but then, hmmms need to work harder, especially for the graded homework problems. Argh if I have read the supplements before I did one of the problem sets I wouldn't have to worry now at all! :(
Have a month to work on this problem:
> How do you figure out experimentally the structure of an actively transcribing chromatin segment - especially for a single-copy gene?
I HAVE NO IDEA. Time to start working on it now.
Labels: Life, Studies and Career
!!
Read this.
Can a foreign citizen apply to the M.D.-Ph.D. Program and receive funding?
Foreign citizens (those who are not US citizens or permanent residents) with competitive applications are welcome to apply. Although international students are not eligible to receive funding provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) grant, an outstanding foreign student could be offered admission to the program with funding if selected for one of Harvard University's Presidential Scholarships. This funding opportunity is limited to one international student per year.
http://www.hms.harvard.edu/md_phd/application/faqs.htm#b6Hmmms. Although I like challenges but this is seriously a bit too challenging isn't it......
Labels: Studies and Career
