The 2010 American Crystallographic Association (ACA) meeting in Chicago has been able to bring together the co-recipients of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry namely Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath.
The ACA reports that Venkatraman Ramakrishnan will be giving a plenary lecture on Saturday (7/24/2010) and Thomas Steitz will be giving a plenary lecture on Wednesday (7/28/2010). Ada Yonath will be speaking Wednesday morning on Macromolecules, Complexes & Assemblies.
I had the pleasure of taking my first crystallography course from Dr. Cora Lind. Cora was kind enough to ask me to speak at the American Crystallography Association meeting this year. In addition, she has always been patient and helpful with my crystallography questions.
I have not yet watched all the videos (in total they run nearly 23 hours!), but feel comfortable recommending them since I took the course. Also there are copies of the slides from each lecture to make it easy to follow along at home.
The relevance of the introductory lecture made me smile, ‘you may find publications with crystal data that may not make sense… you need to be able to judge that.’
I am really grateful for Cora putting this lecture series together.
If you find this video series helpful or think the crystallographic community would benefit from more lectures being posted, please drop a comment. Thanks.
I spoke on the last day of the American Crystallography Association meeting this year in Toronto. I missed the first couple of days and, consequently, a lot of vendors. I was, however, able to get in touch with Emerald Biosystems via Twitter (@reducentropy). I was able to set up a crystal card using their new machine called the PlugMaker. I was pretty excited since this was the first time a user sample had been on the instrument.
The machine is neat to watch operate as it combines buffer with precipitant and then injects an air plug to keep each sample separate.
Ok, so this is the lead in for a crazy story.
I am driving home from Toronto when all of a sudden, I am Mr. Popular at customs.
What was the purpose of your trip to Canada?
A science meeting. Are you bringing anything back from the meeting?
Just a protein sample. (referring to the crystal card) What type of sample?
It was at this point that I realized my trip home was going to be longer than expected.
So what to do?
Well, I told him about the sample like a dissertation defense.
I was worried that if I didn’t tell him exactly what the sample was then I might encounter some problems down the road.
So I am in the back of this long line at customs.
All of sudden an announcement comes over the PA system, “Could the person with the biological sample please identify themselves?”
I get brought up to the front of the line and am asked again about the sample.
I, again, explain away.
Blank stare.
I realize this guy has no idea what I’m talking about and that if I don’t make this easy for him then its going to be a long night.
Should I write this down?
Sure.
The customs agent is really nice and prints me off a declaration form about the sample, which I should have had.
I am home for about 4 hours before catching a flight to visit my family in Alaska. I end up leaving my crystal card in my checked bag. So my crystallization experiment gets a couple of doses of about 35,000 ft of pressure change and near freezing temperatures.
A month later, I am on my way back from Alaska and this time, I forget the crystal card completely. So the crystal card gets the pleasure of traveling three weeks in parcel post.
I was having a good conversation at the ACA this year with a couple of friends when a person I had never met walked up. I introduced myself, offered the customary handshake and, yet, got the following response: “Why should I care?”
Ah, nothing like sticking your neck out there only to find you’ve come across someone who is completely inconsiderate. So to answer your question:
1) “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”
You should treat others with respect, regardless of whether or not you know them. I am sure you have heard this phrase before, but unfortunately not everyone seems to get it – so let me break it down:
a) You should suck up because this new acquaintance will…
write your recommendation letter
set up a collaboration
review your grant.
be interviewing you for your next job, according to Murphy’s law
guess who is going to save the day when you have problems collecting data on the weekend, probably a post doc.
administrators can make your life wonderful or hell. Yelling at the person who determines this is stupid
if you need a gram of pure protein, you are going to want productive happy technicians and graduate students
if you want the best people to work for you then you need to create the best working environment
you never know who is going to be successful and play a role in determining your future
make friends on your way up because you will need them on the way down
2) It doesn’t really matter what you say about yourself, it matters what people say about you. This is the reason why many jobs require a letter of recommendation. Of course, you can’t control what others say (unless you are into waterboarding) so make sure they only have good things to say about you.
3) You’re not only representing yourself, but also your university or company.
4) For those that don’t care may your burned bridges light the way to your future.
Can your research benefit from creating an online community? Since the focus of this session is education, lets think about how we could improve, and possibly change, the classroom learning environment. Here’s one for professors: Twitter.
If you’re not familiar with Twitter, it is a public real time instant messaging service. Why not use Twitter in the classroom? Some classes have, literally, hundreds of students, many of which don’t ask questions. They’re intimidated by the size of the class and are worried that they’ll sound stupid. So, they don’t ask questions. Twitter could solve this problem by giving these “shy” students the ability to ask questions by using their laptops or cell phones. They simply instant message their questions to the professor, the professor can review the questions and address them at the start of the next lecture or possibly improve the lecture for next year (or answer them in real time if he or she is feeling ambitious).
What Twitter creates is a 2-way street. By embracing this idea of equal communication, students can get the most out of their lectures. Twitter makes the professor more Accessible to the students. It would be an exciting Change and, ideally, improve Education by giving the professor another way to Serve the students.
Note: After giving this presentation, I was approached by a University of Toledo professor who shared that he is going to implement this idea in his classroom. Cool!
The people becoming involved in crystallography are coming from a more mixed background. I can safely say there are going to be more biochemists, biophysicists and biologists using crystallography in the future. As such, we need to develop a better, more user-friendly system so those who are less familiar with crystallography don’t slip up.
Note: In an effort to create an online community for young scientists to communicate, a Facebook group was created: ACA Young Scientist SIG— a result of a great discussion at this year’s ACA.
The unfortunate example would be the Science papers that were retracted a few years back. That was an embarrassment to the entire structural community. It made us look sloppy. There’s no reason for that to happen, especially with the availability of the internet. We have the unique opportunity to build a stronger, more efficient and more resourceful community online. Bringing about this kind of change is going to require some innovative ideas and dedicated people. Thank you for your time.
I was asked by a number of people after my ACA presentation, where did my ideas about how to format a presentation? I found the following resources helpful.
Practical Advice Let there be a Stoning (pdf) by Jay H. Lehr which is the best science presentation rant
Some of you may be thinking “I’m not really interested in starting a blog”. That’s okay. However, I believe that there are big opportunities available to those who create online communities. The benefits being accessibility, changing the status quo, education and serving other’s needs.
A great example would be FoldIt– an innovative idea that takes a look at the protein folding problem. How many people do you think are currently trying to predict the 3-dimensional structures of proteins? 500? Maybe….1,000? Try over 105,000. This is what David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington has managed to do. They’ve designed an online game called FoldIt. Participants compete against each other to be the first to properly fold a protein.
Humans are now considered competition for even the most sophisticated prediction servers. Coming to this realization, the Baker lab is now analyzing how humans are solving the protein folding problem. They’re taking that information and incorporating it into their new software. All this is possible, why? Because the Baker Lab has built an online community.
FoldIt is Accessible. It encourages Change by providing a new way to solve the protein folding problem. The participants can Educate themselves and, by solving these structures, educate the Baker lab and help them create new and improved programs. Users are able to serve the scientific community by donating their time and brain power. The scientists, who benefit from this help, can then take these solved structures and, somewhere down the road, use it to give back to the community by, perhaps, introducing new vaccinations or drugs.
I started this blog in February of this year. After making that decision, my first step was to come up with an available domain name. I wanted a name that was related to crystallography and that was easy to type and remember. I finally settled on P212121. I chose this name because it’s the most common space group in macromolecular crystallography.
I bought the domain through 1and1.com for 7 dollars and I was the proud owner of P212121.com for a year. Once you buy a domain name, you can renew your ownership whenever you want. So, you don’t have to worry about someone else buying the name when your year is up. Once I purchased the domain I had set up hosting with 1and1.com so my website could be displayed on the internet. That cost is about $6 a month. So, if you can come up with a name that’s available and make at least $80 a year, you can do this.
The website runs using Wordpress which is convenient since it virtually eliminates the need to learn code. Wordpress is a downloadable program that offers blog templates (here are some free examples). The best part is the coding is already done and many of the layouts are free. You just pick one out. It’s all pretty simple once you get to this point. The layout is really user-friendly.
If you have a message you think is worth spreading by blogging and would like some help, feel free to drop me an email (sean@p212121.com).
As promised, I will be posting the main points from my presentation at the American Crystallography Association meeting this year.
Can we improve the way we currently communicate online?
Let’s take a look at how we are currently communicating with each other online. If we have a question about Pymol, we have to sign up for the Pymol bulletin board. If we have a question about Phenix, we have to sign up for the Phenix bulletin board. If we have a question about CCP4, you guessed it; we have to sign up for the CCP4 bulletin board.
The system is currently set up with the program developers in mind. The developers have the community coming to them. Why? Because it is more convenient for them. If you have a question, you seek them out.
Unfortunately, that means you’re going to have to join multiple bulletin boards and get bombarded with spam. It’s crazy what you’ll find in your inbox! Job postings, equipment for sale, auto-response emails letting you know that someone is out of town. Just this month there was even a phishing scam on the CCP4 bulletin board! I think you’ll agree the system needs to be improved.
In an effort to change the way we currently communicate online, I turned to blogging. For those of you who are unfamiliar with blogs, they are a great alternative to bulletin boards. They eliminate spam because they’re not email based. The discussions can be organized by categories and tags so you won’t have to scroll through tons of threads. A blog can also serve as a mutual site for users and developers to come together and interact.
What do you like about the email based bullentin boards? Do you feel there is a place for forums and blogs?
I get a lot of junk mail. As a result, I end up spending a part of each day reading these emails only to discover they’re spam and need to be deleted. I find that a lot of this spam is related to crystallography. Most of these emails tend to use my first and middle name in an attempt to appear more personal. Many of my good friends don’t even know my middle name so, naturally, I wondered how these companies were able to attain not only that information, but my email address as well.
If you just take a look around, as I did, you’ll be able to connect the dots (ACA email list rates (pdf))
The ACA is selling your personal information to various companies and organizations.
True, they’re not breaking any rules in choosing to do this, but every time I am sent an email from one of these companies, I lose a little respect for them. Mainly, because it is clear that they are not respecting my time.
Surely, a company needs to advertise but sending out spam to everyone is not the way to do it. If you don’t believe me then maybe Seth will be able to convince you.
What to do?
1) Make the email personal: “I really liked your blog post on XYZ and thought you might be interested in…” (make an effort)
How is one supposed to know if they have receive this message in error?
Sadly, the only suggestion I’m given to fix this is to waste more of my time. I have to write them a blog post email asking them to stop sending me mail I never asked for in the first place.
Note: I won’t be buying your used Rigaku machine but it’s nice to see you’ve kept your options open (here, here, here, here, here, here, here).
