I’m posting this the morning after generating a graph, and it’s already out-of-date. During the worldwide COVID-19 outbreak, preprint servers such as bioRxiv and medRxiv have again shown that they are the most effective way of communicating science rapidly. A collection of all papers on COVID-19 deposited on these two servers is available here, and […]
Category: science
On Steely Dan and lab management
As a scientist and a music lover, I see parallels in the process of doing science and in making music. They’re both creative endeavours after all. The lab’s latest paper is like an album release. The authors of the paper are like the players in the band. See, the analogy works quite well. So what […]
Methods papers for MD997 – 2020 edition
I run a Masters module called MD997. Over six weeks, students have to write a grant proposal and then assess their peers’ proposals at a mock grant panel. Each student bases their proposal on a paper. They present that paper to the class and then they write their proposal using the paper as a springboard. […]
Tiny Universe: new paper on intracellular nanovesicles
We have a new paper out! You can access it here. The paper in a nutshell We have discovered a new class of trafficking vesicle inside cells. These vesicles are very small (30 nm across) and we’ve called them intracellular nanovesicles, or INVs for short. What is a trafficking vesicle? Humans are built from lots […]
Notes from a panel II: Value of successful BBSRC grants
This post follows on from the last post on BBSRC Responsive Mode funding. Another frequent question from applicants is: “How much can I ask for?” One answer is: the same amount as successful grants. This information is freely available and can be downloaded from the UKRI website. All awarded grants can be searched (even those […]
Notes from a panel: Layout of BBSRC Case for Support
This month I spent a lot of time evaluating proposals for BBSRC Committee D. At the same time a number of my colleagues were also preparing BBSRC applications for the next round. A question came up: Is it best to put Track Record before Case For Support or vice versa? If you have no idea […]
Not What You Want: our new paper on a side effect of GFP nanobodies
We have a new preprint out – it is a cautionary tale about using GFP nanobodies in cells. This short post gives a bit of background to the work. Please read the paper if you are interested in using GFP nanobodies in cells, you can find it here. Paper in a nutshell: Caution is needed […]
All That Noise: The vesicle packing problem
This week Erick Martins Ratamero and I put up a preprint on vesicle packing. This post is a bit of backstory but please take a look at the paper, it’s very short and simple. The paper started when I wanted to know how many receptors could fit in a clathrin-coated vesicle. Sounds like a simple […]
Small Talk: How big is your lab?
I really dislike being asked “how big is your lab?”. The question usually arises at scientific meetings when you are chatting to someone during a break. Small talk can lead to some banal questions being asked, and that’s fine, but when this question is asked seriously, the person asking really just wants to compare themselves […]
Super Automatic: computer-based tools for research
Since I have now written several posts on this. I thought I would summarise the computer-based tools that we are using in the lab to automate our work and organise ourselves. Electronic lab notebook – there are previous posts from me on picking an ELN platform and how to set up a WordPress ELN as well […]