Here I am, back. I apologize to my readers (again, if there exist any). In my second post, I said, “We now begin in earnest…” and promptly disappeared. Hope to catch up again. This summer has been interesting. For starters, I won the Shankar Subramaniam Award at the Systems Biology Consortium meeting held at Penn State. And boy did that come with money! A postdoc could wish for nothing more. And some research progress too! And everything mixed in with a job search.

Anyways, back to the business of the BLOG. I have been thinking for some time about inviting people from different countries to write about how they received science education, and what they think are the flaws and merits of their ‘system’. Ideally, I would like to present two opposite views about a system, but let me see what response I get first. I definitely know my fellow Indians will have a lot of say!

I have also been thinking for some time about tackling the elephant in the room- religion, the rise of creationism and attributing biological events to a divine power. Whatever religion you are, you know you have a couple of ‘those kind of people’ from your faith around. But of course, this will not be focus of this BLOG. There are plenty others that represent both sides of the argument (not that I believe there are two sides), and readers are free to make up their minds.

And finally, if you have suggestions or comments, do pass them on. I noticed that a lot of people have added me to their network; hopefully they might have something interesting to share!

Cheerio!

I have to apologize to readers of my blog (well, I hope at least someone reads it) for this long and unexplained absence, and for not doing things that I promised I would (such as asking for permission from the New Yorker to display their article on this blog). I have been busy in giving job interviews. Its been overwhelming, to say the least. At some point in time, I plan to write up all my experiences, including tips on what exactly you are supposed to do when you apply for a position.

Finding a faculty position is hands down probably the most difficult task you can ever do in your life (at least here in the US). When you apply, I don’t think you can escape the feeling that people are passing judgment on your work. All the sleepless nights, all the time spent trying to publish your results, and the search committee can pretty much dismiss it all in one stroke!

Anyways, more on this later. Haven’t lost sight of the goals of this blog. Will be posting soon!

-S

I hope the first post was a good introduction to the kind of material we will cover in this BLOG.

We now begin in earnest…

AIDS and Africa.

By now, I believe that most people have some idea that an AIDS epidemic is raging in Africa. Aid agencies and volunteers strangely face opposition from the government, which has persistently declared that there is no connection between the disease and the virus (H.I.V.), resulting in the deliberate withholding or slow delivery of anti-retroviral drugs that can potentially save the lives of thousands.

This is indeed a strange debate, with many different facets. Fear of ‘western’ medicine, and the belief that westerners are trying to harm the population is one of them. Another is loud-voiced opposition to the connection between H.I.V. and AIDS from the so-called ‘denialist’ scientists, who maintain that there is no relationship between H.I.V. and AIDS. Yet another is the belief in a vast conspiracy hatched by the pharmaceutical companies, which are incidentally also western.

What ever the arguments, it is always the poor and the uneducated people on the street who lose, and are left to suffer.

I recently came across a fantastic article on the topic in the New Yorker magazine, written by Michael Specter. I am posting a link to the abstract.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/12/070312fa_fact_specter

I will try and get permission to post the entire article here or on a separate website.

Comments welcome.

Hi There!

Welcome to my blog, ‘The making of a Scientist’.

My name is Shailesh Date, and I am currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, working with Chris Stoeckert. I am a computational biologist and a bioinformaticist (and isn’t everybody a ‘systems biologist’ these days?), using mathematical and statistical tools to predict protein-protein interactions and generate genome-scale interactome maps. I use parasites as my model systems, and I am currently focusing on apicomplexans (an ancient group of parasitic organisms, with Plasmodium falciparum being the most famous member).

Now, what will I be blogging about, you ask?

Do you call yourself a scientist? Well, I do, and I want to know what makes me one. Sure, we all do science, we all do our experiments, but what is our role in society? We perceive that our work serves the ‘greater good’, but does the society think so? We are doing great in terms of our science, but overall, I think we are definitely falling short on contributions to the society. Many people I have talked to appear to be influenced more by what the media has to say about science, than what scientists have to say about their science. Guess what! Scientists are more preoccupied in publishing their next paper, than explaining the benefits of their work to lay people (and I don’t think explaining the ‘big picture’ benefits to NSF or NIH in your grant is the same).

These are the issues that I want to bring forth on this blog. We will talk about science policy, attitudes towards science in the society and the government, and the overall perception of what science really means to people.

All comments are welcome!!

Footnote:
My definitions-
Bioinformaticist: Bioinformatics scientist
Bioinformatician: Bioinformatics technician