Immunology forum: topic
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Immunology research in the UK and US
Tai-Chung Huang
Tuesday, 24 June 2008 04:34 UTC
Dear all:
I’m considering applying for the PhD program next year. There must be some cultural differences of immunology research between these two countries. And any discrepancy of the way they approach a new topic?
Or it’s just the cosmopolitan universalities between these two countries.
Tai-Chung Huang, MD to PhD
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Replies
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Hello Tai-Chung,
Welcome to NN! I passed your question on to people at Nature Immunology. Their response was that the differences lie mainly in the funding structure of the research and in the amount of time it takes to earn a PhD in the UK as opposed to the US (in that it tends to take longer in the US). There are no immunology-specific differences between the two countries. While not specific to immunology, this article on NN may give you some idea of the differences in research and science culture between the two countries.
Hope that helps! -
I’ve learned a lot from that article. Thank you for the help. I decide to go to America for my PhD program. Personally thinking, funding and venture are both important for research. In these way, maybe the US prevails.
Anyway, thank you again.
Tai-Chung, MD to PhD
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Hi Tai-Chung
I did my PhD in the UK in an immunology related subject but I also studied in the US as part of my undergrad. I’m happy to answer any specific questions you might have on the differences between the two? Though it seems you’ve already made up your mind?
I will say this though – the UK has a great immunology community. You should check out the British Society of Immunology" website.
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Dear Jen and everybody:
I’ve noticed there’re strong teams in UK universities. For a foreign student, however, US graduate school “seemed” to be more accessible because that sometimes decent GRE score talks.
On the contrary, the application for admission to UK universities “seems” to require nepotism. No offence! I admitted this is somewhat overexaggerated but I just heard of this experience from two of my friends. One got a GRE score above 1500 (the full score is 1600). She was accepted by Johns Hopkins, Duke and Cornell but turned down by every UK schools she applies for.
To put it this way, for admission to UK’s school, what matters most? The past publications? recommendation letters? or the hard-selling of introducing oneself via email?
Thank you for the previous replies.
Tai-Chung, MD to PhD
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Well.. The fundamentals of asking a basic immunological question remain the same in two countries, but because of local/global competitions, approaches to work and solve those problems might be different (active or passive). And this may effect the work culture..
Well.. The fundamentals of asking a basic immunological question remain the same in two countries, but because of local/global competitions, approaches to work and solve those problems might be different (active or passive). And this may effect the work culture..I do immunology at Oxford and never fell short in finding new ideas and collaborations in UK…
Well.. The fundamentals of asking a basic immunological question remain the same in two countries, but because of local/global competitions, approaches to work and solve those problems might be different (active or passive). And this may effect the work culture..I do immunology at Oxford and never fell short in finding new ideas and collaborations in UK…If I was in your place.. Then I’ll go for the Supervisor/lab/Publications/topic in a particular field of immunology.. Instead of giving preference to the country..
Well.. The fundamentals of asking a basic immunological question remain the same in two countries, but because of local/global competitions, approaches to work and solve those problems might be different (active or passive). And this may effect the work culture..I do immunology at Oxford and never fell short in finding new ideas and collaborations in UK…If I was in your place.. Then I’ll go for the Supervisor/lab/Publications/topic in a particular field of immunology.. Instead of giving preference to the country..Cheers,
Amit -
One more thing on GRE..
I believe that..
High score in GRE does not always refelects the high intellectual ability and critical thinking of a student.
More international students goes to US because of more seats available in large number of universities.. but selection process is more theoritical (GRE/TOEFL based) instead of evaluation of student’s full personality..
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Dear Amit:
I totally agree with you.
As for the approach Supervisor/subject/publication you mentioned, I am conjuring up some maybe pristine concept of “autoimmune stem cell” that parallels with the fashion of “cancer stem cell”. My interest is to prove the existence of this.Which supervisor do you think I should contact about this subject in the UK?
I’m also doing my survey about this topic.Thank you for the information.
Tai-Chung Huang, MD to PhD
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Dear Tai-Chung,
Cancer Stem Cells is really hot topic and European countries are investing heavily in this area.
I don’t know much about this field but you might want to have a look in to ESTOOLS consortium. This is led by Centre for Stem Cell Biology at the University of Sheffield in the UK. It has 20 institutes from Europe and here is list of UK organization involved.
University of Sheffield UK
Stem Cell Sciences UK Ltd UK
The Medical Research Council UK
Axordia Ltd UK
University of Edinburgh UK
University of Cambridge UK
Imperial College London UKThese are top research organizations in UK and If you check their websites then you might find something interesting.
Cheers,
Amit
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