Not sure of your options after graduation? Then you should check out What Can You Be With a PhD? this Friday and Saturday at NYU. There will be symposia covering a variety of career paths including academia, pharma, biotech, government jobs, publishing and more. See event website for more details.

Last night I had the opportunity to attend another Meet the Author event sponsored by Bioentrepreneur. As discussed in a previous post, Bioentrepreneur is a site sponsored by Nature Biotechnology, designed as a educational resource for scientists interested in commercializing their research. The speaker was Thomas Gunning, vice president and general counsel at EMD Serono.

Gunning offered some advice for building a successful startup. As outlined in his article, published in Nature Biotechnology last year, Gunning discussed five key elements to developing a successful business. First off, bioentrepreneurs should pay close attention to detail. You never know when you will have the opportunity to close a deal, and that chance may come and go all too quickly. By being organized and prepared to discuss your business venture at anytime, you can avoid missed opportunities. Second, make sure your product is unique. Otherwise, there won’t be a market for it. Even if you have improved an existing product, it is key that you are able to market your product as either the best-in-class or novel.

Gunning also discussed freedom to operate and exclusivity. Patent and legal issues like these are something that we, as scientists, must pay close attention to. After all, this is not what we are trained in, so it is particularly important you don’t limit your market and financial possibilities with patent issues. So how are we supposed to prevent issues like these? That is where Gunning’s next piece of advice comes in. Surround yourself with the best and brightest advisors you can find. That includes lawyers, investors, management teams and scientists. By building the strongest team possible, your company will be more likely to succeed. Finally, Gunning discussed the importance of due diligence in avoiding liability issues. We have all seen the huge legal fines for pharmaceutical cases in the papers. In order to avoid a potentially disastrous legal situation, it is critically important to uncover any contingent liabilities.

So take Gunning’s advice. With a good product, good people, good planning and a bit of hard work, your startup can succeed.

If you are interested in checking out past or attending future Meet the Author events, be sure to visit the Bioentrepreneur forum on the Nature Network for more information. And of course, you can check out many more articles like Gunning’s at the Bioentrepreneur website.

Richard Dawkins spoke a couple of days ago at the New York Academy of sciences, discussing his new book “The Greatest Show on Earth”. Going through it chapter by chapter, he discussed it as a proof of evolution, and indeed it sounds like it makes an argument from modern and older evidence. The house was crowded and there were some interesting questions in the Q and A, including one young lady who asked how she could persuade her religious family to read the book.

There’s a full color plate in “The Greatest Show on Earth” of Darwinius masillae described in the legend as a “Superlink” that goes on to use one of my favorite underused words “preposterous” with respect to some of the hype, so I am interested to further hear his take on this and read the tome. Other interesting points were that Dawkins defended his description of evolution as a fact from Nicholas Wade’s review which discusses the use of the word fact vs. theory. Dawkins seemed to suggest that a theory is something more for those in the realms of philosophy of science. The argument being conveyed, I think, is that the idea that the earth is round and that evolution occurs will likely never be disproved, thus fact.

It was a late night at the lab today. Sadly, I missed my opportunity to see Documentary Shorts at the Imagine Science Film Festival (ISFF). But you don’t have to miss it! There are still 2 days left of the ISFF (last day October 24th). So check out the schedule to catch the remaining events. Happy viewing!

As scientists, we are taught to communicate in a very specific language at very specific times, mainly during a lectures or conferences. Building communication skills outside of these defined communication periods proves to be difficult. Luckily, other outlets for scientific communication do exist, the Nature Network being one of them. But what really makes one a good communicator and what are they ways in which we, as scientists, can improve our communication skills (in science and outside of the lab alike)?

Last night I went to a talk sponsored by the Columbia University Biotechnology Association where the speaker, Nick Colucci, sought to answer these questions. Colucci is a scientist-turned-healthcare communications CEO at Publicis Healthcare here in New York. He offered some valuable advice on how was can effectively communicate with both scientists and others. He stressed the importance of body gestures such as eye contact and the appropriate stance one should have when communicating with more than one person at a time. He even suggested that one can practice their communication skills by joining the Toastmasters International. However, his most important piece of advice was to be self-aware. In essence, knowing both your strengths and weaknesses will help to make your more confident and give others a better idea of your skill set. This will help to make you more successful, both in an out of science.

In the end, I walked out of the talk with the knowledge that succeeding in science goes beyond laboratory skills… and, hopefully, a better idea of how to gain those skills.

You may have seen from my previous post that there was a SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN event in New York this past week. I had the opportunity to attend this event and it was really quite fun. The talk given by the editor-in-chief, Mariette DiChristina, gave an insiders look to the recent SCI AM special issue called Origins. Origins of what? Well, pretty much anything you can think of from paper clips to life on earth.

To be quite honest, I really didn’t know what to expect from this talk. I had never seen an editor-in-chief talk about science, let alone discuss scientific articles designed to be enjoyable to both a scientific audience and the general public. What I got from the talk was a combination of interesting facets of scientific history presented in a succinct, enjoyable format. Some fun facts include:

• The origins of scotch tape date back to 1930, with the development of cellophane. Scotch tape actually contains four individual layers. There is adhesive layer and a clear cellophane layer. However, there is also a layer of primer that helps the adhesive stick to the cellophane and an additional “release agent” which allows one to unravel the tape from the role. Scotch tape also is also triboluminescent and releases X-rays when unraveled quickly in a vacuum.

• Chocolate dates back to 3,100 years ago. However, the addition of milk to chocolate, effectively creating milk chocolate is accredited to an Irish physician and naturalist named Hans Slone in the 1680s.

• The origin of cooking our food dates back to 1.9 million years ago. Harvard anthropologist, Richard Wrangham, believes that cooking is an essential development in formation of characteristics we consider to be distinctly human. After all, evidence suggests that Homo erectus, hominids with larger brains and smaller pelvises than their predecessors, appeared around the same time as the advent of fire. Anthropologists believe that cooking allowed for less chewing time, leaving more time and energy for social relationships, thus, stimulating brain growth. Now that’s food for thought.

For more scintillating stories of origins, I encourage you to check out this free podcast interview with Mariette DiChristina and, of course, check out the Origins issue.

Come see the Acting Editor-in-Chief of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Mariette DiChristina, talk about the beginning of… everything! The event takes place at the 92YTribeca on Thursday, October 1st at 6:30 PM. Tickets are $12 and include a one year subscription to SCI AM. For more information check out the website and read the event description (as given on the site) below:

From paper money to paper clips to the pill, humans have long wondered about the mysteries of our origins. How did the universe begin? When did the human mind arise? How about the electronic “mind,” the computer? What about the beginning of life? Scientific American Acting Editor-in-Chief Mariette DiChristina discusses the surprising and fascinating stories behind these beginnings, shedding light on the origins of the world around us.

A pretty interesting range of topics discussed Thursday at the NN NY happy hour. Juan Carlos Lopez (Nature Medicine) and Richard Sever (editor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory press) covered their pasts, the present and the future of publishing, answering questions on a publishing career (and what got them into publishing), how to publish your paper and finally the fate of scientific publishing.

In the first case the main advice was to, as in any career, indicate practically that you’re interested through gaining experience, and blogging would be one avenue.

How to publish? One attendee suggested a workshop highlighting how to write papers and there are a couple around the city, but more would be helpful and there is clearly a hunger for demystifying the publication process. Lopez and Sever both agreed that when you come to submit a paper, you should be aware of the types of Articles a particular journal publishes. In other words target submissions appropriately.

Finally the future of publishing. It’s no news that print news has already had to deal with the reality of rapid dissemination of information through online sources. The panelists seemed to feel that “online” papers have yet to prove what they can bring to the table in terms of evolving scientific publishing and bringing their advantages to the fore.

And finally was superstar blogger GrrlScientist there? Parrots were not obviously present and I’m not sure what she really looks like (I confess I was too shy to ask random women) but the Beast was said to be sending an emissary….

Tuesday night was another lecture in the NYAS’s Science & the City: Provocative Thinkers Series. Full disclosure, I knew I would enjoy the talk even before it started. The speaker was Aubrey de Grey, who has been described as everything from purely genius to absolutely crazy.

Why? Well, de Grey’s research and beliefs would be why, which were aptly summed up by the lecture’s title, “The End of Aging”. His scientific work aims to cure humans of the ailments of aging, prolong healthy life, and therefore extend life expectancy indefinitely, or close to it. I know it sounds crazy, but listening to his rationale, methodology, and answer to every question the audience did and did not ask … it starts not to sound so crazy!

Basically, de Grey has defined aging as the unfortunate deterioration in health which occurs as a consequence of living. Fair enough. According to de Grey, there are seven types of accumulated damage and subsequent pathology that are caused by aging, such as mitochondrial mutations or extracellular junk. He believe, and here is the leap of faith (and science), that all of these seven types of damages can be fixed, restoring health and longevity – and all of this within the next 30-40 years.

What made me smirk was when someone asked him about the ecological consequences (e.g. over-population) that would result from a population that would not die. Aubrey de Grey shrugged it off, yes it would be problem, but we would find a solution as we have for the multitude of other life extending methods (think penicillin).

But don’t take it from me … the well versed, incredibly witty de Grey does himself much more justice. The podcast from the event will be on the NYAS website in a week, and a quick Google search will provide a plethora of other tid bits – such as his SENS Foundation, a Technology Review article (and subsequent debate), TED talk, etc.

Also, you can listen to the podcast of the Science & the City talk from two weeks ago by clinical neuropsychologist Elkhonon Goldberg.

All are invited to the happy hour at Rockefeller University tomorrow night (9/24/09) at 7:30. There will be food and drinks, as well as a discussion on the future of scientific publishing.

For more information and to RSVP to the event, see the forum post here.