One of the major aspects of academia is sharing your research throughpublic presentations. While public speaking can be stressful, it is a great opportunity to communicate your research and ideas to a wider audience and can be quite satisfying.  No matter what kind of subject matter you are covering, there are a few simple hacks that you can use to improve you public speaking abilities.

Project your voice: Even with common mic technology, it helps to speak in a clear, confident tone for presentations. In order to achieve this, it helps to slow your normal speaking pace and slightly lower your tone of voice. While different from your normal speaking voice, making these changes will help the audience follow what you are saying.

If there is no speaker system it can be somewhat difficult to gauge how loud you need to be for a room. An easy way to determine if your voice is large enough for a room without a microphone is to have a friend sit near the back beforehand and have a conversation at a level where you can hear each other. Once you’ve gotten used to that tone and level, you’re ready to go.

Monitor your posture: When presenting it helps to stand up straight with both of your feet flat on the floor. This kind of body language conveys confidence to the audience and can help bolster your own feelings of confidence before beginning your talk. It also serves to open up the rib cage so that you can breathe evenly and deeply, which brings me to the next point…

Breathe: Never underestimate the power of proper breathing in improving your speaking ability. When you breathe deeply, you don’t have to force your voice from your throat, which can lead to you sounding tense and higher-pitched. Another way to loosen up before speaking is to yawn, as this can help relax the throat as well.

Learn your verbal tics: The most common is “um” and we’ve all seen this word take over presentations and become a distracting tic. During your next talk ask a friend or colleague to note any tics that you may be abusing so that you can minimize them in the future. Your audience will thank you!

A note for the anxious: You are not alone! Public speaking isn’t a skill that appears over night, and repeated exposure is the best path to proficiency.  Practice whenever you get the chance so that over time you can become desensitized to the stress of presenting.

The communication of research and ideas through presentations is one of the cornerstones of academia, so the sooner you become comfortable with this skill the better it will serve you. Hopefully, after enough practice you can come to enjoy aspects of presenting and come to look forward to these opportunities.

Do you have any other tips for improving public speaking skills? Share them in the comments section below!

[Picture by Flickr user SparkCBC and used under a creative commons license]

A  small Drosophila melanogaster fly. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The first moment a virus infects a cell it has to deal with multiple cellular defenses. From surviving highly acidic conditions in endosomes  to evading the host enzymes that can digest its very genetic code, an invading virus must navigate and eventually subvert the functions of a host cell. This intricate molecular dance has played out time and again for millions of years and modern science is just beginning to understand and appreciate the intricacy of these steps.

A recent paper published in Nature Immunology suggests that there may be even more steps in the virus-host dance than we had imagined. Outside of science fiction, I would have dismissed this mechanism until I read the paper  “RNA-mediated interference and reverst transcription control the persistence of RNA viruses in the insect model Drosophila” by Goic and others (1).

Keep reading to find out more about this new exciting mechanism of viral defense.

In Goic’s recent paper in Nature Immunology, they demonstrated that endogenous retroviruses (I’ve written about these previously here) in the model organism Drosophila (a fruit fly) can produce the reverse transcriptase protein. While this alone is interesting, what happens next is bizarre. When these Drosophila cells are infected with an RNA virus such as Flockhouse virus (FHV), the reverse transcriptase protein can make a DNA copy of the viral RNA and then insert it into the host genome. These locations were mostly inside of long-terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons. This allows the host to produce viral RNA from its own DNA copy that can then be used to generate small interfering RNA (siRNA) that can be used by host RNAi (RNA interference) machinery to target and destroy viral nucleic acids.

But what does this mechanism actually mean for an infected host? In their fruit fly model, they were able to show that when you blocked the function of reverse transcriptase with azidothymidine triphosphate (AZT, an anti-HIV drug), host cells could not control FHV infection and the fly would die. (See figure 5C below). However, in those that could make DNA copies of the virus so that they could mount an RNAi response, it was observed that the flies survived as well as uninfected flies.

Figure 5C, Goic et al: Survival of wild-type files fed 93 mM AZT in sucrose daily (AZT(+)) or not (AZT(-)) and fed Tris-HCL (mock) or FHV viral stock (FHV) once, monitored daily for 16 d after FHV feeding (horizontal axis). Data are from one experiment representative of four experiments

Based on their data, they proposed the following model. Once the initial infection occurs, ongoing viral replication can be limited in two ways: through the death of the cell, or by an antiviral RNAi response from the host cell. During this latter process, viral RNA gets copied into cDNA by reverse transcriptase, shuttled to the nucleus, and integrated into the host genome (or possibly in a circular, extragenomic form; the research could not determine what form the DNA took in the cell). Whatever form it takes, this resulting viral DNA is transcribed to produce a dsRNA form, which is then utilized by the RNAi machinery in order to combat the viral infection.

Figure 6, Goic el al: “After viral infection, viral genomes (viral RNA) or dsRNA intermediates (viral dsRNA) are propagated (red). Those viral forms are reverse-transcribed by cellular reverse-transcriptase activity into DNA forms (green) that may integrate into the host genome or be processed into extrachromosomal circular DNA. The sequences of viral origin, now in DNA form, will produce transcripts (black) that form dsRNA that is recognized by Dicer-2 and is further processed by a small RNA–related pathway. When viral small RNA from those transcripts reaches the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), the ongoing infection is contained and the acute infection is controlled. In this way, both cell and virus progress into a metastable equilibrium that defines the state of persistent infection.”

By utilizing this mechanism, cells can reach a state of persistent infection rather than succumbing to unrestricted viral infection and cellular death. I never would have imagined that the host could endogenize a virus in order to acquire a level of immunity. Normally, this kind of thing is regarded as a very rare event, as we’ve mostly looked at germline integration of viral sequences which are heritable and impact the evolution of a species, which is in itself a very rare event. However, this paper poses the exciting suggestion that somatic cells (those that make up the bulk of our bodies) can actually use the endogenization of reverse-transcribed viral DNA in order to combat infection.

While their work took place in fruit flies, there is the remote possibility that this mechanism is at play in our very own cells as well; as a large part of our own genome is comprised of these fossilized retroelements. I’ve always wondered why we keep so much genetic baggage in terms of excess genetic code that we don’t seem to use. This study suggests that what was once considered to be junk DNA may actually have an important function, at least in fruit flies.

Whether or not this phenomena happens in mammalian cells is unknown, and it is quite possible that this mechanism is unique to insects. While there is relatively little knowledge about this mechanism, it is exciting to think of the experiments that this unique discovery will lead to in the future.

References:

1. Goic, B. et al. RNA-mediated interference and reverse transcription control the persistence of RNA viruses in the insect model Drosophila. Nature immunology 14, 396–403 (2013).

You may be asked to diagram you ideas, so be prepared. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This article originally appeared at Gradhacker.org on April 26th, 2013.

While my last Gradhacker post focused on the written aspect of comprehensive exams, for many graduate students there is another, equally dreaded component: the oral examination.

For even the most prepared students, this can be an intense and difficult experience. However, with enough preparation and the right mindset the oral examination can actually be an enjoyable experience where you get to talk about your ideas with members of your committee.

Having just completed this hurdle myself I’d like to go over some of the things that worked and those that I wish I had known before undertaking this process. This advice is the most relevant for those of you defending a written document that you’ve had time to prepare, but some of this will be applicable to more generalized oral examination formats.

Before the exam:        

Schedule the examination during you mental “peak” of the day: If you have the ability to set the day and time of your exam I highly recommend scheduling for the part of the day when you are most alert and focused. This meant my exam was at 9am since I become useless during the afternoon, and it worked out much better than trying to fight my natural rhythm. If you’re a morning person, schedule early; if you are at your best in the afternoon schedule your exam for that time.

Get enough sleep the night before: Do not stay up late to cram, what you’re about to do is too large to prepare for in one evening, so chill out. Hopefully you did you studying in daily blocks beforehand and are familiar enough with the material that you don’t need to turn the last day into a cramming nightmare. However, while outright cramming of your primary sources is not recommended, I do recommend the following:

Go over your notes briefly: The best thing I did while preparing for the oral examination was take hand-written notes to review later. In the end I had a study guide that covered my most important sources and summed up multiple concepts and techniques in my own words. This little notebook was extremely useful for a couple last-minute reviews of what I had put together the during the day and early morning hours leading up to the exam. I also highly recommend re-reading your written comprehensive exam at least one more time before the oral examination so that your proposal and all the details are fresh in your mind.

During the exam:

Speak slowly and remember to breathe: It’s not uncommon to speak rapidly when under stress. If you find that you are getting stressed during the examination and sound like you’ve had too much coffee take a moment for a deep breath or two to center yourself. If you can sneak this in while a committee member is speaking no one will even have to notice you collecting yourself and you will be able to respond in a much more calm, measured tone.  These examinations take a certain degree of stamina, so make the effort to remain relaxed so that you can maintain your energy through the whole event.

Don’t be afraid to ask for clarification: If a committee member asks you something that you don’t understand, there are two ways to deal with this. You can ask the committee member for further clarification, or you can attempt to rephrase the question to your committee member to make sure that you understand the major point. In either case, you should be able to get a better idea of what is being asked. However, there is always the chance that after clarification you still can’t answer the question. If that is the case…

Never forget the words “I don’t know”: In many cases, the oral examination is a test to failure; your committee will be actively looking for the limits of your knowledge. You will at some point hit this wall and won’t have an answer. If that is the case it is perfectly acceptable to say you don’t know. Don’t try to lead your committee, instead admit when you don’t know and use it as an opportunity to explain how you might test the idea or interpret it based off of what you do know. Either way, your committee should respect you candidness on the subject

After the exam:

Follow-up with any necessary paperwork: Don’t forget if your program has formalized documents that require signatures.

Take time off! I cannot emphasize this enough. For me it was a 3 day weekend where I watched too many Sopranos episodes and crocheted a new hat. Sometimes the best way to avoid burnout is to get out. Do whatever works for you, you’ve put in the hard work and have earned a break!

Do you have any tips and tricks on surviving the oral examination? If so, share them in the comments section below!

Leper colony in Khor Province, Afghanistan, run by the Scandanavian Charity Helping Hands (Photo credit: james_gordon_losangeles)

During the modern era of antibiotic treatment, we have gained unprecedented control over diseases that have plagued humans for centuries. Among the pathogens that the average American never encounters is Mycobacterium leprae, the causative agent of leprosy. This is also known as Hansen’s Disease, named after G.H. Armauer Hansen, who first isolated and described the bacterium in 1873. Thankfully though, while many of us have heard of this now-exotic disease, very few Americans will ever see someone with this condition.

So what is so interesting about leprosy and the bacterium that is responsible for this disease? Read on to find out.

Mycobaterium leprae (Photocredit Wikipedia)

Mycobacterium leprae is actually distantly related to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of the disease tuberculosis. However, leprosy is a very different condition from tuberculosis, largelydue t o differences in the genomes of these two bacteria. The genome of M. leprae is roughly 30% smaller than M. tuberculosis, and much of the remaining genetic code is non-functional pseudogenes (over 1000 genes in total). These pseudogenes are fully functional  in M. tuberculosis, indicating that over eons of evolution from a common ancestor  M. leprae lost these gene functions.

From the standpoint of trying to work with Leprosy, it is a strange and frustrating organism. Among one of the difficulties in working with M. leprae is simply growing enough to study. It cannot be cultured in broth like more common bacteria such as E. coli. So, if you’re going to grow M. leprae in the lab for studies, it has to be grown the footpads of mice. To make things more difficult, M. leprae has a doubling time of 14 days, meaning that even basic experiments take large amounts of time to complete. With the invention of molecular diagnostics such as PCR is has become fairly simple to diagnose patients rapidly, but much about M. leprae pathogenesis still remains unknown.

There is only one known natural reservoir for M. leprae: the nine banded armadillo. This oddly cute creature lives in the American southwest and is responsible for zoonotic transmission of the bacteria to humans. Because of this, there are still cases of leprosy in the American south where nine banded armadillos and humans intersect. Fortunately, roughly 95% of humans are naturally immune to M. leprae, which means you probably don’t need to run in fear if you ever see a nine banded armadillo. For the same reason, contact with infected persons is not a dangerous as one would imagine, and the reason why some people were historically able to treat lepers without contracting the disease themselves.

English: A Nine-banded Armadillo in the Green Swamp, central Florida. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In humans, leprosy is primarily a skin-based condition that can involve the nerves and eyes. While the primary mode of transmission hasn’t been confirmed, some research indicates the M. leprae can spread by infecting the lungs like tuberculosis, or through touch by contact of the microbe with broken skin. After the initial infection event it can take anywhere from months to decades to develop overt symptoms of the disease. This is the phase of leprosy that has been reported for centuries, with notable appearances in historical literature, such as the parable of Jesus curing the leper in the New Testament.

There is a reason that this disease was recorded in our history, and that is directly due to it’s pathology. To have untreated, advanced leprosy is to feel your skin slowly lose sensation and pigment. The most common forms of the disease (and there are 5 accepted forms) manifest as thickened skin lesions, coarsening of the facial features as the skin thickens, asymmetric enlargement of peripheral nerves and their eventual damage and loss. This last element is part of why it was so common for advanced untreated cases to lose fingers, toes, and even entire limbs to the disease. All of these features combined make for a terrifying appearance for those unprepared to deal with infected individuals, leading to their historical isolation from the community and lowered social status.

Thankfully, leprosy is a now treatable disease that responds to common antibiotics, which means we no longer have reason to isolate those infected with the disease. For centuries, it could be argued that one of the most damaging aspects of leprosy was the attendant social isolation that occurred with visible disease. This social stigma gave rise to leper colonies, also known as (my new favorite word of the day) leprosariums.  Among these was the Kalaupapa leper colony in Hawaii, pictured below.

The last leprosarium in the US was located in Carville, Lousiana; and closed in 1999. Leper colonies still exist in other parts of the world where infected individuals can come for treatment, such as the image of a woman at a leper colony in Afghanistan shown at the top of this article. Endemic pockets of leprosy can still be found in places such as Angola, Brazil, India, Madagascar, and elsewhere and treatment has managed to eliminate the disease in many other regions.  Due to the efficacy of modern antibiotics against M. leprae, those treated at these colonies have a hope for cure as long as the infection is treated as soon as possible after symptoms emerge.

It is quite possible that with continued surveillance, care, and treatment the levels of endemic leprosy could be eliminated as a public health concern (barring zoonotic infections from armadillos) and relegate leprosy to the realm of Smallpox: an ancient foe eliminated by careful planning, social engagement, and modern scientific advances.

Reference: Legendre, D. P., Muzny, C. A. & Swiatlo, E. Hansen’s disease (Leprosy): current and future pharmacotherapy and treatment of disease-related immunologic reactions. Pharmacotherapy 32, 27–37 (2012).

We’ve all felt like this at some point leading up to comprehensive exams. Photo from Flickr user Jixar, used under CC license.

This article appeared in its original form at Gradhacker.org on March 22, 2013.

The dreaded written comprehensive exam. Many graduate students will have to pass some form of comprehensive exam at some point in their program. This can often include putting together a multi-page grant-style project proposal. Putting one of these together for the first time can be a daunting process if you are unprepared. But have no fear, there are ways to make crafting a solid document far less painful and even somewhat enjoyable.

Now at this point I have to mention that this advice will be most relevant for students preparing an exam on their own projects in the style of an NIH grant. However, this basic approach can apply to putting together any large proposal for your project.

Write down your outline: This will be the skeleton of your whole document. What are the absolute key points that you want to address? In the case of a grant style document, pick out your three aims first so that they address your three highest priorities. Once you get your main points set, start fleshing out your sub-aims in order of the most important questions in each aim. It’s a good idea to get the outline set before you begin writing since it becomes more difficult to rearrange material effectively once it is written long-form.

Find the gaps in your subject knowledge: Now that you’ve got your outline it’s time to find the holes in your knowledge of the topic. Do as much as much of a literature review as you have time for. Start early if you can because it has been observed that prolonged contact with material leads to better learning than cramming at the last minute and will help you in dealing with the finer points of your material later on.

There is a limit to how much of a review is helpful for you, though. At a certain point too many citations will bog you down and will no longer add to your proposal; so make sure to use citations judiciously.

Write a full first draft as fast as you can: It doesn’t have to be pretty at first, you just need something to edit. The easiest way I’ve found to write these is to sit down with a copy of your outline and start writing down your ideas as they sound in your head, no matter how far that is from formal language*.  This can help find remaining gaps in the proposal which become visible as you get full ideas on paper.

(*I approached my own exam this way and the first draft of my proposal was HORRIBLE, but it did give me something to edit and helped me find the areas that I needed to fill in with further literature review. Now, at least 10 drafts later, I have something that I will be proud to turn in today. It was much easier having a rough document early on in the process to work with than trying to put it all together at the very end. )

Leave it alone:  Now that you’ve spent this much time thinking about, reading about, and writing out this draft you’re probably somewhat sick of it, to say the least (I know I was). This is the perfect time to put it away for a day or two. Go do something else that you enjoy and will take your mind off of the work. This serves two purposes: it helps you maintain your sanity by taking some time off to recharge, and helps you come back to edit the draft with a fresh perspective.

Keep editing and writing separate: Now that you have a first draft it may be tempting to edit and write in significant changes at the same time. Be careful with this, as you may get trapped in a loop where you’re spending too much time editing new material as you write instead of getting the new ideas fully on paper. Reserve your first read through to editing only and observe any remaining gaps that you have in the proposal.  After the first full read through and any additional literature review it’s time to write in new edits.

While straightforward and fairly simple, it can be helpful to have guidelines in mind while writing something as large as a comprehensive exam proposal. This can help take some of the dread out of the process so that you can enjoy the opportunity to put your own ideas together. As graduate students, a good deal of our work involves writing and communicating our ideas clearly

If you have the time, I also highly recommend reading “The Science of Scientific Writing” by George D. Gopen and Judith A. Swan. This is an extremely helpful article that focuses on how readers will read your document and tips on how to make scientific writing more understandable for a wide variety of audiences.

Do you have any advice for the written comprehensive exam? Please share it in the comments section below.

English: at (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sometimes I’m lucky enough to stumble across small treasures and this collection of the short works of Richard Feynman is a gem.

For those of you not familiar with Richard Feynman, he was a physicist who shared the  1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on quantum electrodynamics. While he passed away in 1988, his scientific legacy as well as his impact on the world of ideas remains.

This book contains reflections on his wide ranging and impressive career that included working on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb (BEFORE he got his PhD).  For anyone with a curiosity about the Manhattan project and what life was like there as a scientist, his unique insights into the inner workings of the project are fascinating. His account of being the only person to view the Trinity test without blackout glasses (he looked through a car windshield) and what came to his mind while witnessing this new power that he had helped to unleash is a moment that we should all reflect upon.

This entire work is worth reading, but specific chapters are of note.  Any budding scientist should take the time to read his 1974 address to the graduating class of Caltech where he describes what he terms “cargo cult science” and the dangers of pseudoscience. His minority report to the space shuttle Challenger inquiry for NASA shows how willing he was to challenge institutions and hold them accountable to true scientific standards. Finally, his reflections on the role of science in society as how science and religion relate demonstrate a more philosophical viewpoint than one might expect from a physicist.

I highly recommend this book and think that any person who enjoys science can enjoy this collection of short works.

[Image via Flickr user ishane and used under a creative commons license]

Anyone who had pursued a graduate level education knows that there is a great deal of work involved. At times, this workload can become overwhelming for any student once it follows you home and won’t leave.

However, it is times like this that we have to think back to the iconic line from The Shining: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Imagine him locked in that hotel with a thesis document or comprehensive exam to finish and suddenly Jack sounds like a burnt-out grad student.

Don’t let this happen to you!

It’s important to remember that it is necessary to balance all the hard work with activities that help you regain your energy and enthusiasm and this requires keeping work in its place. This is especially true since graduate work creep can into our personal time and space through smartphones and constant e-mail contact. There is no denying that there is a significant workload associated with graduate work and that sometimes you can’t avoid taking it off campus with you. When this happens there are two main options:

• Blend your work with your play time purposefully
• Keep the two separated to maximize productivity and minimize distraction.

Blending work and play: You can take unpleasant tasks and pair them with another activity that you like so the total process is at least somewhat enjoyable.

When I have a lot of reading to do I know there’s one way to make sure I enjoy it: run a bubble bath and open a beer. Is it a bit weird to read journal articles in the tub? Well, yes; but the great thing about it is that I usually finish all the reading I wanted to get done while getting to soak and relax. They are not mutually exclusive activities. It’s a win-win situation even if it is unorthodox and that is what really matters.

What kind of pairings would you enjoy? It could be as simple as getting a really good espresso to drink while running data analysis on your computer or getting a nice, comfortable desk chair to work from. Find how to make the process as enjoyable as possible for yourself if the work is unavoidable.Nobody ever said that it has to be an unpleasant process to get results.

Keeping work in its place: At the other end of the spectrum in dealing with graduate work at home is keeping it in discreet pockets of time and space where it gets 100% of your focus. Some things you just have to give full attention to and there is no way around that fact. This may sound simple, but in practice I’ve found that it is almost anything but.

I believe working from home can be a very good and productive practice as long as you don’t fall into common time-sinks such as having multiple web tabs open while working on the computer on an unrelated work project and hopping between them all while only reading half the page (I can’t be the only person who does this). When this happens you are spinning your wheels and not really helping yourself, just postponing the work with mindless activity.

What needs to happen in this situation is the opposite of multitasking. Think of it as monotasking or working on an airplane (where I am currently writing this article): You can bring all the papers you need to read and use your computer, but web browsing is out. It’s amazing how much you can get done without distractions and there’s no reason that you can’t replicate that kind of focus at home. So find what works for you (quiet room, turn off the router, use a timer, etc) so that you can focus and finish your work in a timely manner.

This is also important because it allows you to set specific time and/or task goals and then walk away to go play, relax, or otherwise recharge. That freedom to walk away from work knowing that it’s done or that you’ve at least met your goals goes a long way in making graduate school a manageable process.

How else have you learned to focus on work while at home or to make the process more enjoyable? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Written in 1994, this is an impressively well researched work on the current microbiological topics of the time. While this book is almost 20 years old, I was very impressed by how many of our current problems in health care were covered in these 620 pages and how well the content has held up to the passage of time.

What is even more impressive is how the author narrates the stories, giving a more human side to the factual recounting of disease outbreaks that most of us in the microbiology community are familiar with.

This book is arranged so that each chapter covers a specific disease or theme. Notable chapters on exotic pathogens include those on Bolivian Hemorrhagic fever, the Ebola virus, Lassa fever, the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in 1976, and the Hantavirus outbreak in the 4 corners region of the United States. These are all fascinating chapters as many of the people who were present for these events were interviewed and there is a real sense of the fear and confusion that accompanies the outbreak of unknown diseases.

These chapters also show “disease cowboys” in action during these outbreaks, scrambling to find out the causative agent or vector for these diseases. As someone who has just learned how to work in a Biosafety level 3 lab I can only imagine the difficulty involved in doing any kind or research in the field, let alone in with diseases that are known to be highly lethal.

The author does an excellent job of showing how environmental, social, and political factors drive the emergence of disease in human population. No other chapter covers this intersection quite as well as well as her work on the early years of the HIV epidemic. With 30 years separating me from this period in time it is easy to not think about how we got to where we are today with HIV; during my life it has always been here. It was eye-opening to see just how badly the epidemic was handled by politicians of the day or how distinguished scientists could fight so readily over discoveries relating to this new viral plague.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a more in-depth and extremely well written take on the challenges we face against the invisible armies of microbes that continually surround us.

Suit Jacket (Photo credit: brixton)

This article originally appeared at Gradhacker.org on January 28th, 2013.

Some of you reading this article are about to start your first round of graduate school interviews this spring. Many of these interviews will take place during what is known as recruitment weekend. However, this is a much different process than your standard job interview and you should be aware that there are some key differences between the two. While much of this advice comes from my own experience in the sciences and will vary according to your program, there are some basic themes to be aware of.

1: It will be longer than your standard job interview. Expect to spend two full days at a university recruitment event. A common format is to split your time between interviews with faculty, tours of campus, meeting with current graduate students, and tours of the area surrounding the institution. Be prepared for all of the different events that they list on your itinerary as some programs have group activities like sightseeing or snowshoeing. It’s more of a marathon than a sprint, so pace yourself and be sure to rest during your available downtime.

2: Know the program. You should know why you want to be in this particular program compared to those at other universities. However, the depth of this preparation will probably be foreign to many undergraduates. You should take the time to go over the school webpage thoroughly so that you know all of the basics such as: is there a stipend, how much is tuition, are graduate students required to teach, what kind of research is done in the program, and if students go on to productive careers. This is also good information to know because it will prevent you from asking recruiters easily answered questions from the website that would show them you didn’t prepare and may not be a serious candidate.

3: Know the people. Take the time to research the faculty members that you will be interviewing with. You don’t need to know their life history by any means, but when you get your interview itinerary take the time to note who you will be meeting with and then go find some of their most recent papers. This will give you an idea of what kind of research is currently being done and give you a talking point for the interview as well.

4: Dress the part. At this point it is assumed that we are professional young adults capable of dressing in a manner appropriate for interviews at an academic institution. Yet many recruits struggle with finding appropriate interview attire after the much more casual undergraduate environment. For most academic programs a nice suit (not a tux!) will serve you well. Try to keep the cut modern (avoid the 20 year old suit in the closet) and in neutral colors such as black, grey, or blue. For ladies wearing a suit skirt, be sure that the length is long enough to sit down in across from your interviewer comfortably. See my post “Dressing for Battle: Academic armaments” for a rundown of basic upgrades you can make to your work wardrobe that apply to the interview process as well.

5: Know why you want to pursue a graduate degree. This may seem obvious, but know why you are going to graduate school and be able to articulate that reason clearly. The recruiters will want to know why you are there and will be looking to see what motivates you for such an undertaking. Be prepared to answer this question many times in an honest and genuine manner that will convey your enthusiasm for pursuing a graduate career without coming across as cliché. Try to avoid the “since I was a child I always wanted…” approach and focus on concrete details from your more recent past and educational experience.

6: It’s your chance to interview the program. It’s not just about trying to answer all the questions, eventually the torch will be passed to you. If your turn comes to speak and you don’t ask pertinent questions it will appear to the interviewer that you are not engaged or uninterested in the program. Avoid this potential awkward moment at all costs. One tip is to remember that the decision to go to graduate school is yours alone and therefore you should find a program that is the best possible for you. What matters to you? What do you need from a program to successfully finish a Masters or PhD? Think about these topics and questions about the program will naturally follow. Good questions for an interviewer will show that you have done your background research and are trying to imagine yourself in that department. If there is a stipend, is it a livable one for the region? What is the cost of living in the area? How long do students take to graduate? What kind of projects have your students done? Do students balance research, teaching, and coursework well in the program? What have your students gone on to do professionally? Think about the things that matter to you beforehand and try to ask the same question to multiple people to really get a feel for the department.

7: Talk to the current students and ask questions. Make the effort to talk to other students and be personable so that you demonstrate that you would fit well with the department environment. I distinctly remember a recruit who showed very little interest in the current students or asking questions about the program to the point of appearing condescending. As a result, this person left without making any sort of positive lasting impression and lost out on potentially favorable feedback from the students. Don’t be this person! Take the time to talk to different students in the department to get an idea of how the students experience the graduate program at that school. Also, current students are a huge wealth of information about the program and what it actually means to be a student at that particular institution. They have the department scuttlebutt that isn’t on the webpage and oftentimes this can be highly valuable knowledge. Talk to students in labs that you are interested in to see what the day to day environment is like, what common workloads are, and what kind of projects the students work on.

8. Sell yourself effectively. Remember, you’ve made it this far and wouldn’t have made it to interviews unless the admission committee is already interested in you on paper. It’s now your job to sell yourself in person. What experiences have you had that would make you a good candidate? What makes you special compared to the other applicants? Do you have unique experiences or skills that set you apart? Know what good qualities set you apart and try to let those shine during interviews.

9: It will be like 1984. Not the year, the book. You will be under observation at all times during recruitment unless you are actually alone. At every other moment the faculty, staff, and graduate students are all observing you and your behavior so be sure to act in a polite and respectful manner. Some programs will have a graduate student on the admissions committee to relay student impressions of the recruits to the faculty, so quality interactions with the students matter. Administrative staff can also give feedback to admissions committees, so take care to be polite to all members of the department.

10: The afterparty is still the interview. See #9. You do not want do want to be disqualified or given less consideration due to unprofessional behavior, so save the post-interview debauchery for home. I’m not saying don’t drink, just know your safe limit and stay within professional bounds as current students will be there and they are still forming opinions about you that can make their way back to the admissions committee.

These tips should help in preparing for and navigating your first interview weekend. This can be a trying process, but with the proper preparation and a good attitude you have a great shot.

Remember, you’ve already made it this far! Best of luck!

Are there any other tips readers have for recruitment weekend? If so, please share in the comments.

Hepatitis virions (Photo credit: Microbe World)

My last post was written to introduce the concept of quasispecies in an RNA virus population.

This article will further expand on the topic and show how the quasispecies concept was used with powerful genetic sequencing technology to figure out a specific question: How many hepatitis C virus particles does it take to start an infection in humans?

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a member of the Flaviviridae family of RNA viruses. Genetically, HCV is one of the most diverse viral species on the planet, having even more variability than the well-known viral chameleon HIV.

Before we get into the virology of the article today I want to take a moment to describe the ethical considerations that guided the human samples. All of the blood samples that they used came from humans who had been recently infected with HCV. Nobody was purposefully infected for these studies.

So how did researchers get this blood without infecting people? They used donations from a blood bank where donors were given anonymous identification numbers and allowed to donate frequently at the same location. Since the early 1990s all blood products in the US have been screened for HCV to make sure that people getting donated blood don’t contract hepatitis A, B, or C. During the course of their donations some individuals went from being HCV negative to HCV positive, indicating that they had become infected between donations.

These consecutive samples from very early in infection provide a unique glimpse into what HCV looks like when it is first establishing an infection. Normally scientists don’t get to see this part of the viral life cycle, let alone sequence it because many people do not learn that they are infected with HCV until they become sick weeks to years later. With HCV many people do not know that they are infected and the serious symptoms of the disease often take decades to materialize.

By using a new sequencing techniques, these researchers were able to look at the quasispecies composition in people at different times by sequencing the same short sequence from single genome copies. What researchers  found were distinct genetic profiles that could be used to determine the number of viral particles that started in infection. See the figure below.

“ML trees and highlighter plots of 5′ quarter 2 genome sequences from four acutely infected subjects. Sequences are color coded to reflect sampling time points indicated in Figure 1. Subjects 10021 (A) and 10025 (B) revealed productive clinical infection by a single virus whereas subjects 10012 (C) and 10062 (D) showed infection by three viruses (v1-3).”

Each line represents a sequenced genome, and each colored symbol represents a  single mutation. When many single genomes were sequenced (this was done one-at-a-time to be able see the individual point mutations) distinct groupings of mutations indicated that those genomes were descended from a single viral genome and therefore particle. In this figure you can see how some of these different mutations seem to group together, indicating that they all came from the same founder. In A and B the observed mutations (or relative lack of them) indicate that all of these came from a single founder virus. Figures C and D show distinct genomes that indicate that an infection was started with three virions.

By looking at different patient profiles they were able to show that as even one viral particle was enough to start an infection. At the other end, as many as 37 genetically distinct particles start an infection, while the average was 4.

This is really impressive as it shows that even just one virion of HCV is needed to start an infection, although the average of this study was 4 particles to start an infection.  These particles are only 55-65 nanometers (that’s 55 billionths of a meter). When you stop to think that a single particle this small can lead to serious diseases like cirrhosis of the liver it’s rather incredible.

If you want to read the source article and see the other figures  this article is available for free on PubMed.

1.           Li, H. et al. Elucidation of hepatitis C virus transmission and early diversification by single genome sequencing. PLoS pathogens 8, e1002880 (2012).