SfN 2011

(Oops, never clicked publish on this post.

I am at the Society for Neuroscience Conference 2011! I opted to use the online version of the conference program because it had an itinerary planner that you could use with your mobile device. I knew there would be >30,000 people here. I still goggled at the length of the list of poster sessions, but when my friend picked up her physical, paper program, my jaw completely dropped to the floor (or it would've if it weren't hinged on to the rest of my skull). This is what it looks like:

7 books. 7 WHOLE BOOKS. Wow. It's a bit overwhelming.

The jet lag doesn't help either, so I'm going to go check out the 10-15 posters/areas on my list for this afternoon and head back to the hotel for a nap.

Electrophysiology

Last month, I had my first experience with patch clamping neurons. In the neuro program here, the two weeks before the official quarter begins are spent in boot camp. The graduate students in this interdisciplinary field tend to come from various backgrounds, from electrical engineering to psychology to molecular biology. Boot camp, then, is meant to get everybody on the same page about certain important neuroscience concepts and techniques.

Neurons communicate with each other through the use of electrical signals. If you recall, a cell membrane is hydrophobic in the middle, which means that water and charged particles cannot pass through. A neuron uses this property to maintain a voltage across its membrane - it pumps certain ions in and certain ones out in such a way that there are more negatively-charged ions inside than outside, meaning the inside of the cell is more negative than the outside.

The electrochemical gradient of the sodium ion (Na⁺) depends on both the concentration and the electrical potential difference between the inside of the cell, and is set up in such a way that if a path across the membrane opens up, these cations will immediately flow inward. When a neuron is signaling, sodium-selective channels open and create that path through the membrane. This causes the inside of the neuron to become more positive than the outside, flipping the sign across  the membrane; this is the beginning of an action potential. There are certain channels that only open up when the voltage change passes a certain threshold, but these allow neighboring regions of the neuron to pass sodium as well, such that this flip of voltage is passed down the length of the axon. Potassium (K⁺) channels open with a slight delay and do the opposite, so the membrane voltage is flipped back slightly past normal in a wave following the original depolarization.

In patch clamping, you start with a tiny microelectrode that consists of a very thin pipette containing a conducting solution, whose tip is on the order of 2-3 microns (1/50th of a millimeter). Using a control box called a micro-manipulator, you watch through a high-power microscope and move the electrode in increments of less than a micron until you can rest it on the surface of the cell you're trying to record from. Cell membranes are flexible, and if you've done this right, the membrane should stick to the outside of your pipet and form a seal across the open tip.

Now, for a whole-cell recording, you have to break into the cell. You want to break open the patch of membrane across the open tip without tearing the membrane away from the outside of the pipet, so that you have the only hole into the cell. This requires a most advanced form of technology, on par with expensive microscopes and carefully pulled microelectrodes: your mouth.

No, seriously. Electrophysiology is still a developing technique, and there is not yet that much standardization between labs. In order to break the membrane, you want to apply suction in a small pulse (or multiple pulses, depending on the lab's preferred technique). Doing this by mouth is actually pretty accurate once you get the hang of it, though sometimes you end up sucking large portions of the membrane into the pipette before you ever break it open. Luckily, the thinness of the tip means that even if you apply a lot of suction, only a small portion of that will be evident to the cell, and it does take a surprisingly large amount of suction to break in.

So now you're in, and thanks to slightly more modern technology, you can use your single electrode to clamp the voltage or the current at a set amount while simultaneously recording the current or voltage, respectively. And then you hope that this cell is not leaky, not dying, and will actually have an interesting response to stimulation. That's how science goes.

A Beginning of an End and a Beginning of a Beginning

Okay, time for me to be excited. I just got the keys to my apartment in Stanford's grad student housing today. It's actually pretty spacious, and furnished to boot. I a couple days, I'll start moving my stuff over and organizing everything, which will make me happy because my room at home is currently a total mess (it is over capacity - all available space is filled and even clean clothing must sit in piles).

The timing is perfect. All my traveling has been finished for a few weeks, and I've been heading towards being bored. Actually, I was afraid I wouldn't be bored by the time school started. This would be a disaster, because then I wouldn't want to start school and would have second thoughts about not taking a year off before grad and not be completely rested (because I wouldn't want to be burned out already!), etc. etc.

Turns out my summer was just more exciting than usual, and all I needed was 2 weeks of doing nothing to want to do something meaningful again. Phew. I feel ready to get back into things now. And actually having a schedule and work to do means I will probably return to updating this blog more often than once in 3 weeks. I hope.

Human Knowledge

I'm reposting this from Federico Pistono. I'd seen the first half before, illustrating what exactly a Ph.D means, but I really like the message at the end of this one. Over the next 6 years, I'll try to keep it in mind.

Acceptance

I had finally decided, made up my mind, crossed all the others off my list. Stanford and Hopkins were the schools were I felt most at home with the people and the program, but Stanford won out with more people I really wanted to work with in each of the various fields (within neuroscience) that I'm interested in. I also felt the biosciences program there was more integrative, and would give me exposure to more non-neuro topics.

And then once I had crossed out Hopkins and Rockefeller (too small for my undecided interests), UCSD popped up again because apparently Stanford could not run unopposed. But while I loved UCSD as well, I think it might be the opposite of Rockefeller - too big for my undecided interests. Stanford was the only one that I didn't have any objections to program-wise, and everything I loved about it overpowered my hesitation over staying in the same place for another 5-6 years.

"I'm going to accept Stanford's offer!" I exclaimed to myself, excited that the vacillation was over. I grabbed my admission letter, looked up the website, extremely happy to be done with the decision making - and then I read the instructions. You have to wait one day after creating an ID in order for the system to give you permissions, then you can go accept your offer. Damn it.

So now, faced with a day to wait before I can act on the decision I made, all of my choices are floating before my eyes again. Was it a mistake to decide against Harvard so easily? So many of my friends among the recruits are going there and it's not so bad, right? All of my reasons against the other schools seem to have dropped in my (relative) panic. But I have to put it out of my mind right now and get my paper written so that I can work on my poster for my thesis. And probably after a good night's sleep, my full confidence in my decision will be recovered. Regardless, for now I'll trust my judgment and refuse to second-guess myself, so I think I can let you know I've made a decision now - I'm going to Stanford!

Final Impressions

My arms feel like noodles right now. Today was the first time in 6 weeks that I was finally able to go to yongmudo! The one week when I was here on a Wednesday night, I was sick. And Mondays are usually spent in the lab, but that wasn't going to work out today, so instead I worked out today.

So basically, interviews are over. Of the places I went to, I got accepted to most (but not UCSF) and waitlisted at one (Hopkins). And now, I have to decide where I want to go. This is a really hard choice because all of these schools have top-flight neuroscience programs. My top 3 keep fluctuating, so I was waiting a couple days after this last visit to allow them to solidify, and I think they're getting there. Stanford and Hopkins are at the top (contingent on my actually getting in to the latter), with Rockefeller close by. I can't just rule it out yet because it's a completely different type of program (not neuroscience alone), and I'm soon going to have to decide just what I want. Harvard and UCSD are right beyond that.

Many of the other interviewees I met are choosing between Harvard and UCSF, but those two didn't feel quite right for me. Harvard felt a bit more tense, which might be unfair because it was the first interview, but another recruit, an undergrad there, independently agreed with my assessment (pictures, by the way, are not all of the campuses, but just my favorites I took in each place). The thing is, I really liked Harvard, but then I went to Hopkins and liked it more.

UCSF, on the other hand, felt, if anything, too familiar. I did an internship there a couple summers ago, and while it was fun, it made me decide not to go into strictly computational work. And maybe that feeling was sticking around, making an appearance as soon as we visited the Mission Bay campus (lovely as it is there). When I learned I hadn't gotten in here, I was not all that disappointed.

I liked the feeling at Hopkins, though I don't know why. For whatever reason, I came home feeling like I could live and work there and be happy for the next 5 years. More importantly, that feeling stuck around beyond the first weekend, unlike with some of the others.

The same went for Stanford, where I felt not only extremely comfortable, but very excited about the professors and labs (probably because more exposure to current goings-on in neuro over the course of interviews meant I understood more).The weekend there was also common for all of the biosciences, and it did in fact feel like there was more collaboration between departments.

Rockefeller, on the other hand, does not have a neuroscience-specific grad program. There are fewer neuro labs, but much more exposure to a broader range of topics in biology and chemistry. I loved hearing not only about the neuro, but also about cancer metastasis and developmental cell death that isn't run by apoptotic machinery. I thought I was extremely interested in neuro, which is still true, but having that breadth around me felt nice. That's how you make discoveries, by drawing together different fields and new ideas.

I also feel a strong connection to the place because that's where my postdoc mentor worked for a while. That's where another postdoc in our lab was a grad student. And most importantly, that's where my parents, then postdocs working at Rockefeller, lived when I was born. That's where I lived until I was 8 months old. I've got history there.

At any rate, it's going to be a very difficult decision. Fortunately, I have some time to decide, and wherever I end up going, I will probably end up happy. Unfortunately, I now have to use my noodly arms to lift my heavy genetics book and study for my quiz/midterm/midterm this week, so that's all for now, folks!

Interviews are Fun

Interviews for grad school can be nerve-wracking and exhausting. But I cannot deny what an experience it is to talk to all these awesome neuroscientists doing amazing work at the forefront of their fields. Much of this work is probably unpublished, so we get to see all of these questions and answers that are going to show up in the big journals within the next year or two.

If that doesn't excite you to no end, well, grad school might not be the right place for you. But for me, being in this community, with people who are as excited as me about the cool stuff being discovered, is like being on cloud 9. Or maybe cloud 8 (I like the number 8).

There's still the tiredness and the work I have to make up and missing multiple weekends of my last semester at Berkeley. But hearing about cutting edge research (sometimes literally, with electron microscopy), making friends with other recruits on the interview circuit, and getting free food/drink/hotel/airfare (which is honestly the least of it) - so worth it.

Interviews Are Exhausting

Harvard's interview weekend for the graduate Program in Neuroscience was this past weekend. And so it was that I happened to be sitting in the airport Thursday morning before my flight, sporting a new black peacoat with my carry-on bag in front of me (with gloves, hat, and scarf easy to reach in the outer pockets). There I met another applicant from Berkeley, and we boarded the plane together, chatting about our majors, the interview, and our expectations.

About an hour after our arrival at the hotel, the first year grad students picked us up in groups to take us to pre-arranged dinners at various restaurants around the city. It was a nice opportunity to talk to not only the grad students, but also the other recruits, the majority of whom I will probably see at future interviews (we'll all be best friends by the end of this, I guess!).

Anyway, for the night, we stayed at the Best Western Inn a couple blocks from the Longwood medical campus, which was convenient, as the next morning turned out to be quite snowy.

A short walk down the street, and we arrived at the Harvard Medical School campus, where the program and many of the faculty's labs are housed. Nearby were the many hospitals and medical institutes where most of the remaining faculty worked.

We had 2 half-hour interviews that morning, with a short break for a talk (during which my eyes were closing not for lack of interest, but for lack of sleep) and lunch, followed by another 3 interviews, and then a reception/mixer at which we could mingle with and talk to other faculty we were interested in working with.

Busy day. Exhausting, really. And so of course that night everybody was taken on an outing to King's for bowling fun! Except the few of us under 21, who went instead to an improv comedy show (Improv Asylum, check them out if you're in Boston - they were pretty good). We had a little time before the show, so we walked a few streets up and down the North End, and got some cannolis from Mike's Pastries.

The next morning, we got on a bus to visit the Cambridge campus (where Harvard's undergraduate college is located) and the faculty working there. Our bus, however, turned down a small side street lined by snow-covered parked cars. Almost at the end of the street, we got stuck. There wasn't quite enough space for the bus to pass, but we were too far to back all the way out. So after some discussion, we disembarked the bus and walked a block in the snow to our target, the building with whale skeletons just hanging around.

Some talks, pizza, and fun faculty stories later, we scurried down to Harvard Square, where we got what was purportedly "the best hot chocolate in the world" (Madagascar for me - I liked the flavor of "citrus with a hint of vanilla"). Extremely rich and chocolatey, and certainly quite yummy. While there, I happened to spot an entire store devoted to my namesake, though unfortunately I didn't get a chance to go inside.

Our hot chocolate done, we waited in the cold for the M2, early enough to visit the library and see the skull of the legendary (to neuroscience students, anyway) Phineas Gage.

You may have noticed that is the library, not the skull. I have no pictures for you because there was no photography allowed. Sorry. Here, instead, is a helicopter flying in to one of the medical centers, which I couldn't fit in anywhere else in the post.

Returning to my story, that last night, the recruits had dinner with some of the faculty members, either at their homes or nearby restaurants. The advice they all reiterated? When you're choosing a thesis lab, don't focus on a specific topic. Keep an open mind, but pick a lab based on the mentor. Good parting advice. I will keep it in mind.

Interview the First

I'm heading to Boston in the morning for my first interview weekend. I'm excited, and a tad nervous, but it should be a lot of fun. Weather report says it won't be snowing on either of the days I'm flying, though it will be snowing Friday. I got myself a nice warm peacoat in preparation, and I've got some layers packed away, so I'm hoping I won't freeze too much.

I'll post a report and some pictures upon my return. Arrivederci!

Grad Interviews

Berkeley's on the semester system, so school starts on Tuesday, Jan 18th for me. If my New Year's Resolution were to go to all my classes this semester, I would fail within two days. Not because I'm lazy, but because I have grad school interview weekends that often start Thursday or Friday.

So I understand having interviews Thursday/Friday means professors at the school don't have to come in on Saturdays and Sundays, but for me, it means I won't be going to my Friday class for at least 6 weeks in a row. On at least 5 of those weeks, I'm going to be missing all my Thursday classes as well. And sometimes the Wednesday ones too, for those on the East Coast (and also UCSD). Wouldn't be so bad flying in the other direction, but I have to start 3 hours earlier here.

I still have one class I need for my major, a class I need in order to graduate. And I'm going to be missing almost 1/3 of the lectures for that class. I really have to talk to the professor too, because I recall correctly, the midterms for that class tend to be Thursday nights. Lovely.

So I'm flying across the country every other weekend, interviewing within California the other weekends, missing classes I'll have to catch up on, including one for my major, and trying to do research for my honors thesis at the same time. And I don't even get to go home every couple weekends to recharge.

I think I understand now why so many people take a year off. Here's my suggestion to future grad school applicants: even if you know what you want to study, and that you want to go to grad school, think hard on when to apply. If you're applying to a bunch of places that you think you have a pretty good chance of getting in to, and you still have requirements to fulfill during your last semester, it might be to your benefit to wait. Find an internship or a job for 6 months or a year, and apply the following spring.

Applications

I'm really glad I've been writing this blog for the past year and a half. It's definitely helped me get better at starting writing projects, which is especially important this semester.

None of my personal statements for the various neuroscience graduate programs can be quite the same. Columbia asks for everything in under 500 words, Harvard in 1000, and UCSD in 2500 (the others don't have word limits, so I can just go with the best version for those). Right now, I've got 970 words, and a little bit more to add. So I can hit 1000 easily. But paring it down to 500 is difficult because all the transitions and the flow will be gone from my piece. I'm going to have to completely rewrite my statement for that one.

Today, though, I'm working on a completely different application. It's for TeachForAmerica. I was planning on applying, but it seemed far away in the future. And then I had a meeting with one of the recruiters on Monday morning, and he reminded me just why I wanted to apply in the first place. So now I'm weighing whether I should try to get it done by today's deadline, or wait for the December deadline. The latter would lead to interview weeks coinciding with interviews for grad schools. It would also be nice to find out by January if I'm in or not.

But then again, my career goal involves going to grad school and doing research. It's not as though TFA will just be a hobby, because I'm very interested in education, but my contribution to the field in the end is probably not going to be from the level of the teacher. So I would also have to decide by January, before I found out whether the grad schools that would allow a 2-year deferral have accepted me. All in all, I'm thinking now that I should probably go with the December deadline.

It'll take longer and be more busy, but at least I'll be able to see all my choices when I decide.

Oh Standardized Testing...

So I signed up for the GRE. Two of them, actually. I'm going to take the General test at the end of September, and the Subject test in Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology in October. Fun stuff. I bought myself a Princeton Review book for the General test (since that's what worked best for me with the SATs), but there are a total of 0 books for the Biochem test.

Seriously.

Kaplan makes a book for the Biology GRE, but there are pretty much none for Biochem. Apparently, it is meant to cover what you would normally learn in undergraduate coursework. So that means I need to go back through my Lehninger and find some textbooks on molecular biology and genetics (especially genetics, because I have yet to take a genetics class - that's scheduled for next spring).

At any rate, this means I have more work to do than I realized, so I'd better get started...
. Lucky for me, the e-book is still working even though it's been more than 1 year. I just need it to work for 1 more month until I can get home to my actual, physical version of the book.