1/ 🧵 Long COVID: A Deep Dive into the Shadows of Post-Acute Infectious Syndromes. What scientists have uncovered may change how we view post-viral conditions forever. Dive in with my latest article for
@SITNboston
.
did you know that the reason tattoos remain visible for so long is bc of MACROPHAGES?
I thought it was bc the ink stained long-living fibroblasts, but no! dermal macrophages phagocytose the ink and store it in vacuoles, where it is still visible from the surface.
Just did a full dress rehearsal, in the space, for my PhD defense seminar tomorrow! T minus 24 hours, ahhhhhh 🎊🧠
just have to cut 15 minutes off the time 😅
27 was good to me. I got to read books, travel broadly, and spend time with people I love. I’m wrapping up my PhD & excited to move to California to start my next chapter as a postdoc at Stanford with my fiancé by my side. 28’s going to be a big one, I can feel it. ✨
9 years ago I failed to graduate highschool, had yet to get my GED, 3 therapists had given up on me, & the general consensus was that joining the military MIGHT give me a chance. I feel so lucky to be where I am today - a “rising star” in neuroscience. See you soon, Utah!
just submitted my PhD thesis and am feeling EMOTIONAL!!!!!!!
read my acknowledgments to get emotional with me. They say it takes a village but it really took like three villages to get me here. ❤️🎉✨🥰💞🥂
Cheers to submitting my first R01 today!!!!!! Well, with my PI of course, but I fully wrote the research strategy (and several other portions…). Academic career here we come ✈️🥂
Do these macrophages just live forever then? Also no! when they die, they release the pigment into their surroundings, where, over the following weeks, it is taken up by new, monocyte-derived macrophages before it can disperse.
Normalize PhD students seeing a therapist! I try to be very vocal about the fact that I also actively see a therapist here at Harvard so that people know it's not something be embarassed about. It's all about using the resources around you.
UPDATE: After I defend in Sep, I’ll be starting a postdoc with Dr. Bill Robinson’s autoimmune disease lab at Stanford University. I’m VERY excited to get the chance to study viral and bacterial triggers of chronic autoimmune diseases.🦠
@mmmntbn
Your body is made of tons and tons of tiny units called cells! They have different jobs. Under your skin there are cells whose job is to protect you from bacteria and viruses. They eat the ink cause it's foreign, but then they don't know what to do with it!
If you’ve ever doubted the power of psychological priming, in my 8th grade yearbook I was voted “most likely to get a PhD”. I didn’t forget and, 11 years later, I’m smack in the middle of a PhD program.
I love genes that are humorously named with relation to their purpose.
Today in class we learned about "Hamlet" in flies, which encodes a TF that determines cell fate between PIIa and PIIb
Or...in other words... 2B or not 2B
@mmmntbn
So they store it away in little bubbles so it can't hurt anything, and keep it forever! They even pass the ink bubbles on to the next round of defender cells :)
Excited to start off my birthday by teaching my first section of Harvard’s summer “Foundations of Neuroscience” course - a neuroanatomy review and introduction to the Allen Brain Atlas!
the end of a PhD is so overwhelming! which might just be academia! Today has consisted of (1) putting the finishing touches on my first author Annual Review, (2) a prelim postdoc Zoom interview (in a full field pivot), & (3) GETTING THE SUMMARY STATEMENT FOR THE R01 I wrote!
I’m a neuroscience PhD candidate at Harvard in Boston. Our stipend is $40,632 a year. I personally pay ~$4200 in taxes. rent + utilities ~$1020/mo, with three roommates and a shared bathroom. Couldn’t reasonably afford a one-bed on this stipend w my other life expenses.
To increase transparency around grad school stipends, retweet this tweet with your department, university, and annual stipend. I'll go first: I'm a PhD student in the Computing and Mathematical Sciences (CMS) department at Caltech, and I'm paid $36k/year.
#StipendTransparency
Alright science twitter, I need your advice. I just joined a lab and started my thesis work this week! Yay!
What is the best advice you have for a new thesis student? Or, what do you wish you knew or had started doing from day 1 of your PhD?
#AcademicTwitter
@AcademicChatter
🧬 With biomedical PhD applications open now, I often get asked for advice. I created a guide filled with tips from my own journey to Harvard & insights from others. I use it to lead workshops & it’s ready to help you too! ✨
Dive in and share! ⬇️
Mark your calendars! The age old question, “when will you be done with your PhD?” finally has an answer! More details to come, but there will be an in person public seminar at Harvard Medical School as well as a zoom option. To receive updates via email:
People often post their application wins etc. on Twitter & I encourage that - but this week I was rejected for the 2023 Stanford.Berkeley.UCSF Next Generation Faculty Symposium and the Harvard Horizons Scholars program and that's okay too! I just apply to a lot of stuff!
IT WAS DISCUSSED AND SCORED !!!!!!! no percentile because it was an RFA but we’ll see! Either way, I’m encouraged that my first attempt was discussed. If the outcome isn’t what we hope, I’ll revise and resubmit! Much more preliminary data now…
Cheers to submitting my first R01 today!!!!!! Well, with my PI of course, but I fully wrote the research strategy (and several other portions…). Academic career here we come ✈️🥂
I collected all replies and advice to this tweet into a PDF called "Things I Wish I'd Known from Day of my PhD" that you can find here:
Thank you to all who contributed, this is a tremendously valuable resource!
#AcademicTwitter
@AcademicChatter
Alright science twitter, I need your advice. I just joined a lab and started my thesis work this week! Yay!
What is the best advice you have for a new thesis student? Or, what do you wish you knew or had started doing from day 1 of your PhD?
#AcademicTwitter
@AcademicChatter
Our landlord just informed us that he is raising the rent TWENTY TWO PERCENT this year???
When he already increased it 8 percent last year?
Sorry Boston this is the last straw for me trying to love you because wtf. I am a PHD STUDENT. This apartment is NOT THAT GOOD.
THIS IS THE FACE OF A GIRL WHO FULLY DIDN'T EXPECT NSF-GRFP RESULTS TO BE IN UNTIL APRIL, but I heard this morning that I was selected to receive a fellowship!
2 days before my PQE - a good omen!
Thankful for many in the
@LehtinenLab
and
@neuromany
for helping me prepare my app
Y'ALL, good news.
I conceived my dream experiment in 2/2020, w/ a mouse line I didn't think existed, a tricky surgery, & 2P ventricular imaging. I found the mouse line & the inventor gifted it to me in 8/2020. Today I imaged it for the first time & IT'S GONNA WORK. Cue the tears
I am a 2021 HHMI Gilliam Fellow!!! 🎊
Huge thanks to Maria
@LehtinenLab
- a strong mentor from whom I am looking forward to learning about fostering scientific growth and promoting trainees while we work to make academia a truly inclusive space.
#GilliamFellows
@HHMInews
Congratulations and welcome to the 50 new
#GilliamFellows
and their mentors who are joining the Gilliam and HHMI family! We had a couple of questions for our Fellows, past and present, and we'll be sharing their responses here.
Wore this dress when a male judge @ international science fair said "I didn't know they let girls win just for being pretty" - I looked at him and said "they don't, let me walk you through my work"
you 👏 can 👏 look 👏 cute 👏 and 👏 do 👏good 👏 science 🙄
#ModestAcademic
with biomedical PhD apps due soon, I get a lot of requests for help/advice this time of year. From my own experiences and including others' resources, I made this guide that I use to lead workshops, but also stands alone as a resource. Please share!
BEYOND EXCITED to share this first-author preprint covering my thesis work! I can't imagine loving a project more. Cool new cell biology + maternal-fetal health + neurodevelopment? Check it out 👀
🚨Preprint alert -
@ScienceYael
leads work revealing that various maternal exposures, like illness 🤒 or psychedelics 🍄, cause excessive apocrine secretion from embryonic choroid plexus epithelial cells into CSF w/ life-long brain & behavioral impact! 1/
no rest for the grad student… straight from SfN into teaching a tricky class back at Harvard on LTP, LTD, and synaptic refinement in the visual system!
makes me really happy to be recognized by Harvard for distinction in teaching “The Neurobiology of Behavior” last semester 😊
this award reflects overall undergrad student ratings of me across lecture effectiveness, discussion facilitation, and accessibility outside of class.
After tens of drafts, 2 months of work, and over 300 papers read - I am ecstatic to have submitted my full HHMI Gilliam fellowship application, a whole day early! I am thankful for my terrific mentor, Maria, and the whole
@LehtinenLab
for their advice and support along the way 🥂
R01 revised & submitted for June 5th deadline! Thankful for an advisor who gives me the freedom & guidance to learn this skill. I’m excited about this iteration - loads more prelim data, new collaborators, & a better understanding of the literature. Now? Vacation. 🌴
IT WAS DISCUSSED AND SCORED !!!!!!! no percentile because it was an RFA but we’ll see! Either way, I’m encouraged that my first attempt was discussed. If the outcome isn’t what we hope, I’ll revise and resubmit! Much more preliminary data now…
Um a lot??? Wrote an R01, read 135+ books, finished a manuscript draft, taught a class, put significant $ in savings, gave 6 talks and 9 posters (including 2 int’l meetings), continued to advance DEI in science at Harvard and beyond, and still got mostly enough sleep at night ✨
Reminder: post-baccalaureate programs are a great, PAID opportunity for grads to get research experience before applying for PhD Programs, or if rejected this cycle. Many apps still open!
@cientificolatin
has a thorough database of opportunities here:
Taught one of my favorite sections to my neuro undergrads today (though I say that a lot of weeks…) - the synapse!!! When discussing the presynaptic mechanisms of vesicle release, it felt timely to link these concepts to all the related Nobel Prizes! Students loved it.
now this is how you write an article title. scathing - and true.
there are many, many advantages to being a grad student here, but a livable wage isn’t one of them.
took an unbelievable off-the-grid vacation to Iceland and am feeling refreshed and ready for a great semester of research and teaching! Thankful for a mentor who not only supports but encourages taking breaks.
THE MEETING WENT AMAZINGLY - basically all that stands between me and scheduling a defense date is getting revisions back on my big paper! So if you’re out there and you’re a reviewer, please have some sympathy for a PhD student and help me get revisions back :)
Black Friday Freebie:
I've ADDED a "Statement of Purpose Breakdown" to my Biomedical PhD Admissions Guide w/ my own annotated Statement of Purpose that got me into the Harvard PhD Program in Neuroscience!
Let's keep demystifying PhD admissions.
Honored and excited to receive Harvard College's Certificate of Distinction in Teaching for my work teaching "The Cellular Basis of Neuronal Function". Looking forward to kicking off the fall semester this week, teaching "Neurobiology of Behavior".
had my first mouse bite me today in lab - joke’s on her she didn’t know I was wearing fake nails so she got a mouthful of plastic and my nail has a cool design now
student feedback from this semester has me literally crying happy tears. After 4 years teaching this intro neuro course, I’m thankful that I’m reaching students in meaningful ways.
also emotional because it was my last time teaching in this PhD 🥲 I loved every minute.
I was an employee and then managed a Wendy’s to save money before college, then during college supported myself as a kitchen line worker, then server, then bartender.
As a PhD student I *still* pick up bartending gigs on the side to supplement my stipend.
GOT PAPER REVISIONS BACK!!!!! if my reviewers are out there, thank you. 🥲 it’s a revise and resubmit situation, & I’m thankful for reviewers who were incredibly positive & thorough.
You asked for experiments that I’ve been stoked about & hoping to do - it’s go time now, baby!
THE MEETING WENT AMAZINGLY - basically all that stands between me and scheduling a defense date is getting revisions back on my big paper! So if you’re out there and you’re a reviewer, please have some sympathy for a PhD student and help me get revisions back :)
in considering postdocs, it’s soooo brutal that the STANFORD POSTDOC HOUSING is $2k-$4k a month for a small ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT. And Melbourne 🇦🇺 has two bedroom places for $1450/month…. Like…… ???????
Happy Gilliam Fellows Meeting!
Apologies to whoever in the HHMI hotel just heard me straight up belt the same song four times in a row….had to practice for the ✨ Gilliam talent show✨ tomorrow
I love teaching!!! One of the hardest sections of the year in my opinion - what is the biological basis of center-surround receptive fields? And how is visual information related back to primary visual cortex? 👀🧠🧫
my fourth year teaching and I think I *finally* made sense…
it's prequalifying exam day, baby!
coffee? ✅
prep music? ✅ (Handel, love some Baroque, but probably
@GlassAnimals
later)
a cute brain pin I won at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting a few years ago that's now my lucky pin? ✅🧠
T-minus four hours, here we go
my students were tasked with a final presentation on any neuroscience topic we didn’t cover in class, and one group absolutely nailed it with a comic strip discussing the controversy behind the approval of Aducanumab as a treatment for Alzheimer’s (and roasting the FDA)
PhD programs that claim to want to increase accessibility for underrepresented students - ethnically, racially, socioeconomically, or because of disabilities - don’t. There is staunch opposition to instituting helpful changes, often veiled by “we wish we could but we can’t”.
Bittersweet last
@HHMINEWS
meeting as a Gilliam Fellow. I am thankful for the vibrant, intelligent, supportive community of peers that I met through this program. I know we’ll be lifelong friends & fight to change science towards true diversity, equity, and inclusion. ✨
I'm also making available the Statement of Purpose that got me an interview (and later acceptance) in Yale's Neuroscience PhD program! Though both were successful, I think this essay did a better job diving into the science behind my research experiences.
Black Friday Freebie:
I've ADDED a "Statement of Purpose Breakdown" to my Biomedical PhD Admissions Guide w/ my own annotated Statement of Purpose that got me into the Harvard PhD Program in Neuroscience!
Let's keep demystifying PhD admissions.
It’s been emboldening and freeing to embrace that all I have to do if I want to pick up a new skill or hobby is *start doing it*. No pressure to be good, no pressure to keep doing it forever. If I do something 3 times & never again? Cool!
My latest adventure? Modeling! Why not?
HOW COOL IS THIS??? I got to be the first to show that maternal exposure to a moderate dose of LSD propagates to the embryonic brain in just 30 minutes & it potently activates choroid plexus!
Excited to keep digging into related questions...
#psychedelics
#maternalfetalhealth
This approach also allowed the first demonstration that a clinically-relevant dose of the psychedelic compound LSD quickly passes from mother to embryo and dysregulates ChP-CSF signaling. Crucial to consider amidst tremendous enthusiasm for therapeutic psychedelic use! 🍄7/
Y'all I am about to teach neuroscience to FIVE 6th grade science classes AHHHHH! I'm 10x more nervous about this than about teaching my Harvard undergrads this morning 😅
soooooo excited I snagged a pair of
@christineliuart
‘s cryosection earrings 😍😍 everyone at SfN wants a pair now! Only the real ones knew to snatch them up early
@criveraquiles
huge month for crazy things in the sky! headed up to Rockport, MA to catch this one - about an hour from Boston and generally respected for its lower light pollution levels.