What's your area and level of expertise?

[GoldShadow]

My main interest in Biology was from the reproductive standpoint, but now that I'm married that's pretty much shot to hell.

As for me, I'm just a lowly undergraduate majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology, and seriously considering medical school. I'm also a certified EMT-B if that counts for anything. At the moment, I'm trying to get a position in my cell biology professor's lab to see if I would prefer the research lifestyle.

 

[jim mcnamara]

I'm the senior technical weenie (systems & DB's) at a utility company. Degrees in Botany, Chemistry, Population Biology. Really looong time ago. Taught undergrad Biology about 40 years ago. Left to cover medical costs for kid (faculty had no insurance) and stayed in systems programming. My salary immediately tripled on leaving teaching - I view teaching as very worthwhile. Told me what our Western culture really values...
Still teach a class every now and then.

I'm semi-current in plant taxonomy, and some very minor aspects of non-linear applications like dispersion modeling. I was active years ago in Fractint, if you know about that.

 

[Red Rum]

Some of you may remember me as Evo's alter ego. Well let me tell you about the past she's given me. I graduated in Microbiology in 1980 and completed a masters in the same subject in 1982. I vanished into industry for 10 years before returning to my alma mater to complete a PhD in food microbiology in 1995, although it was to be another 2 years before I was organised enough to graduate. I recall my graduating partner was 21 years old, which was exactly the number of years since I had first registered as an undergraduate. After three years of postdoctoral life I decided to return to industry and I'm now a brewer. I sometimes toy with the idea of going back teaching but I find academic life to be one more of life's lies. Perhaps some day Evo will decide I'm due for a change of direction again. Meanwhile, if I can ever be of help in issues of industrial hygiene or brewing science, I'm happy to oblige. Right, Evo?

 

[Evo]

Does this mean that you will eventually have time to participate? Red Rum is flown all over the world due to his expertise, he gets to go to the most incredible places. All I get is pictures of him partying in exotic locations.

 

[Red Rum]

Honour

Does this mean that you will eventually have time to participate? Red Rum is flown all over the world due to his expertise, he gets to go to the most incredible places. All I get is pictures of him partying in exotic locations.

I am honour bound to do so.

 

[Red Rum]

Note the way Evo has programmed me to use English spellings like colour , tyre and programme. She's really such a clever lady.

 

[Charion]

Bitter postdoc here. Mostly doing high-throughput postgenomics and single cell analysis. Looking at single molecule-interaction when bored.

 

[Moonbear]

Welcome aboard Charion! You've completely stumped me for the first time in a long time...what's postgenomics? I know what genomics is (I'd have had to be living in a bubble not to), but haven't heard the term postgenomics before.

 

[Cincinnatus]

I don't know how Charion uses the word, but here's a 1999 editorial in nature genetics that mentions it: http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v23/n4/full/ng1299_375.html it just sounds like another buzzword similar to "systems biology".

 

[Charion]

Ah, quite the contrary. I like to describe postgenomics as genome enabled research. In fact it is kind of a fancy word to state that I apply high-throughput genomics (in silico as well as real lab), transcriptomics (mostly microarrays), proteomics (mostly whole-proteome mapping) and metabolome studies to try to understand cellular physiology. Or in other words, the application of genome data-dependent high-throughput techniques. Well, as you can easily see why I prefer to say "postgenomics" rather than typing all that stuff. I had specialized a bit in analyzing regulatory networks and cellular responses on the above given levels but have recently moved on to try my hands on single-cell analyzes.

Of course these approaches were not able to fulfill all the expectations when it was first thought of around the 90s. Much the same way as whole-genome sequencing was not the "golden bullet" one might have hoped it to be. Yet it has been established as a kind of own discipline, less due to the biological answers that are sought (as, obviously the human proteome project will have little overlap with whole-proteome mappings of, say, certain bacteria), but mostly due to the similarity of approach and way of dealing with the data (though as of yet, the data analysis part is not maturing as fast as the actual technical aspects). Hence there is a large overlap in this area with bioinformatical workgroups.
Interesting enough postgenomics does have a connection to systems biology, as it was (and is still) belived that the high-throughput techniques might in fact be a way to get sufficient quantitative data for modelling approaches.
Essentially the basic difference between postgenomics approaches and more traditional one is, in my opinion, the throughput of data and the way to deal with it.

As I am writing this post rather late between ending work and going home I will check back tomorrow whether I made any sense, or not.

 

[wobblebase]

Hello all. I'm starting my 4th year in undergrad majoring in Biology with a concentration in Microbiology. I've been snooping on here for a while after taking a physics course last year and wandered down to these biology forums. Upon graduation, I hope to attend a graduate program in Molecular Microbiology or Medical Microbiology(leaning toward this). Nice to meet all of you.

 

[Red Rum]

Hello all. I'm starting my 4th year in undergrad majoring in Biology with a concentration in Microbiology. I've been snooping on here for a while after taking a physics course last year and wandered down to these biology forums. Upon graduation, I hope to attend a graduate program in Molecular Microbiology or Medical Microbiology(leaning toward this). Nice to meet all of you.

Great to hear from another microbiologist. If I can ever be of assistance, just ask.

 

[Coheda]

I'm still in high school, but I'm aiming to getting a degree in Microbiology and/or Biochemistry.

 

[Mike H]

Realized I should probably mention this since I do occasionally run on at the mouth here.

- B.S. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, minor in chemistry, worked for 2.5 years in a biophysics lab as an undergrad and tech.

- Ph.D. in (bio)physical chemistry. Became very bitter.

- Currently a postdoc in a biophysics lab. Have had love of science renewed.

I also have non-professional research interests in understanding the chemistry of single malt scotches and in human courtship rituals. ;)

 

[dmchugh52]

New to the site. Freshman major in biology, anatomy and physiology track. Probably going to attend grad school for exercise science.

 

[kuikuisven]

Hello to all.

I thought i could help also, despite my area of expertise is sort of narrow.

I have a degree in food engineering, but I never used it really, still i guess it's fresh enough to help on various topic about nutrition and the like.
I am now finishing my Phd in theoretical immunology / bioinformatics. The subject is about (large scale) simulations of HIV dynamics.
The field of theoretical immunology is a bit like the one in theoretical ecology, in the sense that it relies on designing systems of ODEs, or other sorts of simulations to study natural phenomena.

hope that can be of any help.

 

[Moonbear]

Welcome aboard dmchugh and kuikuisven!

 

[Monique]

A warm welcome to the new members!

 

[Eimacman]

I just stumbled upon this thread and would have put something here if I knew about it, so:

I have a BS in Biology with emphasis in Microbiology and Genetic Engineering. I also majored in Physics and Chemistry but I ran out of funds before I could get any degree in ether. I did some independent research in cybernetics and experimented with heavy metal antimicrobials for the treatment of multiple resistant bacteria. However when I graduated the government banned genetic experimentation in the US out of the fear that some one would create super bugs, so I was out of a job even before I graduated. And although the Genetic Engineering field is now wide open in the US I am decades behind in the science, one of the reasons that I joined this forum was so I get back to the sciences. Other than the Bio Sciences I have an extensive background in electronics. I have an extensive mechanical background and can almost rebuild any kind of machine outside of a Super Colider, I don't work on aircraft for I don't have an FAA Airframe or Power Plant ticket. But I have designed rocket motors using ether conventional propellants, ion, and nuclear power, and turbine injectors and combustion chambers for jet engines. I have only recently gotten into astrophysics and quantum mechanics and it baffles me, that is quantum physics as it relates to astrophysics, universe, gravity, and space time expansion.

And that is about all I can say about that

Eimacman

 

[yerpo]

Hi, everybody!

I have a degree in biology (general), roughly equivalent to MSc. I work on animal behaviour and physiology, more specifically sexual communication of stink-bugs which use their substrate for transmitting signals (obscure, ain't it? :P ) and which, incidentally, brought me to this forum (see my problem). Don't have much expertise outside biology, I'm afraid.

 

[Monique]

Hi Eimacman and yerpo, that sounds like some interesting stuff. I hope you stick around!

 

[Bob S]

I have a Ph.D in high energy physics, from over 40 years ago. I find biology fascinating now (but not in the 1950's). Especially cell biology and certain processes: Krebs cycle Calvin (RuBisCO) cycle etc.

 

[Luongo]

I am an undergrad 2nd year software engineering student with A.Sc minor in math, i took cell biology as an elective 2nd year course and thought it was hard but i got a B.

 

[NothaShrubry]

Hiya - I can't seem to start a new topic, so I'm posting here. I'm a chemist, still studying my degree, 2nd year with part 1As coming up and I need help with ChemDraw. If you're not a chemist or a biochemist, you probably haven't heard of it, though.

Does anyone out there know how to add an extra page to a chemdraw document, without opening a new page? This sounds trivial, but when I am producing documents of 12 pages plus, and have to open a new file and save the new file for each one, it is hideously, hideously tedious! Also, I am abysmal at googling, and seem unable to find assistance online.

If anyone can help me, please, please do!

 

[NothaShrubry]

N.b. what's a BS? Is it a BSc, or something weird and American?

 

[Cincinnatus]

N.b. what's a BS? Is it a BSc, or something weird and American?

It is both

 

[Chase leader]

I'm a Chinese students in a univeristy.I'm interested in biology and like cellur much more than other subjects.
It's wierd?A chinese people come here...
This year I will take the graduation exam.so i come here via the google.

 

[Daan]

I have an M.Sc. in "General Biology", but "Evolution and Ecology" would have been a better description. Currently I have a job as a Ph.D. student, doing theoretical ecology. I develop and examine models of population growth, typically existing of a few differential equations.

 

[grumpymrgruff]

I have a Bsc in biology with a mostly biochemical course load and a minor in chemistry. I'm a couple years into a PhD program in "interdisciplinary biology" (vague, I know). I'm working on dynamic models (mostly ODE- and PDE-based) of intracellular signaling in cancer cell differentiation and early developmental protein and gene interactions in Drosophila embryos. On the math/engineering side of things, I'm looking at uses of sparse grid-based interpolation to approximate cost functions in parameter fitting and model-aided experimental design.

 

[kldickson]

I'm a neurobiology student who is finishing up undergraduate education and going to graduate school for my PhD in neurobiology.

 

[IsotropicSpinManifol]

I am studying BSc./B.A majoring in Physics and Philosophy.

 

[iansmith]

I consider my self a bacteriologist with a focus on pathogenic bacteria but my BSc covered other biology field like ecology, plant biology and zoology.

I am doing my PhD in microbiology. My research focus is on two component-regulatory systems (signal transduction) of gram-positives bacteria and their influence on stress adaptation and growth of bacteria. My MSc research was on acquisition of iron by gram-negative bacteria with a focus on siderophore-independent mechanisms. My BSc research project was about plasmid biology.

Just to update my entry. I now have my PhD and working on post-doc. The research for post-doc will focus on biofilm formation of pig pathogen that causes a pleuropneumoniae.

 

[Biophreak]

BSc in Biotechnology
MS in molecular biology/cell biology with dissertation in proteinomics/algal virology
Currently PhD continuing my research

 

[caristeenaa]

Everyone here is so.. smart. I'm slightly intimidated.
I'm a sophomore in HS taking AP biology.

 

[Monique]

Just to update my entry. I now have my PhD and working on post-doc. The research for post-doc will focus on biofilm formation of pig pathogen that causes a pleuropneumoniae.

Congratulations on the job! Is the pleuropneumoniae a major hazard for the pig, or also for humans?