The life of P.I. - Transitions to Independence in Academia
This project started as chats over coffee, moved to discussions on UK_NewPI slack, and ended up a bigger deal than we planned, but the data is really interesting
This is us below...
#NewPI
#careers
It's official, I am a CRUK senior fellow!
Excited for the next projects in
#lymphoid
#tissuebiology
. We're looking for several new team members - to be advertised shortly
Thanks to the wonderful team who built the lab with me over the last 6+ years
@LMCB_UCL
@UCLLifeSciences
We’re petitioning for ERC to reconsider eligibility - changing from PhD date to from when we start independent positions. This would allow more diversity in career paths… currently many researchers miss out before they even get started.
#fairfunding
#academia
#NewPI
#grants
#EDI
New, improved, and peer-reviewed...
Our work on
#NewPI
career support is published today in
@eLife
. The preprint "Life of PI" on
@biorxivpreprint
is up to almost 10k downloads!
Thanks to everyone who helped and supported this collaboration!
Perspectives on postdoc - PI transition
1) increase your visibility
2) network
3) have confidence in your plans
4) collaborate with your peers
5) share your experiences with other
#newPIs
6) take criticism well - these people at least read your grant properly!
This is the inside architecture of our lymph nodes. How do these intricate structures stay intact as our lymph nodes swell in response to infection?
Podoplanin (green) CollagenIV (red)
Part of the answer in
@VctorGMartinez2
preprint...
If you are a
#NewPI
, then let
@eLife
know when you submit you paper.
They will be more likely to review your manuscript, give more feedback from the editor, and can even write a reference letter for the 1st author.
This is disappointing
We will not be adjusting their projects, and leave my students with an unfinished project and no publication.
Instead I will use every bit of flexible funding available to me and find a way for them to finish properly.
@MillwardLindsey
@hlhorsnell2
We are therefore advising all students funded by UKRI, including those on grants from any of the seven research councils, to speak to their supervisors about how to adjust their project to complete a doctoral-level qualification within their funded period.
Before this study I genuinely thought that the gender pay gap in academia was down to an imbalance in seniority, but we found that even starting the same junior positions, women are paid slightly less...
#careers
#NewPI
@MRC_LMCB
@DeRobertus
@SaraEMole
#Preprint
Latest work from super postdoc
@S_Makris
is now online
@biorxiv_immuno
We conditionally deleted
#podoplanin
in adult lymphoid tissues and found serious defects in homeostatic tissue organisation and fibroblastic reticular cell function
Proofs!
@VctorGMartinez2
work on lymph node conduits in
@CellReports
on the 26th November. He did all of this from scratch, in less than 3 years, while helping me to set up our lab space and recruiting our group - amazing
Our first paper 100% from our new lab.
#Victorisawesome
Our paper on
#podoplanin
driving dedifferentiation and amoeboid invasion of melanoma is online
@iScience_CP
Massive team effort this one, led by
@lotte_dewinde
but this story started by a series of talented
#MSci
students through the lab from 2016...
We study immune responses at the whole organ level
Lymph nodes are the meeting points for all kinds of immune cells, and where adaptive immune responses are initiated.
#immunology
GIF-thread!
#Preprint
'Podoplanin drives dedifferentiation and amoeboid invasion of melanoma'
The last few months have been difficult
so this feels like a real achievement
Remote data analysis, planning and writing
So proud of
@lotte_dewinde
for pulling this together
“The worst moment: when one panel member asked why she’d been so unproductive as a postdoc — a query so aggressive that it took Ali a while to gather herself sufficiently to reel off her scientific accomplishments and point out that she’d also had a baby.”
Peers support peers
"supporting colleagues who struggle with their mental health is a common occurrence in academic settings.... These interactions mainly take place between peers at the same career stage..."
#researchculture
#AcademicMentalHealth
We're recruiting
#postdoc
- Mechanisms driving stromal differentiation and plasticity in tumours. Please get in touch for more details!
Very happy to support fellowship applications for independent projects in this area too!
Apply here ->
Please RT
Our newest lab member, PhD student Veronika Lachina
@LMCB_UCL
knows how to end the week on a high and has just sent me her first beautiful tile scans of tumour-draining
#lymphnodes
.
These show how quickly lymph node structure can be changed, now to understand what's happening...
Scientists around the works have been working frantically to understand this new virus so we can find a way to treat it... this has just been put online, still in review but looks promising 🤞
I have just realized that I can listen to a seminar while doing something else? I feel like I’ve discovered a time machine! How did it take me 8 months to figure this out ?
#whatareyoudoingwithyourcameraoff
?
Maternity leave as a postdoc -
Short contracts, tied to PI's funding, moving institutions... all issues leaving postdocs starting a family to fall between the cracks and ineligible for occupational maternity pay.
Have you had issues like this?
#Scientistandparent
Ali
@dozenoaks
and I met as postdocs (in about 2012?) through our funder
@wellcometrust
She is an incredible scientist and far too modest.
Their story is tough to read, but please do read it, so much of this is true for so many
#newPI
start out in the UK
Two researchers. Three years. One pandemic. Nature reporters spent the last three years following scientists Alison Twelvetrees and Daniel Bose on their quest to establish their own labs, and win million-pound funding grants
Preprint online!
@VctorGMartinez2
- How matrix of lymph node conduit is remodelled during immune responses. We show regulation at transcriptional and protein levels, and cell biology of how FRCs polarise matrix deposition
Please RT - send us your comments!
The paper we've been waiting for, single cell RNA sequencing of Fibroblastic stroma in lymph nodes. Distinct subsets, or cell plasticity defined by their specific location? still up for debate...
#NewPI
based in the UK. Would you like to join other newly independent lecturers and fellows? Slack group -
reply below for an invitation.
Twitter list here also : …
join in and connect with your peers
…
My twitter feed - like yours - has been full of discussions/complaints about academic careers (salaries in particular)
We published the first large survey of
#newPIs
covering everything from salary ranges to startup funds.
Data ✅and transparency ✅
My favourite thing in the lab was always when someone rushed excitedly to the office to show me their data...
I’m so glad that even through social distanced return to work I still get sent screenshots of that great moment when something works!
Great job
@MillwardLindsey
#data
We are delighted to announce that
@Athena_SWAN
has renewed our GOLD award in recognition of our ongoing commitment to advancing equality, diversity and inclusion.
A special thank you to the entire EDI Committee and
@UCLEqualities
for support!
Did you start your group in the UK within the last 6 years?
Please take the survey titled "
#NewPI
UK".
Responses anonymous and will be used to help the major funders decide on policies for junior PIs
Retweet as widely as you can!
Work smarter, not harder folks...
We’ve all worked evenings and weekends when necessary but there really is not need to make this a regular work schedule
And the winner is… 🥁
#FantasticFibroblasts
Fibroblasts will be the next
#ImmuneCell
to join our lineup of badges at
#BSI22
✨
Thanks to everyone who voted! If you haven’t grabbed a badge yet at
#BSI21
, make sure you head over to the BSI stand to get yours! ⏰
Nothing like taking a step back to present the past 5 years work to make you appreciate the brilliant people who brought all the projects to life.
Thanks to everyone, past and present
Miss being in the lab all together!
#Thanks
#NewPI
#Careers
#that5yearswentfast
#whatsnext
Shiny new
#preprint
coming soon!
Work led by
@S_Makris
and
@yuktihari
featuring the 2020 lockdown project of fantastic master's student
@j_cantoral
. We examine alternative signalling pathways downstream of
#podoplanin
and how they impact lymph node function.
As expected, school closed and remote learning this week... likely to be reviewed and continued until things dramatically improve.
A plea for patience and forgiveness for all the balls I’m going to be dropping over the next few weeks/months. It won’t be through lack of trying.
Big experiments require a very organised postdoc!
this time course flow experiment was started in October
Big day is Tuesday. Whole lab involved to get this all processed on the day
#teamwork
#manyhands
#fingerscrosseditworks
!
Spiros is going to be analysing this data forever...
Proud to have been involved with this work (and share the prize money!) as a postdoc in the team 2012-2016.
The work led by Caetano and Santiago Zelenay now forms the basis for several clinical trials to improve immunotherapy.
@CRUKresearch
🎉 Congratulations to the Crick's Caetano Reis e Sousa! His work showing that aspirin can boost the effect of cancer immunotherapies has won the first Bial Prize.
Find out more about the award and Caetano's work in
@P__Ciencia
(£, in Portuguese). ⬇️
Apply below if you’d like to join our team based at UCL ⬇️
Work in our lab will be investigating the stromal niches supporting tertiary lymphoid structure formation and function.
#postdoc
@LMCB_UCL
I am delighted to announce our recent Wellcome DA success with
@ActonLab
and
@ClatworthyLab
. Super exciting opportunity. If interested in joining our team as a post-doc please contact any of us for more info.
Last lab meeting of a very successful 2022!
Looking forward to exciting times in 2023, new postdocs arriving, new projects and the return of some senior lab members from leave…
#Science
#phdlife
@LMCB_UCL
remote working success! - surface rendering cancer cells for paper revisions, finding beautiful
#blebs
->
@MillwardLindsey
remotely accessing 'the Beast' super computer
@MRC_LMCB
,
@lotte_dewinde
at home in the Netherlands, me freezing at home in London.
New Spanish prime minister is on to something here! More women in office, and real scientists in charge of science policy.
#simplygoodpractice
#womeninscience
Spanish PM appoints 11 women and six men to new cabinet
Online
@CellReports
- our collaborators' beautiful paper showing how lymphocyte trafficking and lymph node architecture is altered in lymphoma.
Lymphocyte access to lymphoma is impaired by high endothelial venule regression
#Cancer
#immunity
#lymphnode
Join the Cytoskeleton and Cell migration seminar this afternoon - 4pm (link below)
@hlhorsnell2
will be the second speaker, showing his unpublished work on the mechanical forces through lymph node tissues in immune responses
#tissuebiology
#mechanics