Is doing a PhD worthwhile? Why do a PhD? These questions might appear simple, and yet they may have many answers depending on our goals and motivations. Here, I will share what I find worthwhile in pursuing a PhD, what motivated me almost 20 years ago to perform PhD research. I always thought of doctoral … Continue reading Why do a PhD?
Science
Guidelines for single-cell proteomic experiments
Henry Ford remarked that coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success. Working together is also more fun. Thus, from the very beginning, we sought to help colleagues adopt and use single-cell proteomic methodologies that our laboratory developed, and to do so following best practices To develop and disseminate … Continue reading Guidelines for single-cell proteomic experiments
Adsorption losses during single-cell proteomics
Proteins are wonderfully diverse! Their physicochemical diversity is essential to animating life, to performing the myriad functions necessary to process energy, nutrients and information in living systems. The physicochemical diversity of proteins also poses challenges to proteomic analysis. Different amino acid sequences can adsorb to various surfaces, thus resulting in losses, reduced sensitivity and even … Continue reading Adsorption losses during single-cell proteomics
Framework for increasing proteomics throughput
Simultaneously achieving achieving deep proteome coverage, high data completeness, high throughput, and high sensitivity has been a long standing challenge in the field of proteomics. This challenge is particularly evident and relevant to single-cell proteomics, which has the potential to enable mechanistic investigations of key biological questions, such as signaling mechanisms based on protein binding, modifications, and … Continue reading Framework for increasing proteomics throughput
Accessible single-cell proteomics
This aim for a “model T” single-cell proteomics has been our guiding philosophy in the development of methods for single-cell proteomics.
Label-free single-cell proteomics
Recently, Matthias Mann and colleagues published a preprint (doi: 10.1101/2020.12.22.423933v1) reporting a label-free mass-spectrometry method for single-cell proteomics. Many colleagues asked me what I think about the preprint, and I summarized a few comments in the peer review below. I did not examine all aspects of the work, but I hope my comments are useful: … Continue reading Label-free single-cell proteomics
Promoting (your) research
"I am a scientist focused on conducting research, not on promoting it." This thinking strongly resonated with me when I was a PhD student. If it resonates with you, read on to learn why and how you should promote (your) research. Common approaches to promoting your research include aiming to publish your papers in elite … Continue reading Promoting (your) research
Bibliography for NIH proposals
NIH requires adding PMCID to references cited in proposals, and PMCID may be difficult to add because many reference libraries and citation styles omit them. As a result, some colleagues add them manually, which is rather time consuming. To avoid this drudgery, I wrote a couple of scripts available from this GitHub repository that allow … Continue reading Bibliography for NIH proposals
The cost of omics
Next generation DNA sequencing is ubiquitously integrated in modern biomedical research while mass-spectrometry proteomics remains less ubiquitous. In fact, mass-spectrometry proteomics is conspicuously missing from projects that desperately need it. Why is DNA sequencing better integrated with biomedical research? This question comes up often in my conversations with colleagues. A commonly suggested answer is the … Continue reading The cost of omics
Research success
We -- the research community -- can be much more successful if we invest more time and effort in what matters: Coming up with original new leads and helping each other grow as scientists and people. Happy and successful year to everybody!
Slavov Lab Blog 