u/Possible_Oil_2594

▲ 12 r/labrats

I am bad at presenting. Are there any online journal clubs or any other ways I can join/fo to improve my presentation skills?

I am in Ecology/Evolution field, so if anyone has any recommendations or any journal clubs I can join online, that would be great!

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u/Possible_Oil_2594 — 10 hours ago
▲ 50 r/labrats

Is it normal to not like my PI as a person, but still work with them well enough to put aside the fact that I don’t want to be friendly with them?

It’s exactly as the title suggests. I don’t think my personality meshes well with my PI. Some labmates like them, and admire his values (that I honestly don’t see…but that’s me) but personally, I don’t see anything in them that makes me think they will be a good mentor in my gradschool life. My definition of a mentor is basically someone who will guide me to become a better scientist, a scientist who still finds research interesting after all the chaos that is gradschool. I am early into grad school, and frankly, I don’t think that my current PI will make me want to continue science. And that’s fine- I can find ways to still find science more interesting, and although rare there are people who make science still interesting so I’m holding on to that.

Anyway, to be fair, I do acknowledge my current PI’s work ethic, appreciate how they are steering my direction, and giving me enough challenges that help me improve career-wise.

But personally, I don’t like their personality. I don’t like the way they talk to me (they act annoyed when I say I don’t understand what they’re saying) so I avoid small talk and just talk about work with them. It’s fine, and it’s definitely something I can handle (for now…and later too I hope…)

I’m just wondering if you think it is a red flag? people would say to escape right away, but I also came from another lab that is the exact opposite. I had a good relationship with my previous PI, and we are actually friends, but soon enough that caused friction, because I chose another path and they took it personally.

What would be a realistic “balanced” relationship (professional but not soul sucking, friendly but with boundaries) with not only PI but other people you work with look like?

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u/Possible_Oil_2594 — 2 days ago

Advice in making construct for RNAi

In my understanding, to make a construct for RNAi, I need to:

  1. find a a unique sequence fragment in the gene I am interested to knockdown
  2. design primer to amplify fragment
  3. build the construct by cloning the sequence to plasmid
  4. transform plasmid into e.coli

Am I understanding it correctly?

Also, I’m just wondering in Step 1, what are the tools I can use to do it? I saw some people use Pfam or InterProScan. Is it basically manually select regions (>300bp) that is unique to the sequence of interest, and then copy that part of the sequence to design a primer with? Also, does it need to be a continuous sequence range or is it possible to pick and choose regions that are not conserved? (Please correct me if I understood something wrong or if this is not possible)

Any suggestion or corrections will be greatly appreciated, thank you!

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u/Possible_Oil_2594 — 13 days ago
▲ 10 r/labrats

I’ve heard that some museums have their own PhD programs and that museum can be another place where I can do research. I’m just wondering how is the work environment/culture in museums?

In other words, what’s a day in a life of a scientist who works in a museum?

I’m thinking Natural History Museums who might have this role..?

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u/Possible_Oil_2594 — 22 days ago