Graduating soon, but lacking research experience

[tobyollie]

Hi, 

I'm a pre-med, but I've recently began to consider grad school. I have a summer of experience in organic synthesis and I have just started in a new lab that is also ochem based, but has much more biology collaborations. My dilemma is that I will be graduating in fall 17, but I feel like I still won't have enough research experience to be a strong candidate. I am willing to volunteer more in the lab, but since I won't be a full time student, financial issues come up. In case I do decide to pursue grad school, I do have some questions.

- If I only have an analytical/organic background, how much biology could I get into? Would it be possible to apply for a grad program that deals with genome modifications and/or single molecule imaging?

- I have 2 strong LOR's. One from my first PI, who is also a dean, and I took him for ochem. The second is from my current PI. For a 3rd LOR, I have the option of either a physicist or biophysicist. My physics prof is already established and has some major achievements, while my biochem teacher is an assistant prof who is on a strong rise. 

- How necessary are publications? It would be awesome to apply for programs such as Caltech and Scripps, but I would like to remain realistic. 

- I don't have any GRE scores yet, but if I begin to feel more strongly about grad school, I will get those asap. 

[St Andrews Lynx]

I can't really give expert guidance on the bio side of things. However, it would perhaps be easier to apply to a Chemistry Dept/Chem PhD program and look for bio faculty who are affiliated with the Chem Dept. There's usually a good overlap.

Obviously, the more research you can do the better. However, it isn't just about adding a line to your CV where 2x months of research> x months. You do research (i) to figure out if you enjoy it (ii) to gain a better idea of what your future careers/areas of study in grad school will be (iii) learn some basic experimental techniques that you can apply to grad school research (...but also, it's usually OK to jump into a totally new area of research and have to learn techniques from scratch again).

A year of academic research should be OK, provided you have good letters of rec from the prof who supervised you, and you can talk intelligently about the experience in your statement of purpose. Publications aren't necessary - if you have them then that's great, but people aren't expecting you to have them, even at the top schools. 

[tobyollie]

Should funding vs. PI personality be a huge deciding factor when figuring out where to apply? 

[St Andrews Lynx]

It really boils down to balancing how much funding and how problematic the PI's personality. 

Some personality traits can be adjusted to: you may not like having a hands-off PI, but it doesn't (necessarily) have to make your life miserable or damage your career prospects. An abusive PI should be avoided at all costs, no matter how much funding they have. If you have a high bullish*t threshold then you might be fine working for a PI who is merely "demanding", provided the lab is well-funded and you get a lot of good papers. People have different tolerance levels for bullish*t - it's your choice what you are willing to put up with/sacrifice...and for what. 

Good funding will make your academic life easier. You won't have to be stuck teaching for your entire PhD. You won't have as many resource fights with your fellow grads. Not only check that your PI's have funding, but that their grants are running for several more years after you join. If a lab suddenly loses its funding, the most vulnerable lab members are the 1st and 2nd years (who risk being asked to leave with a Masters or transfer labs). 

When applying it is better to keep an open mind and apply to more schools rather than less. Having several options to choose from never hurts. 

[tobyollie]

When looking at their grants, how do I determine that they will be active for 5-7 years after I join? Also, should I check if the PI has consecutive grants from the same foundations, which could mean that a particular funder is in it for the long run?

[Eigen]

I would say you're thinking way too much about funding, way too early. 

Looking at grants is good when you're deciding between schools that have made you offers, not where to apply this far out. 

I think you'd have a hard time getting into a graduate program in biology/biochemistry with your background (although you don't say how much advanced coursework you have). As mentioned, I think moving from OChem into a sensor design group, and then into single molecule imaging is your best bet. 

In my opinion, PI personality (and your fit with them) is the single most important factor in grad school. It dwarfs everything else!

[Edotdl]

-In general, you should be applying to programs that satisfy your research interests. You might find some Chem programs that will allow you do work in bio or Bio programs that seem more welcoming to a chem background. I'm not in the field, but I'd say the transition seems reasonable.

-I'd choose the professor you have the better relationship with/you think will write you a better( or more relevant) rec. I had two LORs from young assistant profs and still did fine.

-Publications are definitely not necessary. Of course, they do help (quite a bit, usually).

-I'm not sure you can get enough/accurate information about funding and PI personality before you apply. These are things that you generally figure out/ask out during interviews or after acceptances.

Hope this helps.

[tobyollie]

9 hours ago, Eigen said:

I would say you're thinking way too much about funding, way too early. 

Looking at grants is good when you're deciding between schools that have made you offers, not where to apply this far out. 

I think you'd have a hard time getting into a graduate program in biology/biochemistry with your background (although you don't say how much advanced coursework you have). As mentioned, I think moving from OChem into a sensor design group, and then into single molecule imaging is your best bet. 

In my opinion, PI personality (and your fit with them) is the single most important factor in grad school. It dwarfs everything else!

As far as coursework goes, I am a biochemistry major. I've just finished a course on structure and function of molecular machines and did very well. The class required you to go over many primary literature and review articles to do well since many of the topics were not well covered in textbooks. I am beginning my pchem sequence soon and I also plan on taking the graduate course in ochem. When you say advanced coursework, are you referring to upper division or challenging courses?

Recently, I've been looking into the field of bioorthogonal chemistry. I'm still trying to gauge it by checking out papers from high impact journals, but it does seem interesting, and many of the authors are in the chemistry department at their institution. 

[Eigen]

Maybe I misunderstood, but in your original post you said you were interested in genome editing or single molecule imaging. 

Now you're interested in bioorthogonal chemistry, which is a quite different field, and not something that would commonly be found in a biochemistry/biology graduate program. 

I was referring to advanced coursework in biology, since your initial interest seemed to be very heavily molecular biology based (genome editing, single molecule imaging).

The most important thing is that you have a targeted idea of what you want to study, and how your background prepares you for that. For instance, graduate work in OChem is not good preparation for going to graduate school with a focus on genome editing or single molecule imaging, but it would be good prep for doing work in a synthetic group focused on bioorthogonal functionalization and tagging. 

[tobyollie]

1 hour ago, Eigen said:

Maybe I misunderstood, but in your original post you said you were interested in genome editing or single molecule imaging. 

Now you're interested in bioorthogonal chemistry, which is a quite different field, and not something that would commonly be found in a biochemistry/biology graduate program. 

I was referring to advanced coursework in biology, since your initial interest seemed to be very heavily molecular biology based (genome editing, single molecule imaging).

The most important thing is that you have a targeted idea of what you want to study, and how your background prepares you for that. For instance, graduate work in OChem is not good preparation for going to graduate school with a focus on genome editing or single molecule imaging, but it would be good prep for doing work in a synthetic group focused on bioorthogonal functionalization and tagging. 

Sorry, the bioorthogonal interest just recently came up after I made the post. I was looking in some chemical biology journals and the topic came up so I'm currently discussing it with the graduate student I'm working with. I'm not sure if this is an active area of research yet, but in response to the genome editing interest, I wanted to look into chemistry that deals with CRISPR. As far as coursework in biology, I have microbio, molecular machines, and will have synthetic bio under my belt. Other courses I could look into would be cell and molecular bio (if time permits). I'm not sure that there are any other classes I can take that would go in-depth on the actual genome modification process and not just how the CRISPR tools work.

[St Andrews Lynx]

23 hours ago, chadwang said:

When looking at their grants, how do I determine that they will be active for 5-7 years after I join? Also, should I check if the PI has consecutive grants from the same foundations, which could mean that a particular funder is in it for the long run?

You can search on the NIH and NSF websites for active funding under a particular PI's name. They list the start and expected end dates of the big grants. 

 

[Eigen]

3 hours ago, chadwang said:

Sorry, the bioorthogonal interest just recently came up after I made the post. I was looking in some chemical biology journals and the topic came up so I'm currently discussing it with the graduate student I'm working with. I'm not sure if this is an active area of research yet, but in response to the genome editing interest, I wanted to look into chemistry that deals with CRISPR. As far as coursework in biology, I have microbio, molecular machines, and will have synthetic bio under my belt. Other courses I could look into would be cell and molecular bio (if time permits). I'm not sure that there are any other classes I can take that would go in-depth on the actual genome modification process and not just how the CRISPR tools work.

CRISPR is not generally considered a chemistry technique- it's more molecular biology or chemical biology, and you would come at it from that background more than a background in (what sounds like) organic and physical chemistry. 

You seem to be talking about specialized courses, I'm referring more to *basic* courses that give you a strong foundation in a field, particularly the research approach predominately used in that field. 

[aberrant]

Speaking as a person working on CRISPR, research on CRISPR can be any (or combination) of the following depending on your interest:

1. structural biology and biochemistry (enzyme-substrate interactions, effector complex assembly, enzyme kinetics, etc.)

2. cell biology (application of CRISPR systems in vivo), or

3. bioinformatics (discovery and analysis of cas genes, cas locus, or simply cas elements from 

If you going after option #1, having any knowledge related to biochemistry / biophysics with some molecular biology and physical chemistry will be very helpful. Obviously, cell biology is required for option #2, and ability to learn computer languages / writing program will be very useful for option #3.

If you want to do a PhD in a different field (outside of ochem) then maybe you should consider taking necessary undergraduate courses in that different field, instead of graduate level ochem courses. Otherwise, your profile will be very ochem-oriented, and I'm unsure if it is competitive to biochemi/biophysics/molecular bio/cell bio programs. Obviously, you can still get into a Chemistry program and join a lab that works on/with CRISPR through the aforementioned themes, but that will also limit your choices of programs that fits your profile.

When you said single molecule imaging, it can be done through either chemistry, biochemistry, biology, or physics programs depending on which specific technique you are interested in. As Eigen suggested, directly go into this field with an ochem background can be challenging.