Science

Background: In the Netherlands, it is customary to include ‘propositions’, essentially opinionated statements defended alongside one’s doctoral work. In this post series, I am outlining the arguments supporting my propositions. Proposition #8: Need-driven research is a better investment of taxpayers money than research driven by curiosity. Introduction Science and research are cornerstones of human progress. They enable innovations that shape our lives, help address pressing challenges and expand our understanding of Nature and the Universe. Albert Einstein once said, ...

Background: In the Netherlands, it is customary to include ‘propositions’ with one’s thesis, essentially opinionated statements defended alongside one’s doctoral work. In this post series, I am outlining the arguments supporting my propositions. Proposition #7: The foundations and practical experience of policy making must be included in graduate education. Introduction In today’s interconnected world, politicians are faced with complex decision-making, with consequences on shared resources such as the environment, as well as the national economic competitiveness and societal development. Establishing a dialogue between experts and policymakers is vital to help assure quality of these decisions. ...

Background: In the Netherlands, it is customary to include ‘propositions’ with one’s thesis, essentially opinionated statements defended alongside one’s doctoral work. In this post series, I am outlining the arguments supporting my propositions. Proposition #6: Universities should establish fellowships that fund stays of industry professionals in academic labs. Introduction In a previous post, I argued that the culture of work and research management in industry surpasses that of academia. Industry offers higher salaries and better managerial training, has a larger number of specialized support personnel, generally operates with larger R&D budgets, and implements a range of project management and strategic alignment tools. It also prioritizes reproducibility, automation, and data-driven decision-making to maintain high efficiency and competitiveness. ...

Background: In the Netherlands, it is customary to include ‘propositions’, essentially opinionated statements defended alongside one’s doctoral work. In this post series, I am outlining the arguments supporting my propositions. Proposition #5: The culture of academic research is not keeping pace with advancements in the for-profit sector. I am sure I wrote the concentration somewhere… (feverishly looking through a mix of paper and electronic notes) … I can’t get your environment to install on my machine… (I might if I try very hard, but didn’t you say it should just work?) … You should send an email to Tracy if you’d like to get trained to use this instrument… (she works Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, but might be on vacation; anyway, she’ll send you a test, and after the training is over, you’ll fill out a form and be good to go!)… In academic research, we are often in the business of trying to do something for the very first time. This fosters a culture where unique solutions and one-off tricks are common and celebrated. And honestly, that’s probably unavoidable and mostly alright. In many cases, that’s what I personally love. What’s not alright however, is our tendency to extend this artisanal approach to everything we do. The examples at the start of this post will be familiar to most academic scientists. There are countless others. At the university where I did my PhD, orders for laboratory supplies had to be manually reviewed by no less than four people, causing week-long delays. If you didn’t manually enter the item into the ordering system, it would never arrive. Automatic stock monitoring for common chemicals? Forget about it. Here are more examples: Want to keep your lab notebook old school, pen and paper, scribbling illegibly? Be my guest! Manually entering work hours for every day of 4+ years? Sure - great use of time! (And let’s not forget about somebody having to send reminders about it every month!). I’m far from the first to argue that research needs a productivity boost: 1 ...

This article was co-authored by Kevin Merchant and Martin Holub. Introduction Development of novel drugs has been a critical contributor to extending healthspan and fighting diseases, but the process is complex. The involvement of multiple stakeholders and strict regulatory processes are responsible for some of it, but that contribution is dwarfed by our limited understanding of underlying biological processes. Over the past decade, artificial intelligence (AI) has progressed rapidly showing reasoning ability over large multidimensional datasets. AI, indeed, is transforming the drug discovery process as well. ...

This field recap was writen at end of Q22024. Events that took place after this date are not reflected. In this post, I provide a brief field recap on RNA interference as therapeutic modality. First, I provide background on its biological mechanisms. Next, I follow up with an overview of the siRNA therapeutics field, highlighting approved drugs, as well major ongoing trials. I conclude with a short recap. Mechanism of RNA Interference RNA interference (RNAi) is a process by which RNA molecules suppress gene expression in sequence specific fashion. The process was initially described in late 80’s and early 90’s, [ref, ref], and elucidated at the turn of the century with work that yielded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine [ref]. RNAi is a natural process of gene regulation that has physiological role in wide range of organisms, including mammals and plants. Despite some important differences, the process is mostly conserved among species. In the following, we describe it in broad strokes, focusing on its mechanism in eukaryotic and human cells. ...

I have joined preLights and now will be highlighting a new exciting preprint now and then! For my first article, I have chosen a Bioarxiv paper by Wu et al. where they study cell-wall compromised bacteria and show that chromosome positioning and segregation is controlled by their geometry. You will find my post here. Please leave a comment if you find it a good read.