File Photo Brittney-Shea Herbert got an early start in grant writing during graduate school at the University of Texas, Austin, when a visiting lecturer from NASA encouraged her to apply for a fellowship, and she won it. Herbert says that applying for that first grant forced her to organize her thinking about the next steps in her research. As a postdoc in the lab run by telomerase re-searchers Jerry Shay and Woody Wright at the UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Herbert put her graduate

Passion leads many scientists away from the bench and into world policy organizations. But policy making and diplomacy require both art and science, and universities and fellowship programs can help life scientists acquire skills they don't always learn in their labs. Take Achal Bhatt, an analyst in the National Immunization Program (NIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. As Bhatt worked toward her PhD on mycobacteria, which cause tuberculosis, she became incre

You can never go home again. Sources for my book on alternate careers told me the switch falls in one direction only.1I never dreamed of going back because writing allows me to learn about subjects as different as conservation research and the Y chromosome. Janet Joy, a senior program officer at the National Research Council (NRC) since 1995, says she has no plans to return to the bench either. Before heading to work at the NRC, she was a neuroscientist at the National Institute of Mental Healt

Editor's Note: This is the final installment in the series on sex-based differences in the biology of males and females. Past articles are: "The Inequality of Drug Metabolism","Sex-based Differences Continue to Mount"," "X and Y Chromosomes Concern More Than Reproduction", "Deciphering How the Sexes Think", and "Yes, Biologically Speaking, Sex Does Matter". Lisa Damiani For as long as demographic records have existed in the United States, women have outlived men. When flappers were big, a woman

After one of my recent talks at a graduate school, an immunology student asked how she could get writing experience and develop samples for a portfolio. Many students who want to write or pursue a business career, for example, wonder whether they should get additional degrees. "Do I need a journalism degree for science writing? An education degree to teach? An MBA for a biotechnology job? A second masters gave me practical experience and a place to meet a network of colleagues. Some new program

For this article, Karen Young Kreeger interviewed Steven Reppert, chairman of neurobiology and Higgins Family professor of neuroscience, University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Joseph S. Takahashi, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and the Walter and Mary E. Glass professor, department of neurobiology and physiology at Northwestern University. Data is derived from the Science Watch/Hot Papers database and the Web of Science (ISI, Philadelphia). P.L. Lowrey et al., "Positiona

When filled with angst over choosing my career more than 10 years ago, I felt relieved when I found other people whose anxieties mirrored my own. At a science communication course at Oregon State University in Corvallis, I met an engineer who wanted to become a technical writer and a botanist who planned to write about basic scientific discoveries. Drinking beers or coffee with these folks proved as helpful in my becoming a science writer as did writing courses—and we've kept in touch. Bu

Editor's Note: This is the fifth article in a series on sex-based differences in the biology of males and females. The final article in the series will cover sex-based differences in life expectancy. Lisa Damiani More than 30 years ago, researchers noted for the first time the pharmacokinetic differences between men and women. They found that women pass antipyrine, a drug used to study liver metabolism, more quickly than men; this occurred around ovulation and during the luteal phase of their m

When I gave birth to my son a couple of years ago, I wondered how I would balance my work and family life, day to day. How would I meet a big deadline if the daycare center informed me my son had a fever? What would happen if my train from the office got delayed? I decided to work at home, and with my husband's help, my family has muddled through. Bench scientists usually can't work at home, however. They can only seek employers who will allow them to dash to daycare centers should their childr

Editor's Note: This is the fourth article in a series on sex-based differences in the biology of males and females. Future articles in the series will cover sex-based differences in drug metabolism and in life expectancy. Lisa Damiani In the 1970s, medical textbooks noted that lupus patients should not get pregnant because it could kill them, recalls physician Michael Lockshin. "I was challenged by a medical student, who had lupus, to show the data to prove that. But it didn't exist and it was a

Editor's Note: This is the third article in a series on sex-based differences in the biology of males and females. Future articles in the series will cover sex-based differences in autoimmunity, drug metabolism, and life expectancy. While responses to "What's the difference between men and women?" might evoke answers about reproductive plumbing and hormones, researchers are unearthing some subtle, genomic reasons for the differences. So far, the linchpins to finding these genomic variations seem

Editor's Note: This is the second article in a series on sex-based differences in the biology of males and females. Future articles in the series will cover sex-based differences in genetics, autoimmunity, and drug metabolism. Stereotypes aside, women and men do process information in singular ways. In the past, tests that tried to pinpoint those variations were fraught with inconsistencies and irregularities. But now, by studying the brain itself, researchers are learning that the sexes use dif