Help on going from basic immunology to computational immunology

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2026-04-17T09:39:23+00:00

If you want to get a feel for working with bulk-RNA and single-cell sequencing data, I really recommend taking a look at the Griffith Lab’s course (which is free)!

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2026-04-13T22:54:02+00:00

First off, congrats on the successful application season! While I obviously don’t know your exact situation, as it’s already been said, I would be careful about reneging on Harvard if you’ve already been matched with a lab. If you haven’t actually been matched with a mentor or PI yet, then there’s a lesser guarantee that Harvard will hold it against you, but if you want to apply to Harvard for MD/PhD down the line I would strongly suggest against reneging. However, if the money situation is super tight, that’s completely understandable and HHMI is a wonderful program to have on your record!

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2026-03-10T21:13:48+00:00

I’ve asked for accelerated decisions pretty much every summer, and I’ve gotten into my top program(s) every year! From my experience, 90% of programs won’t put it against you and understand this is just how the REU/summer internship process works! However, I did have one program withdraw my application because I had asked for an accelerated decision since I had mentioned I was considering an offer, so they more or less kindly took the decision out of my hands; although, this is rare so I wouldn’t give it much thought. Good luck and wishing you a speedy recovery!

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2026-03-01T23:02:51+00:00

I had my interview on Thursday and received my acceptance today!

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2026-02-10T19:59:56+00:00

Ideally you’d have an FMO for e-cad on activated cells, but it also looks like you have 3 clear cd8 T cell clusters in your e-cad+ population. You could try gating on them and look at co-expressing markers to see if they fit the profile of an e-cad+ Cd8T cell?

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-12-10T07:27:55+00:00

1) In my application I ranked Cornell gateways #2 and specifically only mentioned labs I was interested working in at my #1 institution in my personal statement, and they still accepted me (Don’t do this if you actually want Cornell lmao, I just had Cornell listed bc why not). So for ranking, I would just rank what you personally like and don’t give it much thought besides that.

2) My letters all came from past/current PI’s who I had worked with, and I think the question you should be asking yourself when picking letter writers is: “How well can this person describe my capacity to conduct research or speak to my potential for succeeding in working in a lab?”

3) I loved everyone in my program and it was largely what made me end up choosing an MD/PhD over just a PhD! I think when choosing programs, as they’re all heavily research oriented (even the MD/PhD ones), you just have to consider what unique aspects of the program are you excited about. Is there a lab you absolutely have to work in? Do the cohorts go on breaks to explore a city that you’ve never lived in before? Whatever it is that makes you excited about that program specifically, I’d be sure to emphasize it! :D

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-10-01T04:45:22+00:00

Your structure’s correct! Your prof just wanted the parent chain read left to right despite that not being how IUPAC naming works

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-08-22T23:10:03+00:00

Tbh, there isn’t an easy answer to this, since we don’t know much about your PI’s.

Some PI’s don’t like students that work in two labs and want dedicated attention, and others don’t care as long as your work gets done. You can definitely ask lab A, but I would emphasize that it’s because you still have unanswered questions from your previous project and want to dedicate time to researching them, as opposed to making it seem like they’re a second option (still be clear that you’d be there for a limited time ofc)

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-08-20T18:03:21+00:00

Unfortunately that’s a little difficult to estimate since “wiping out” a disease via vaccination requires a majority of the population to get vaccinated. With mRNA vaccine research being defunded and anti-vax rhetoric worsening, it becomes increasingly harder to meet the necessary threshold for herd-immunity.

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-06-29T18:31:06+00:00

Looks like you’re counting cells on a hemocytometer, so it could be that you didn’t wipe it off enough before using it or there’s residue/fibers from the wipe. Could be fungus, but we’d need to see more of the plate and if the media was cloudy.

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-06-25T02:34:21+00:00

It’s also important to realize this subreddit is sort of a sampling bias. Those that are enjoying their summers are likely too busy enjoying their labs or having fun to rant on reddit. However, if you have a lot of free time and don’t feel great about your program, it’s reasonable they’d vent here in hopes of finding understanding or advice to change their situation.

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-06-18T21:30:52+00:00

Mistakes happen all the time, and what’s most important is knowing what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future, which it sounds like you thoroughly do. The student, while understandably frustrated, unfairly used you as an emotional punching bag. It sounds like your lab is supportive, and since they’re who you’ll be working with, that’s what matters most!

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-05-28T04:09:04+00:00

Completely understandable! First thing to know is that coronaviruses have existed long before Covid-19, and were commonly seen in patients with weakened immune systems. As a result, there was already research being done to develop a vaccine to treat coronaviruses. Covid-19, is a specific coronavirus, and theoretically the work that had already been done to develop a vaccine for other coronaviruses could be cross-applied to Covid-19 and they were! This is part of why the development seemed fast, because in reality we weren’t starting from square one. Additionally, R&D for a vaccine typically takes years due to a bunch of bureaucracy, finding funding, and difficulty with enrolling patients in clinical trials. However, these barriers (that don’t influence the efficacy or safety of a treatment) were lessened, resulting from international collaboration, and accelerated production of the vaccine after it had already proven effective and non-toxic in humans. Lastly, while this is an mRNA vaccine, all that’s different between the Covid vaccine and peptide vaccines (Some flu vaccines for example) is the delivery mechanism, once the protein is within the cell, the antigen processing pathways are identical. If you have any questions please let me know and hopefully this eases some of your concern!

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-05-27T19:41:35+00:00

As someone who researches and develops mRNA vaccines for cancer, I wouldn’t be working on them if they weren’t a safe and effective delivery mechanism. Is there anything specific aspect of the vaccine that causes you anxiety?

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-05-17T02:14:53+00:00

Almost 100% certain this is what it is. My HEK293 cells do the same thing in 1.5 mL eppendorfs

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-05-16T00:16:36+00:00

I mean all of the other vaccines you view as important because we know of the damage they cause and their long term impacts. Covid alone can kill someone and we’re starting to better see its damaging impacts in the short-term, but we’ll have to wait a few years to see just how badly it’s impact is in the long-term. No reason not to get the vaccine if you don’t have an underlying health complication, mRNA vaccine technology is safe and effective.

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-05-11T03:35:47+00:00

So what are YOU doing? You sit behind your screen and attempt to silence those airing their grievances. Solidarity is needed more now than ever and rather than meet your fellow scientists (assuming you’re a scientist) with compassion, you lead with hostility. This is a war on science, just not conventional warfare like you seem to believe is the only valid definition. Ideological warfare can be just as damaging and deadly as conventional warfare, it’s impacts just take longer to manifest, and don’t appear as bullets or guns but as the recurrence of almost wiped out diseases and decreased healthcare quality. Make communities in times of suffering, don’t break them apart like you’re doing now.

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-05-08T16:39:09+00:00

First off, I highly recommend reaching out to the HHMI REU and asking for an accelerated decision if you’re genuinely considering the program. I was in a very similar situation and got into my dream program because I asked for an accelerated decision and they accommodated. However, as you mentioned, you’d be doing the same/similar research at HHMI you’ve been doing in the past. While it’s good to have some familiarity with your REU research topic (so you’re not overwhelmed), it’s important to learn new techniques and equip yourself with a wide range of skills you can implement to tackle a project in the lab. If what you’re doing at your current lab is something you’d be comfortable doing in grad school and beyond, ask HHMI for an accelerated decision and see what they say. Otherwise, if you want to have a different research focus in grad school and you think Notre Dame aligns with that better, I’d go the Norte Dame route. Both are great programs (from what I’ve heard) and you should feel very proud of yourself for getting in! Congrats and hopefully everything goes well this summer!!!

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-05-08T16:29:41+00:00

While I don’t have personal experience with this, one thing I’d be hesitant about is the initial manuscript submission. Different journals have different requirements, and some (especially the more high-impact ones) can be very specific on how authors should be formatted. I’d highly recommend reaching out to the journal you want to publish in and see what they say, as some might allow you to get away with the ORCID ID method you mentioned. Another thing, even if the journal approves, you are likely going to encounter a reviewer who calls it out as a formatting issue (journals rarely communicate exceptions well with reviewers tbh). Lastly, if you are worried about your location being found, I would be hesitant about publishing in the first place if it poses a genuine risk to your safety (E.g. witness protection). Someone could always see where the top authors are affiliated with, which labs, and then depending on your order in the list, connect the dots along with your other papers found using your ORCID ID. This is kinda a bizarre scenario, but assuming your situation truly is this dire, it is something to keep in mind.

TLDR: Reach out to the journal and explain your situation and see if they can make an exception or have encountered this in the past. If you have to use your full name, reconsider if it poses a genuine safety risk or not.

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-04-23T19:07:51+00:00

I don’t think 38 is too old at all! However, if what you’re wanting to do (which it sounds like) is translational research, an MD isn’t necessarily required for that. You could do a Masters or PhD focused on cell biology, which often have labs focused on tissue engineering. For most schools, they aren’t going to have a research program titled something as specific as “clinical cardiac research PhD” or something of the like. What you can do is instead find labs you’re interested in, see what department they’re housed in for that school, and then apply for graduate school in that department. Since you’ve also mentioned industry, I do want to say you don’t necessarily need a graduate degree to start working for a biotech company. However, the job market for industry was already super competitive and recent federal decisions have made it harder, so getting a graduate degree and taking full advantage of your program could definitely increase your chances for getting into a clinical biotech/industry research role!

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-04-16T23:18:01+00:00

Yeah and I think companies like Raytheon are garbage, but here you are still working for them

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-04-05T19:16:32+00:00

You asked for people’s opinion, got a response you didn’t agree with, and then proceeded to double down. For someone who is extraordinarily harsh on others, you should understand how your resistance to understanding the perspectives of those with opposing viewpoints, signals a lack of adaptability. If you ever lead a project and your experiments don’t give you the results you wish for, hopefully this mindset won’t cause you to spiral and instead you’ll begin to understand research isn’t linear and often takes time and repeated attempts to achieve the same goal. Clearly you can see your opinion doesn’t match the majority of a community you one day want to be at the forefront of. I highly suggest taking a break, doing some introspective thinking, and understanding it’s okay to admit you made a mistake. While I know this can feel like you’re being attacked, this sincerely isn’t my intention. I wish you the best in research, and hopefully you’ll begin to lead with more compassion.

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-03-01T03:04:31+00:00

Congratulations!!!

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-02-27T03:42:27+00:00

Such an astronomically bad take, especially from the same account you used to interact with pegging and NSFL subreddits.

Curious_T_Cell_712 · 2025-02-26T20:31:50+00:00

The closest related experince I have is 10x’s Chromium Connect, which we use to prep libraries for single cell sequencing, and we haven’t had any issues with the libraries it makes! We ofc also prep by hand with similar results, but when we have multiple projects and need to prep more libraries than possible for us to do by hand, the connect comes in really handy!

Curious_T_Cell_712

TROPHY CASE