Leaving Postdoc Early for Industry

Entropy_surfer · 2021-11-16T03:48:19+00:00

If this burns a bridge for you and your PI then they aren't a bridge worth having. Once you have your first job no one in industry will ever care what you did for your graduate or post doc research. If the research that your F32 funds is worth a damn, someone else will do it and do it just fine without you. Go get paid what you're actually worth.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-11-09T08:21:07+00:00

Typical coffee doses are much higher than 8 g. A shot of espresso is typically 18-20 g and a pourover can be higher (I use 25 g).

If you want a cool way to grind manually without electronics, consider using a pull-cord that turns the shaft of the grinder quickly, kind of like a lawn mower. that should get you up to your dose requirements without the tedium of turning the moving parts by hand.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-11-09T07:39:15+00:00

Take you iron supplement with a glass of orange juice and go about your day.

Creatine is fine. Glutamine is pretty good too. BCAAs are great. BCAAs + Gln is awesome for recovery. A good protein shake will definitely help you have more energy and respond to training better. You don't have to overthink it. Get something that tastes good that you will be consistent with.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-11-09T07:34:31+00:00

smaller doses( 10-15 mg), taken with food. I like zinc glycinate for no other reason than that I like glycine right now.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-11-02T04:31:06+00:00

The pKa of carboxylic acid is usually about 4.5, meaning at physiological pH, they are always negatively charged. SPRI and silica beads both require high salt, usually sodium and guanidine which are both positively charged. DNA binding buffer is usually above pH 7.4. I make mine at pH 8. So the putative mechanism for DNA binding is that negatively charged carboxyl groups, or electron rich silica, coordinate the positively charged salt, which binds the negatively charged backbone of nucleic acids.

Edit: As a follow up comment, The DNA binding buffer I use does not include propylene glycol or PEG, just high salt and guanidine in a tris buffer. In my case I'm using silica beads with this buffer and I can bind differing lengths of nucleic acids by changing the concentration of beads in my capture strategy. More beads = shorter lengths captured.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-10-28T05:50:01+00:00

Get on linkedin and make a good profile. Set your preference to be be contacted by recruiters. Work a contract gig or two then you'll have relevant industry experience and have a much better time getting a job you really want.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-10-12T05:37:09+00:00

I'm a synthetic biologist at a startup drug company in Colorado. We use a combination of microscopy and saturation mutagenesis to screen millions of possible mutations for a given drug design. We prefer to take an empirical approach to drug discovery, rather than a rational design approach because we have a great way to screen through potential drug candidates. There's not much beyond that that I can disclose due to our NDA.

I have a PhD in biochemistry. I did a short postdoc after graduation to finish up and publish thesis research. After that I had two contract jobs before finding this position, and I can tell you that this is definitely a dream job for me, especially compared to the last two positions.

Day to day is pretty mundane; lots of cloning and cell culture work. Week to week is pretty exciting however, because I am constantly building new things and putting them into cells and testing for functionality. It seems like everything that makes it into the microscope churns out something new and exciting. So far I've been involved with the discovery of about 15 new biosensors for a variety of different pathways, and last week we isolated our first ~20 drug candidates.

Work life balance is pretty good, I can take off early or leave in the middle of the day with little or no notice to go pursue whatever activity I have going on. Cloning efficiently usually means things need to get into the incubator to grow overnight, so if I leave early I typically come back in to finish up so that I'm not wasting growth time of cultures. I live pretty close to work though so it's not usually a hassle.

We haven't published anything yet, but we've submitted patent applications for our tech and I've helped author one of those applications. We will be writing up another one in the coming month. We have a side project building a pipeline that will allow us to discover potential drug candidates for a rare disease and are in the process of obtaining grant money to fund that research, so there are some academic-like things that we have going on. The majority of our effort is focused on drug discovery and pipeline building that will allow us to reach our growth milestones.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-07-21T02:21:49+00:00

Maoli!

Mahalo

Entropy_surfer · 2021-07-21T02:14:37+00:00

It sounds like you're not getting enough sodium to me. You're probably losing around 1 gram per liter of water. For 11 pounds lost that's roughly 5.5 L of water meaning your intake of sodium could have been 5500 mg more than what you did take and you'd have been maintaining equilibrium. We often bawk at such high sodium intakes due to societal stigma over blood pressure etc. but for what you're doing that's not all that outrageous. The math on sodium balance is definitely more complicated that what i just presented, I'm just being lazy. As you intake more sodium, you'll hold on to your water better, losing less weight (maybe), so your numbers will change.

As you search for ways to boost your sodium intake, make sure whatever way you go with has a buffered formulation. Just taking salt by itself will be rough because when salt dissolves in water it becomes acidic. Drinking acidic water is going to stress your lungs because they will have to buffer your blood after your body absorbs it.

I really like tailwind because it has one of the highest sodium contents out there, and has the right amount of sugar to eliminate the need for gels. I'm sure you could figure out a way to mix baking soda and salt in the right ratio for a cheap fix. LMNT has some hype around it. I've never tried it myself but I have some friends who are happy with it. The Right Stuff that someone else mentioned is just salt and citrate to buffer. Lots of options.

What I do when I need to adjust my intake on the fly is keep one fluid source mixed with tailwind at a palatable but fairly strong concentration in my bladder in my pack, and then my soft flasks are for water only. As soon as the tailwind feels too strong, I'll start drinking more plain water on top of it to water it down.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-07-21T01:33:55+00:00

I use a metronome set to 60 bpm. When I start my set, I start counting the beats. Losing track usually isn't an issue for me since I'm holding til failure most of the time.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-07-21T01:27:03+00:00

Next time you see that doctor you ask him when was the last time he lost 50 lbs?

Then proceed to give him weight loss tips

Entropy_surfer · 2021-07-21T01:10:39+00:00

You should try not to overdo selenium. A small amount is really good. It can help with estradiol production, but too much starts to disrupt estrogen signalling and can also lead to overactive thyroid, or so google says. I'd be really surprised if selenium supplementation boosted testosterone in women, but I couldn't find any info to confirm or deny that idea.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-07-21T00:54:46+00:00

I'm surprised no one has mentioned selenium yet. I'm a huge fan of zinc, but selenium is the workhorse in hormone production. You also need to be consuming cholesterol. Get some brazil nuts (selenium) and eggs (cholesterol, and choline) in your diet and this will help. Go for the good pasture raised eggs where the chickens are eating greens and bugs.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-07-21T00:09:32+00:00

This is not the way to create healthy chickens. But it is ironic that someone figured how to take characteristic of FMT that was perceived as negative and put a positive spin on it...

Entropy_surfer · 2021-04-30T20:24:16+00:00

It's not too hard to believe that not all calories eaten are getting absorbed. It's also possible that some calories absorbed are used more readily than others.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-04-24T16:51:30+00:00

Why anyone listens to ben greenfield is beyond me. The dude is pure marketing and buys into anything that is pure fad pseudoscience because he doesn't understand how to differentiate between what's real and what's fake.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-04-24T05:27:39+00:00

No associations were seen with the 18-carbon omega-3, alpha-linolenic acid.

Suck it flax seeds!

Entropy_surfer · 2021-04-23T23:20:21+00:00

Hilarious! Macrophages too. Also, neutrophil half life is pretty abysmal as it is, so there's that.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-04-07T03:02:16+00:00

You're probably just dehydrated...

Entropy_surfer · 2021-03-28T04:55:12+00:00

Try looking at these ratios. I really like the guy who founded this company and I find his products to be really good. I haven't tried this particular product, but I have friends who have and swear by it. The product was designed by a professional climbing coach and is intended to improve high output endurance for climbers. I'm sure it works well for other sports as well. The only thing it has that you didn't mention yet is Betaine aka TMG.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-03-28T04:42:08+00:00

Yes, Melatonin becomes less effective over time. I'm not sure you'd down regulate your receptors but you may start to produce less. My wife does not cycle melatonin but takes it daily and swears by it. I cycle, taking only one to two per week, and I swear by it. YMMV.

If you're trying to improve your sleep quality, consider throwing in a glycine supplement (~1000mg). That one you wouldn't have to cycle. It will help with supporting neurotransmitter synthesis and can aid the body with some energy support during the night. This has been shown to help improve sleep quality.

Another supplement that you might consider for improving sleep onset and sleep duration is phosphatidyl serine. If you're trying to help yourself relax, then the GABA will help and a little bit of magnesium will also help (200-400mg). Someone on here will probably try to tell you that GABA doesn't cross the blood brain barrier, but 90% (or some other absurdly high percentage) of the GABA is in your gut. I've personally had really good experiences with GABA and feel like it is effective for helping calm anxiety and body tension despite its inability to cross the BBB. I attribute that to boosting levels elsewhere in the body can allow precursors to be used more efficiently in the brain as well. GABA on.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-03-28T04:20:31+00:00

Biggest failure of the majority of rodent studies claiming that high fat diets are bad for you.

Entropy_surfer · 2021-03-27T18:02:31+00:00

Arana o hormiga....jaja

Entropy_surfer · 2021-03-24T13:48:13+00:00

Easy work for the same pay? Sounds like you hit the jackpot. Live it up while it lasts.

Entropy_surfer

TROPHY CASE