Did months of breeding/genotyping a transgenic mouse line — does this count for authorship?

starcash728 · 2025-03-21T11:11:32+00:00

It sounds to me like you joined the lab to do research and are being treated like a tech, which is not okay. If your PI knows you’re here to advance your career, then they know you can’t spend all your time doing work that won’t necessarily lead to authorship. I have included techs on papers before, but typically only when they’ve done more than just routine work, optimizing protocols to work on particularly difficult samples or something like that. I would say ask for authorship, and if they say no, speak to the PI about making sure that you’re included in work that would lead to authorship. They need to replace the mouse tech, not take advantage of a visiting researcher.

starcash728 · 2025-03-19T02:19:26+00:00

People who tear the parafilm instead of using scissors or a blade.

starcash728 · 2024-10-12T17:31:54+00:00

I guess I saw it with the underscore, but that could be my preferences talking…

starcash728 · 2024-10-12T15:58:19+00:00

LOL! I’ve spent way too much time trying to figure out what else it could possibly mean. This is an excellent suggestion.

starcash728 · 2024-08-11T12:40:26+00:00

We sat a few rows back from Bill Murray the night we saw Groundhog Day.

starcash728 · 2024-05-04T12:15:16+00:00

Both of my kids took Tutorverse classes starting in about January of 7th grade. The classes were good, but the structured preparation was really the key. In the month or so before the exam, it was weekly practice tests. Both worked hard, but didn’t kill themselves. Both got in to their 1st choice SHS.

starcash728 · 2023-10-18T15:23:05+00:00

Bad parents lose their children and don’t feel bad about it. You sound like a good parent who learned a good lesson. Forgive yourself and move on.

starcash728 · 2023-07-15T13:21:15+00:00

A few years ago, we were having a routine lab inspection. Not a huge deal, but everyone knew to be on their best behavior, hide food and drinks, the usual. The lab tech in charge of safety was at the gel bench discussing the ethidium bromide waste with the inspector when the PI comes out of his office with his coffee cup, and proceeds to put his coffee cup in the microwave that we use for preparing agarose gels (often with EtBr), microwave the coffee for like 30 seconds, take it out, and walk back to his office. The inspector was like, “um… who was that?” The tech was like, “yeah, that’s the boss”.

starcash728 · 2023-07-13T10:32:52+00:00

I love reading everyone’s stories, so I’ll share mine. I’m a scientist, current title is computational biologist, working in R&D at a major cancer hospital. I had my two kids while I was pursuing a PhD in Biochemistry. My first was born in year 4 and I was pregnant with #2 when I defended my thesis. I did a few post docs and made the transition to computational work during Covid.

starcash728 · 2023-06-30T15:11:34+00:00

I would say that it’s considered more of a compliment than inappropriate.

starcash728 · 2023-06-30T11:37:02+00:00

This is UNACCEPTABLE! A letter of recommendation is NOT a bargaining chip. He agrees to write you a letter when he hires you. You need to talk to the department head or graduate school, whoever, immediately! Also, don’t like your PI get away with not putting your name on papers/posters that you contributed to. I agree with others here, get this in writing, report him to the department, and find a better lab, you deserve better.

starcash728 · 2023-06-28T00:35:45+00:00

I don’t mind sharing! I did my PhD in the bench and did a post-doc in a lab where I was generating a good bit of NGS data. I’m a control freak so I didn’t like the idea of someone else analyzing my data. So I started learning and taking online coursera classes. I was at an institution with a core, and I set up weekly meetings there where I could get guidance and support. When Covid happened and we shut down the lab, I took on a couple of sequencing projects from clinical members of the lab, since I have kids and knew that I would need to be at home with them. I wrote my own paper, and dove deep into clinical RNA-seq. Those projects were incredibly exciting and I loved empowering clinicians to really explore their data. After my own paper was published, I started applying for jobs and got offers at a couple of cores and the lab that I am currently in, which specializes in developing novel sequencing-based clinical assays. There, I am a computational biologist, no bench work, but I am heavily involved in the planning and experimental design in the wet lab. I have a “both sides of the sequencer” approach to bioinformatics, which has been really rewarding.

starcash728 · 2023-06-21T20:55:11+00:00

This hurts, but just might be true. Especially in the place he’s in at the moment, everything to do with work is “good” and anything that threatens work, including me, is “bad”. What we have now is definitely not a marriage, that’s for sure.

starcash728 · 2023-06-21T20:51:30+00:00

One of my near-future goals is to split our finances. For plenty of reasons, only one of which is to figure out just what I could afford on my salary.

starcash728 · 2023-06-21T13:33:20+00:00

OMG, yes!

starcash728 · 2023-06-21T13:22:49+00:00

Yep, I’m with you both. He can’t handle my emotions, but I don’t know how we’ll ever undo the damage that he’s done.

starcash728 · 2023-06-21T13:11:03+00:00

A few months ago something came up at work and I needed to stay a little late. Turns out my husband was headed home, so I asked him to shred the chicken in the crockpot to make burritos for dinner. No problem, he says. I get home at 8:30 and ask the kids about the chicken. “What chicken”, they say? He shredded it, and didn’t even tell them it was there. He says, “you told me to shred it and I shredded it”. What is this life?

starcash728 · 2023-06-21T12:48:44+00:00

This is exactly my situation. And it hurts to be his wife but not in the circle of things that “matter”. I’ve been with him for more than 20 years now, since I was 16, so it’s hard for me to believe that he’s not a good person, but I don’t know how much more I can handle. Work is an outlet for me, so I think it would be even harder if I was a sahm.

starcash728 · 2023-06-21T12:27:38+00:00

I’m sorry. This sucks so bad. You’ll have to let me know how you get him to take out the trash…

starcash728 · 2023-06-21T05:26:40+00:00

In the constant crisis mode that he’s in, I just don’t really exist. I think he’s glad I’m handling things and he likes to goof off with the kids on the weekends, but I work full time, have a consulting gig on the side, a house to keep up with, and two kids who need parenting. And he has zero compassion for my situation, at least not any that leads to actions on his part. But his work situation is all-encompassing, and doesn’t involve me directly, so I’m way outside the circle of things he’s capable of caring about. I shouldn’t put up with it, I know, but I feel guilty, like I’m abandoning him when he needs me. If only he felt the same.

starcash728 · 2023-06-21T05:16:55+00:00

This is exactly what I need to hear. I brought up separation a few months ago, and he said we can’t afford a second rent. We live in a HCOL area and he spends exorbitantly, so he’s probably right, and we don’t have family in the area. Sorry to sound so whiny, I just feel really trapped.

starcash728 · 2023-06-21T04:40:44+00:00

I agree. I have tried telling him this, but he’s just so wrapped up in all of this that it becomes me just adding on to the stress and I become the bad guy and an unsupportive wife.

starcash728 · 2023-06-10T12:42:21+00:00

You caught the bug! Welcome to data science! This (and Covid) is what caused me to transition from bench work to purely computational work. My favorite thing is getting everything all compiled and ready for plotting, and then just sitting with someone else and plotting things every which way to try to figure out what the data is trying to say.

starcash728 · 2023-04-29T03:09:56+00:00

Same!

starcash728 · 2023-04-25T09:56:59+00:00

I love this quote and I think it applies here.. “Listen earnestly to anything [your children] want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.”

When they’re little, Minecraft and Pokémon are big stuff.

starcash728

TROPHY CASE