What's your area and level of expertise?

Danger

My main interest in Biology was from the reproductive standpoint, but now that I'm married that's pretty much shot to hell.

madphysics

Hell, I feel like a youngster. I'm a high school student just starting a physics course. I've learned more on this forum than from anybody else( excluding my parents. Ph.d's in molecular biology and neuroscience.). I looooove this stuff( pardon the teenage idiocy occasionally).

GoldShadow

As for me, I'm just a lowly undergraduate majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology, and seriously considering medical school. I'm also a certified EMT-B if that counts for anything. At the moment, I'm trying to get a position in my cell biology professor's lab to see if I would prefer the research lifestyle.

jim mcnamara

I'm the senior technical weenie (systems & DB's) at a utility company. Degrees in Botany, Chemistry, Population Biology. Really looong time ago. Taught undergrad Biology about 40 years ago. Left to cover medical costs for kid (faculty had no insurance) and stayed in systems programming. My salary immediately tripled on leaving teaching - I view teaching as very worthwhile. Told me what our Western culture really values....
Still teach a class every now and then.

I'm semi-current in plant taxonomy, and some very minor aspects of non-linear applications like dispersion modeling. I was active years ago in Fractint, if you know about that.

Red Rum

Some of you may remember me as Evo's alter ego. Well let me tell you about the past she's given me. I graduated in Microbiology in 1980 and completed a masters in the same subject in 1982. I vanished into industry for 10 years before returning to my alma mater to complete a PhD in food microbiology in 1995, although it was to be another 2 years before I was organised enough to graduate. I recall my graduating partner was 21 years old, which was exactly the number of years since I had first registered as an undergraduate. After three years of postdoctoral life I decided to return to industry and I'm now a brewer. I sometimes toy with the idea of going back teaching but I find academic life to be one more of life's lies. Perhaps some day Evo will decide I'm due for a change of direction again. Meanwhile, if I can ever be of help in issues of industrial hygiene or brewing science, I'm happy to oblige. Right, Evo?

Evo

Does this mean that you will eventually have time to participate? Red Rum is flown all over the world due to his expertise, he gets to go to the most incredible places. All I get is pictures of him partying in exotic locations.

Red Rum

I am honour bound to do so.

Red Rum

Note the way Evo has programmed me to use English spellings like colour , tyre and programme. She's really such a clever lady.

Charion

Bitter postdoc here. Mostly doing high-throughput postgenomics and single cell analysis. Looking at single molecule-interaction when bored.

Moonbear

Welcome aboard Charion! You've completely stumped me for the first time in a long time...what's postgenomics? I know what genomics is (I'd have had to be living in a bubble not to), but haven't heard the term postgenomics before.

Cincinnatus

I don't know how Charion uses the word, but here's a 1999 editorial in nature genetics that mentions it: http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v23...g1299_375.html it just sounds like another buzzword similar to "systems biology".

Charion

Ah, quite the contrary. I like to describe postgenomics as genome enabled research. In fact it is kind of a fancy word to state that I apply high-throughput genomics (in silico as well as real lab), transcriptomics (mostly microarrays), proteomics (mostly whole-proteome mapping) and metabolome studies to try to understand cellular physiology. Or in other words, the application of genome data-dependent high-throughput techniques. Well, as you can easily see why I prefer to say "postgenomics" rather than typing all that stuff. I had specialized a bit in analyzing regulatory networks and cellular responses on the above given levels but have recently moved on to try my hands on single-cell analyzes.

Of course these approaches were not able to fulfill all the expectations when it was first thought of around the 90s. Much the same way as whole-genome sequencing was not the "golden bullet" one might have hoped it to be. Yet it has been established as a kind of own discipline, less due to the biological answers that are sought (as, obviously the human proteome project will have little overlap with whole-proteome mappings of, say, certain bacteria), but mostly due to the similarity of approach and way of dealing with the data (though as of yet, the data analysis part is not maturing as fast as the actual technical aspects). Hence there is a large overlap in this area with bioinformatical workgroups.
Interesting enough postgenomics does have a connection to systems biology, as it was (and is still) belived that the high-throughput techniques might in fact be a way to get sufficient quantitative data for modelling approaches.
Essentially the basic difference between postgenomics approaches and more traditional one is, in my opinion, the throughput of data and the way to deal with it.

As I am writing this post rather late between ending work and going home I will check back tomorrow whether I made any sense, or not.

wobblebase

Hello all. I'm starting my 4th year in undergrad majoring in Biology with a concentration in Microbiology. I've been snooping on here for a while after taking a physics course last year and wandered down to these biology forums. Upon graduation, I hope to attend a graduate program in Molecular Microbiology or Medical Microbiology(leaning toward this). Nice to meet all of you.

Red Rum

Great to hear from another microbiologist. If I can ever be of assistance, just ask.

Coheda

I'm still in highschool, but I'm aiming to getting a degree in Microbiology and/or Biochemistry.

Mike H

Realized I should probably mention this since I do occasionally run on at the mouth here.

- B.S. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, minor in chemistry, worked for 2.5 years in a biophysics lab as an undergrad and tech.

- Ph.D. in (bio)physical chemistry. Became very bitter.

- Currently a postdoc in a biophysics lab. Have had love of science renewed.

I also have non-professional research interests in understanding the chemistry of single malt scotches and in human courtship rituals. ;)

dmchugh52

New to the site. Freshman major in biology, anatomy and physiology track. Probably going to attend grad school for exercise science.