Foster Group Guidelines

A Ph.D. scientist is expected to be the world expert in the area of his/her research. Consequently, a graduate education must produce a scientist capable of (1) thinking independently, (2) identifying a research problem (i.e., a testable hypothesis), (3) devising the means with which to solve the problem (i.e., test the hypothesis), (4) interpreting the resulting data, and (5) judging how his/her work fits into the overall scheme of scientific research. This implies that upon earning the degree, the candidate will have achieved a general mastery of the field in which he/she works, as well as a unique mastery of the specific area of their research. These are non-trivial requirements and for most people achieving them requires uncommon commitment and effort over the course of their graduate careers.

Members of the Foster lab are held to the highest standards in the interpretation of the above mentioned criteria. Group activities are intended to help members achieve their objectives by complementing the didactic and laboratory components of their education.

Lab Meetings

Sub-group Meetings: Bi-weekly, ~1 hr

Lab/Research: Weekly, ~ 1 hr

Formal lab meetings will generally take one of two formats: reporting on research progress or literature.

Research

Research presentations should be of a formal nature, making use of LCD projector, overheads and/or the white-board, as appropriate, and be structured with:

1. a brief introduction that describes the system, current knowledge (progress) and our scientific objectives,
2. a methods section that describes BRIEFLY how the objectives are to be obtained,
3. some representative PRIMARY data (gels, chromatograms, spectra) illustrating results, and
4. a discussion in which the data are interpreted, and conclusions and future plans are presented.

Literature

These presentations should be 'topic-based', rather than on the contents of a single paper. A copy of the most relevant paper (or two) should be given to each lab member at least five days prior to the day of the presentation. Each lab member should try to become familiar with the paper and topic before each meeting to they can be useful discussions.

A few suggestions on selecting a paper/topic:

1. If you know the general topic you'd like learn more about and present to the group, start with a PubMed search using relevant keywords.
2. If you want to find an interesting article in an area you might not have thought of before, try browsing the table of content of the best structure-function journals. Links to these journals are on the group's page: http://www.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~mfoster/fosterlab/mf_links/journals.htm
3. Sometimes, a paper may look interesting based on its title or abstract, but turn out to be not that interesting or novel. Before selecting a paper, make sure you look at the data presented to ensure the paper has sufficient "meat" for a discussion, and don't forget to check the supplementary material, available online. Make sure you're still interested in the paper after looking through the data and conclusions.
4. Prepare slides of appropriate background material to introduce the paper. These could be slides form a textbook, review, or earlier paper. For example, if the paper uses a technique that is not widely understood, a slide or two on the technique would be appropriate. If the talk involves a biochemical pathway, then a description of that pathway would be appropriate.
5. Don't wait until the last minute to select and prepare your presentation. Give everyone a chance to read the paper before the group meeting.
6. Avoid using slides with a lot of text. Text should be used sparingly in slides, and primarily only as: titles, annotations to figures, tables, methods and key bullet points.
7. Avoid review papers except as a means of providing supplementary background and/or figures.

Progress Reports

At each formal lab meeting in which you present research progress (~every 6 weeks or so), prepare a short typed report summarizing your results/progress since your last presentation. These reports should have an outline similar to your presentation, but preferably limited to one page plus critical figures. The reports will be filed and used to help track the projects' progress and ultimately, will facilitate writing papers and theses. To facilitate finding the primary data at a later date, the dates the work was performed should be indicated in the report, along with the relevant notebook and page numbers, or computer filename/location, CD label as appropriate.

Protocols

All laboratory protocols will be typed up and made available in HTML and/or PDF format from the lab page (password protected). Protocols should be added as soon as they are standardized. The author of the protocol should include his/her initials and date written in the document.

Research Hours/Expectations

Cutting edge research is a challenging and laborious undertaking. Our productivity and progress is directly linked to our commitment to the project. While lab members have a great deal of flexibility in how/when to work, each lab member is expected to average 50+ per week; obviously, this means that fewer hours one week should be compensated for by more hours another week. The expectation for those members who have teaching/course commitments is reduced proportionately to their commitment, but should never fall to less than 25 h/week. To the extent possible, RA/TA-ships will be assigned on the basis of merit.

Lab Cleanliness

"Cleanliness is next to godliness." This may or may not be true, but it is certainly true that a messy lab leads to messy results. Messy results do not lead to publication or to graduation. It is therefore each member's responsibility to maintain their laboratory area clean and neat at all times. Common space (hoods, sinks, cold room) and common equipment (FPLC, HPLC, balances, spectrophotometers) should be treated with respect for your experiments and the experiments of those to follow. Consequently, these should always be left absolutely clean and ready for the next experiment.

Each lab member will be responsible for maintaining one or more shared areas clean (assignments).

Supplies

One of the most frustrating experiences in doing experiments is finding that someone has used up all of a critical ingredient necessary for your experiment and not bothered to reorder/restock. To ensure we are adequately stocked with the necessary scientific supplies, each member is expected to:

1. Make sure reagents/supplies they use are ordered before they are used up. This may mean ordering it yourself or making sure the person doing the ordering does so.
2. Make sure you have the necessary reagents and supplies before you need them. This requires planning an experiment at least one day in advance.
3. New reagents should be entered on the laboratory chemical inventory worksheet; paper copy on the board, software copy on the laboratory computer.

Last updated: January 2009