Laboratory art

Thank you to Orietta Cuppens for her laboratory art displaying techniques of working with mice.

Orietta is just finishing up her thesis studies for her Bachelor of Biomedical Laboratory Sciences at KH Leuven.

Lei Tian wins prestigious research award

Congratulations to Autoimmune Genetics Laboratory student Lei Tian, who just won the 2013 National Award for Outstanding Self-financed Chinese Students Study Abroad by the China Scholarship Council. The prize was granted for her doctoral research on regulatory T cells and diabetes development.

New VIB group leader position available

The VIB is starting up a new group leader position in Hasselt University focused on autoimmunity research. The position will come with a €1.4 million start-up grant. Interested? Apply here.

I can see my future...

Departmental Day Photo Competition

Also congratulations to Jossy Garcia-Perez, for being short-listed in the Departmental Day Photo Competition.

Departmental Day Poster Prize

Congratulations to Dean Franckaert, who won first place in the Departmental Day Poster Prize!

Flow cytometry Core manager position open

Know how to sort? Want to manage a new facility? Living in Belgium or willing to relocate?

Please apply 

Applications close March-3. Please only apply if you have actually been trained to run sorts on an Aria I, II or III.

Five years as a junior faculty member

In 2010, after one year as a junior faculty member, I wrote up that year in numbers, and in 2012, at three years as junior faculty, I wrote this. The last two years have been different, mostly due to having a small baby to look after (fewer conferences), but also due to a shift in the lab as it became established (less grant writing, more research paper writing). Now I have finished five years as junior faculty, so I can be quantitative about my entire tenure-track period:

265: the number of grants I have reviewed for various foundations
119: the number of articles I have reviewed for different journals

85: the number of grants submitted (27 project grants, 33 fellowship applications and 17 grants as collaborator)
        31: grants accepted (15 project grants, 11 fellowships and 5 grants as collaborator)
        46: grants rejected (12 project grants, 22 fellowships and 12 as collaborator)
        5: grants pending (tenure application and 4 fellowships)
€5.7 million: euros given to the lab in project grants
€4.1 million: euros spent in research

46: invited talks
19: conferences
8: lectures

97: article submissions and resubmissions
        53: articles published or in press (31 primary papers, 15 reviews, 6 book chapters)
3: number of edited volumes

22: number of lab members
      12: PhD projects ongoing
       1: Masters projects ongoing
       19: number of full-time researchers in the lab 
(34: number of ex-lab members)

0: still the number of days I've spent doing experiments

So what is an average month for me? Well, I'll typically submit one grant, with nearly a 50% acceptance rate. I'll submit 1-2 papers, and have one accepted. I spend a fair bit of time reviewing - 4 grants and 2 papers per month, not counting favours for friends. I'll go give an invited talk or attend an international conference. My lab will spend ~€70,000 each month (not counting fellowships), and one new person will start or an old person will leave.

Next week I find out whether this is enough to get tenure at the University of Leuven.

Lab move

Just a few last minute changes to the architectural plans, and we are nearly ready to move...

Scientific writing for the biomedical sciences

Professional writing is something that is absolutely critical for becoming a scientist, yet it is typically just assumed that students will pick it up somehow during their research. 

Here are my tips for writing papers, but the most important of them is very simple - read a lot of papers of the type you would like to publish.