Month: December 2009

U. of California seeking proposals on UC-Industry collaborations

Just got this email that might be of interest to some:

The University of California Office of Research and Graduate Studies is pleased to announce the spring 2010 UC Discovery Grant Request for Proposals.

The University of California Discovery Grant opportunity (UCDG) promotes collaborations between UC researchers and industry partners in the interest of supporting UC researchers and trainees, strengthening the state’s economy, and serving the public good. The UCDG is a matching grant mechanism; research projects are jointly funded by a UC Discovery Grant and a required industry matching contribution.

All applicants must submit a Notice/Letter of Intent (LOI) between January 11-February 12, 2010. Full proposals are due on March 2.LOIs and proposals must be submitted using the online proposal system proposalCENTRAL https://proposalcentral.altum.com/. Please refer to the program website for the most up-to-date information: http://www.ucop.edu/ucdiscovery/ . Detailed LOI and Application submission instructions will be available at the website above and on proposalCENTRAL the beginning of January.

Please circulate this announcement widely.

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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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So cool – CoPI/colleague of mine Jessica Green picked for TED2010

I am so incredibly psyched that my colleague, collaborator and friend Jessica Green was picked for the TED2010 conference. See the press release here.

Jessica is a Microbial Ecologist at U. Orgeon and has a diverse background in engineering, biology, physics and other things.

And she is both brilliant and cool.  They could not have picked better.  Way to go Jessica.

Want to know more about her work.  Watch this video:

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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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Nice Darwin Art at #UCDavis Evolution/Ecology Dept.

For more on this see The Face of Darwin where K. Garvey explains the history of the mural in more detail. 

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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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Great call for more openness in biology discussions by Steven Wiley in the Scientist

An article after my own heart … Steven Wiley has written a column in the Scientist (Speak Your Mind :The Scientist [2009-12-01]) that speaks both to me and for me. In it he discusses the need for biologists to be more public about their opinions about their work and that of others.

He says, for example

Recently, I attended a conference on biofuel development that included a discussion of the feasibility of deriving fuels from algae. In the open meeting, only a few biologists voiced an opinion, all stated very politely. In private, however, the opinions that I heard were invariably strong and contentious, and few people agreed with what appeared to be the general consensus. It seemed that most of the meeting participants were unwilling to let their viewpoints be publicly known.

I have witnessed the exact same phenomenon and find it disheartening. To help build science and biology we need to be more open about discussing ideas. This pattern of whispering behind the scenes or standing behind anonymity drives me a bit crazy and it is one of the reasons I have become a science blogger and tweeter and such.

Wiley wraps up his discussion by saying

However, a comment is only really useful when the author is identified, because it allows you to evaluate its credibility. Besides, why should anyone respect an opinion that even the author is not willing to claim? And being honest does not mean being insulting or nasty. Open and honest debate has always been necessary for the best science, but mutual respect between the participants is necessary to make it work.

I agree with this too. I have slipped occasionally in being too nasty in comments but am trying to get that under control. But overall, the importance of openness far outweighs the risk of sometimes being offensive. So I am calling for others in biology – start a blog – start tweeting – ask more questions at meetings – get up and say you what you think – sign your name to reviews – sign your name to comments on the web – be more open. It will be good for all of us.


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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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Amazing post-doc fellowship opportunity: Center for population biology at #UCDavis

No bias here — but this really is an incredible post doc opportunity in population biology here at U. C. Davis. See below:



EFFECTIVE: December 7, 2009
DEADLINE: January 20, 2010
POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW IN POPULATION BIOLOGY–The Center for Population Biology at UC Davis invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Population Biology, broadly defined to include ecology, phylogenetics, comparative biology, population genetics, and evolution. We particularly encourage applications from candidates that have recently completed, or will soon complete, their PhD. The position is for TWO YEARS, subject to review after one year, and can begin as early as 1 July 2010. It has an annual salary of $38,000 plus benefits, and $6,000 per annum in research support. The Fellow will be a fully participating member in the Center for Population Biology and will be expected to have an independent research program that bridges the interests of two or more CPB research groups. We strongly encourage candidates to contact appropriate faculty sponsors before applying. We also ask that each Fellow teach a multi-day workshop, discussion or lecture series that is of broad interest to the community of population biologists at UC Davis; faculty sponsors or the Director of CPB, Jay Stachowicz, can provide additional input on this aspect of the fellowship. For samples of past workshop abstracts and more information about UC Davis programs in population biology, see http://cpb.ucdavis.edu/jobs.htm.
ONLINE APPLICATION: Interested candidates should submit a cover letter, CV, a short (1-2 page) description of research accomplishments, a short (1-2
page) description of proposed research including potential faculty mentors, a brief description of their proposed workshop/minicourse, and copies of two publications at http://www2.eve.ucdavis.edu/jobs/ all as PDFs. We require 3 letters of recommendation. The referees you list in the online application will receive an automatic notification from our system instructing them how to directly upload letters to our website. Refer to the on-line instructions for further information. For full consideration, applications should be received by January 20. 2010. The University of California is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer with a strong institutional commitment to the development of a climate that supports equality of opportunity and respect for differences. E-mail questions to gradcoordinator@ucdavis.edu.
DEADLINE: January 20, 2010
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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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HHMI Biodiversity Talks 12/3, 12/4 reminder

Reminder – – UC Davis Alumni and brilliant microbiologist Bonnie Bassler will be giving one of the HHMI Holiday Lectures on Science as a WebCast. Anyone can watch Dec 3 and 4th. She will be talking with Baldomero Olivera and the topic(s) will be “Exploring Biodiversity: The Search for New Medicines”. See HHMI’s BioInteractive – Holiday Lectures on Science for more detail.

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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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Single cell genomics gets its own Center at the Bigelow Lab

Just got this email announcement:

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the establishment of the Single Cell Genomics Center (SCGC) at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. The goal of SCGC is to make single cell genomics more accessible to the broad scientific community and to serve as an engine of discoveries in the areas of microbial ecology, evolution, and bioprospecting. The SCGC works as a shared user facility, available to scientists at Bigelow and other institutions, with user fees charged to cover SCGC operational costs. For more information, please see our website:

http://www.bigelow.org/research/facilities/single_cell_genomics_center/

We also want to draw your attention to the upcoming second Microbial Single Cell Genomics Workshop, scheduled for September 19-24, 2010:

http://www.bigelow.org/research/facilities/single_cell_genomics_center/workshop2010

With best regards,

Ramunas Stepanauskas and Michael Sieracki 

Single cell genomics is clearly moving up in the world and this is further proof — a whole core facility dedicated to providing single cell genomics to the world.  I note, I have collaborated with Ramunas and others on a recent PLoS One paper on single cell genomics (see Woyke T, Xie G, Copeland A, González JM, Han C, et al. (2009) Assembling the Marine Metagenome, One Cell at a Time. PLoS ONE 4(4): e5299. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005299). 


Basically the idea is, that sequencing and/or characterizing the genomic content of single cells is going to be a powerful tool in many areas of biology research … including studies of microbial communities, interpreting metagenomic data, studies of mutation processes, population genetics, etc …

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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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