molpigs, The Molecular Programming Interest Group, is an international group of researchers interested in topics such as molecular programming, DNA computing, and other aspects of biomolecular nanotechnology. We host regular seminars, poster sessions, journal clubs, send out newsletters, and host a forum for discussion and fostering collaboration.
Hello and welcome back to the molpigs newsletter! Feel free to hang out at the molpigs Forum! We are also on twitter!
All the past podcasts and tutorial can be found here. You can also now find our podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, TuneIn, and more (as well as manually in your favorite podcast client with our RSS feed)! Enjoy!
If you haven’t yet signed up to the newsletter for our sister project, the Molecular Programming Society, which is currently writing the grassroots textbook the Art of Molecular Programming, you’re missing out! Sign up now!
- Job Advertisements!
- New event coming—Chat with Prof. David Doty!
- Interested in helping out, sharing something interesting, or have an idea for something we could do?
1. Job Advertisement!
Yuan-Jyue Chen is hiring two postdocs, a molecular biologist and a chemist, to collaborate across multiple STEM disciplines to develop molecular tagging technology. The postdocs will be hired in the Molecular Information System Lab (MISL) at University of Washington.
Details are below. For more detailed descriptions about the positions, please see the files for the Chemist position and for the Molecular Biologist position. If you are interested, please contact Yuan.
Molecular Biologist:
The ideal candidates should have PhD degrees in molecular biology, have experience in DNA nanotechnology, be proficient in experimental design and analysis, and have a proven track record of success working in a fast-paced environment.
Minimum requirements
- PhD in molecular biology or a related field.
- 4+ years of related laboratory experience in molecular biology or chemistry in a professional or academic setting.
Additional qualifications
- Research ability demonstrated by journal and conference publications and/or preprints.
- Strong experience with manipulating DNA with PCR, gel imaging, ligation, etc.
- Previous experience with DNA manipulation; knowledge of DNA sequencing instruments and analyzing sequencing instrument output data.
- Previous experience with Oxford nanopore sequencers.
- Familiarity with topics in DNA nanotechnology.
- Excellent verbal, written and interpersonal skills, with an interest in collaborative work.
- Demonstrated problem-solving skills, strong detail orientation and ability to adeptly manage multiple deadline dependent priorities.
- Familiarity with data analysis skills.
- Fluency in scientific programming and data visualization.
- Self-motivated, enthusiastic, and driven to grow.
Chemist:
The ideal candidates should have PhD degrees in chemistry, biomedical engineering, material science or a related field, have experience in nanoparticle synthesis, DNA nanotechnology, formulation chemistry, be proficient in experimental design and analysis, and have a proven track record of success working in a fast-paced environment.
Minimum requirements
- PhD in chemistry, biomedical engineering, materials science, or a related field.
- 4+ years of related laboratory experience in a professional or academic setting.
Additional qualifications
- Research ability demonstrated by journal and conference publications and/or preprints.
- Previous experience in nanoparticle particle synthesis and/or biological preservation.
- Previous experience in food and formulation chemistry.
- Previous experience with manipulating DNA with PCR, gel imaging, ligation, etc.
- Excellent verbal, written and interpersonal skills, with an interest in collaborative work.
- Demonstrated problem-solving skills, strong detail orientation and ability to adeptly manage multiple deadline dependent priorities.
- Familiarity with data analysis skills. (Fluency in scientific programming and data visualization is a plus).
- Self-motivated, enthusiastic, and driven to grow.
2. New event coming—Chat with Prof. David Doty!
The “Meet the Molecular Programmer” podcast series focuses on casually chatting with professors about their academic and life experiences. We will get to know Prof. David Doty.
David Doty is an associate professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Davis. He is broadly interested in problems at the intersection of physics, chemistry, biology, and computation. This does not mean the traditional “computation in service of natural science” (e.g., bioinformatics, computational chemistry, or molecular dynamics simulation). Rather, certain molecular systems—such as a test tube of reacting chemicals, a genetic regulatory network, or a growing crystal—can be interpreted as doing computation themselves… natural science in service of computation. He seeks to understand the fundamental logical and physical limits to computation by such means.
We will chat with Dave on Aug. 19th. Please submit your questions!
3. Interested in helping out, sharing something interesting, or have an idea for something we could do?
If so, please get in touch with us! Shoot us an email at contributions AT <this domain>, there are loads of ways you can get involved, and many we haven’t even thought of, but here’s a few ideas of what you could do:
- Be a guest on our podcast series: you can talk about anything vaguely related to the field, whether it’s comments on life as a student/researcher, some thoughts you’ve had about the field, some interesting work you want to share, or if you want to speak out about something like mental health, this is the perfect place to do it!
- Present a poster-podcast! This is something we’re very excited to try out, and we hope you feel the same: the idea is to try to explain something (it doesn’t have to be your own work) within a 20-30 minute podcast, with the challenge that all reference material needs to fit into a poster format.
- Want to advertise something on our newsletter? Perhaps you’ve just passed your thesis defense, or are looking for a team for a hackathon, or have a job posting to share, or have just written a blog post you think might be of interest; whatever the case we’d love to help you share the good news!
- We’re also open to more conventional seminar-esque things like talks or journal clubs.
We’re looking forward to getting to hear from you, and getting to know you better!