What is Benchfly?

Launched in late July, BenchFly is a web-based resource and holistic, everyday guide for the entire career of a scientist. We’re engaging and educating life and physical scientists with video protocols, peer-to-peer sharing, product info and science-life tools. Our mission is to support and celebrate the researcher’s life in and out of the lab to perpetuate the viability of the craft and keep scientists in science.

You can check out a video of our mission here.

“Chemist, Neuroscientist and Founder. . .” please tell us about where it all started and how it progressed.

I think it started in the kitchen when I was a kid- inspired by baking soda and vinegar. Growing up, I always gravitated towards math and science because they just made more sense to me. However, when I got to college, I decided it was time to see what else was out there. So I spent the first couple of years far from the laboratory. Eventually, I realized I just wasn’t cut out to perform Shakespeare or debate the meaning of self. I’m a science guy.

In fact, I’m a third generation chemist. I guess I inherited the chemistry gene from my father and grandfather. I grew up in and around the lab and it was certainly a powerful influence in the way my career evolved.

Whether studying organic chemistry at Trinity University, chemical biology at UCSF or neuroscience at MIT, I’ve always found the interface of fields to be very exciting. I started in synthetic organic chemistry, moved to biochemistry and virology and ended up in neuroscience. Now, I guess I’m taking all of that and mixing it with the internet. Maybe I should toss in a little baking soda. . .

What was the best aspect of lab life?

I really enjoy performing experiments and learning new techniques. To me, the process of discovery is very exciting- and of course, so is the discovery itself.

As an undergraduate, I worked with an incredible postdoc, Dr. Chad Peterson, who had great hands- every reaction he setup seemed to work. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I was the beneficiary of the many tips and tricks he’d learned and developed over the years. Those techniques gave me the skills and confidence to keep going in science. Unfortunately, whether a student learns that kind of knowledge is pretty random- it depends on the lab, the project and the mentor.

A close second would be the huge paycheck. (Just seeing if you’re still paying attention …)

What didn’t work so well?

The process of learning new experiments. Unfortunately, when I graduated from college, Chad did not go with me… I was on my own and found out quickly that not everyone cares enough to take the time to teach the ins and outs of an experiment. When learning a new technique, I always found it frustrating to have to find someone who knew the technique, contact them, coordinate schedules with them and then hope that you took good notes when they showed you how to do the technique. Once you got through all of that, it still wasn’t clear if you were learning a good technique or not. I always felt there had to be a better way for scientists to learn laboratory techniques that wasn’t dependent on their location or surroundings.

My experience with Chad is really what I’m trying to recreate with BenchFly. I want scientists to feel that they have a mentor and partner in the lab committed to their success that can serve as a wealth of information to help guide them whether they’re just starting out in science, already in the trenches of grad school or cresting the climb in a postdoc. But unlike Chad, BenchFly never needs to eat or sleep . . . so we’re always there to help.

What is the most important quality in your opinion for a scientist?

A few qualities come to mind, but if I had to pick only one, I think I’d go with honesty. The damage done by a single dishonest scientist can be incredible. Not only will people waste time and money trying to reproduce bad work, but horrible stories of scientific misconduct always seem to garner the attention of mainstream media. So it hurts both our progress and our image. Bad and Bad.

How easy was it for you to “transform” from a scientist into an entrepreneur?

Well, if we’re talking transformation, I’d say I’m still in the larval stage . . .

It’s definitely not been easy, but there are a lot of parallels between being a scientist and an entrepreneur. In science, we identify a problem that interests us and that we think, if answered, will be a significant contribution to science/health/society/etc . . . Then we go about systematically figuring out how to solve the problem. What experiments can we run, what reagents do we need, what collaborators might help.

As an entrepreneur, I’ve taken a very similar approach to identifying and addressing a problem. In fact, I think scientists make great entrepreneurs in part because of our critical thinking skills.

Most importantly, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have a fantastic group of mentors and advisers that I turn to for advice and guidance (like a good P.I.—to follow the science analogy). As with any successful scientist, it’s important to have support as an entrepreneur.

What are the hard parts?

Not knowing what decisions are critical is one of the hardest parts. After nearly 15 years at the bench, there is an ease and confidence in performing experiments that comes from experience. You know exactly which steps can kill the experiment. Starting out as an entrepreneur, it can be very difficult to know which decisions may end up setting you back. Once again, I’m incredibly grateful for my advisors—and the magic 8-ball . . .

What was the driving force behind BenchFly? When did the idea come to mind?

The idea was really born out of the pain of my own research experience. Although I had a great time at the bench, there are certainly things that could be changed that would make research better. BenchFly is my attempt to provide some of these resources for scientists and to support scientists lives both in and out of the lab.

An important part of the mission is to reinvent the image of the scientist. The pocket protector is dead! Scientists are some of the funniest, most intelligent, inquisitive, and generous people I know. The idea that we’re some socially inept group of creepy psychos locked up in the basement of buildings is outdated and ridiculous. Our image has profound implications for the way the public, and future generations, view our profession.

What has changed in your daily routine after starting BenchFly compared to your daily lab routine?

There’s been a complete inversion of my daily routine. Basically, anytime I used to be on my feet doing experiments, I’m now in front of a computer. Anytime I used to be checking my email in lab, I’m now standing up to stretch my legs. It’s been a bit of a shock to the system. And by “system” I mean the number of chins I have.

We are seeing various sites now offering video content for scientists- what’s your take on that?

I think video is the natural progression for all aspects of life. Video cameras are everywhere- in phones, iPods and computers. It’s not hard to imagine a world in the not-to-distant future where every second of everyone’s life could be recorded and uploaded. Of course, most of it would be more painful to watch than a Yanni concert, but the technology is basically here.

In science, video is such a powerful medium because it mimics the way we naturally learn and work in the lab. In an educational setting it’s particularly powerful given that the techniques and instruction can be watched repeatedly, on demand. Since instructional videos bring the expertise to you, it means you no longer have to be in “the right lab” to learn the proper techniques. It democratizes science.

What differentiates you from video protocol sites?

BenchFly is also different from other video sites because in addition to sharing insider knowledge we’re not afraid to have a point of view: We’re trying to knock down some of the stereotypes that learning science has to be serious and boring. I like that BenchFly represents and showcases to the world that science can be fun, irreverent and exciting. There’s a video on the site showing a grad student trying to eliminate static from a scale. Non-traditional science to say the least… but very valuable information.

Another one of my favorite videos on the site shows a trick for turning a solvent squirt bottle into a silica gel dispenser. It’s outstanding. If you’re a chemist, you know you can feel the years falling off the end of your life every time you open the drum of silica gel and get buried in the carcinogenic cloud of silica dust. But in 30 seconds, you learn a clever solution to the problem that you wouldn’t have otherwise known unless you were in the lab with this person. That’s the power of BenchFly as a resource to scientists. We’re helping pass insider knowledge to outsiders who want the inside scoop.

BenchFly is also more than just a video protocol site. While video is a main method to supporting scientists on the site, we also have two daily blog streams that address different aspects of a researcher’s life. Flyceum is the blog channel that focuses on professional and industry-wide issues facing scientists today. Some of our popular posts address topics such as: 10 Ways to be a Successful Scientist, How to Behave around the Boss, and Why Did I Become a Scientist. It’s been really great to see dialogue budding between scientists from all over and at different stages in the career path share their insights on things that affect all of us.

Our other blog channel, BenchLife, is more of a survival guide for balancing life at the bench with . . . wait for it . . . having a life. We’ve posted everything from talking about the challenges vs, benefits of owning a pet in grad school and quickie meal recipes to fashion etiquette for scientists and best practices for organizing your life.

BenchFly is synced with Facebook, Twitter and IntenseDebtate so it’s easy for scientists to comment and vote in our frequent “According to Scientists…” polls. The polls serve as a temperature reading on the scientific community’s view on a wide range of serious and (hopefully) amusing topics. Did you know that according to scientists the most requested lab superpower is the ability to control the outcome of every experiment?

We want to promote that scientists have a point of view and can tie science into daily life in a way that can make you laugh in the middle of a tough day in lab.

What are your expectations for BenchFly? Where it is going to be in ten years?

One day, we’ll be able to think of anything scientific – be it a protocol, a paper or a legendary lab prank, search for it, and find a video about it. In ten years, I hope BenchFly is that site for scientists. I hope we’re actively engaging and supporting scientists worldwide. We’ve got some exciting announcements coming up very soon and some big dreams so let’s revisit this conversation in 2019 and let’s see how things turned out! In the meantime, please check us out at www.benchfly.com.

All she needed to know to fall in love with molecular biology, Dr. Tora Smulders-Srinivasan learned at 15 years old, in her tenth grade biology class. While she had been aware of basic hereditary concepts, Tora hadn’t been exposed to DNA, genetics, RNA, translation, or transcription until then. In that classroom, Tora says, she fell in love. “I loved the whole idea of DNA. The fact that there is a molecule that transfers between generations – and that is what sets up the whole organism. It just fascinated me. The whole idea of making RNA and proteins – I loved it, I thought it was the best thing.”

Tora attended Cornell University and majored in biology. Of all the required classes, genetics was her favorite. The more she learned, the more fascinated she became. During her sophomore year of college, Tora enrolled in the required “genetics 101” course and worked on her first Drosophila project. While other students were annoyed that they had to go into the lab at night and work with the Drosophila, Tora looked forward to it and aced the course. Taking advantage of Cornell’s option to specialize within the general biology field, she specialized in genetics and development.

At the advice of one of her professors, Tora applied to Duke University for graduate school. Upon her acceptance, Tora met with her professor’s former PhD student, Dr. Haifan Lin, who was studying germline stem cell division in Drosophila at Duke. She concluded her first year lab rotations at Lin’s lab, and subsequently started her PhD project in that lab.

Dr. Lin was investigating the regulation of stem cells. Germline stem cells in Drosophila divide asymmetrically. When the stem cell divides, one daughter cell remains a stem cell and the other daughter stem cell becomes an egg. Most cells in an organism divide equally so that both cells are identical to the parent cell. Only stem cells have the unique property of dividing asymmetrically. During his Post Doc, Lin had discovered a specific gene called piwi whose normal function was to keep stem cells as stem cells. When mutant, the gene affected the germline stem cells, causing them to stop dividing asymmetrically and go directly into the differentiation stage. When piwi is mutant, the cells no longer remain stem cells, proving that the gene must be essential for stem cell maintenance.

Tora’s PhD project sought to identify which genes, proteins, and cell signaling pathways other than piwi, are involved in keeping a stem cell a stem cell. Tora used the piwi mutant deficiency screen to look at what other components might be interacting with the mutation in the gene. She found some individual genes that normally interact with piwi in a negative manner. When those genes were mutated, the piwi mutation improved in a negative-negative interaction. Her paper ‘Screens for piwi Suppressors in Drosophila Identify Dosage-Dependent Regulators of Germline Stem Cell Division,’ published in Genetics in 2003, discusses the experiment and results of this project.

Another paper based on her work in Lin’s lab, has not yet been published. Tora took one of the stronger suppressors that she found in individual genes and characterized the interaction in greater detail.

After she completed her PhD, Tora moved to the UK with her husband, Tom, who accepted a lecturer position at Newcastle University. Tora and Tom met at Cornell when she was an undergraduate and he was completing his PhD. Following their move to the UK, Tora sought to obtain a post doc position there.

She contacted Dr. Doug Turnbull and Dr. Robert Lightowlers who are involved in mitochondrial research at Newcastle University. Tora’s project involved working with mouse embryonic stem cells in culture, and studying mitochondrial DNA mutations. It was a whole new system, as she had never previously worked with cell cultures. Moreover, this wasn’t just regular cell culture work – it was neuronal differentiation of embryonic stem cells, which takes time to master. Since she was granted a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Individual Postdoctoral Fellows, Tora had the funding to continue her research for the next three years.

During her time as a post doc, Tora went on maternity leave following the birth of her son. She assertively states that both science and her family are important to her, and recognizes the difficulty in raising a child while developing a career in science. “I have always wanted to be a mother… I think my passion for science is only exceeded by my passion for having a family. As a scientist there is just no good time for it. I guess it’s a choice you have to make… I only wish it was easier to be a woman in science – to have a career in science and have a family – and do both without falling behind in either area.”

While her fellowship ended in February of this year, she was able to continue working on her project until last month, as she was granted a 6 month extension for her work. For now, Tora is focused on completing her post doc paper. She also is planning on launching a Drosophila project combining her expertise from her PhD and post doc. “I worked on Drosophila for my PhD and I love the system. It’s really an open field now for this area.” There are a lot of genetic “tricks” than can be manipulated with Drosophila, something Tora knows a lot about. She’ll be engaged in preliminary lab work on Drosophila, then applying for fellowships at the PI stage. Tora hopes to remain in academia, and is seeking a faculty position.

“I really love research and I love science. I don’t love doing experiments all the time that don’t work. On a day-to-day basis, science can be really difficult – but on a long term basis, it’s what I love to do.”

• Follow Tora on Twitter: @toraks

• Read Tora’s 2003 Publication: Smulders-Srinivasan TK, & Lin H (2003). Screens for piwi suppressors in Drosophila identify dosage-dependent regulators of germline stem cell division. Genetics, 165 (4), 1971-91 PMID: 14704180

Christie Wilcox is now passionate toward conservation biology, although she didn’t originally start off that way. While she always had an affinity to nature and animals, she didn’t realize that she wanted to be a biologist until she “stumbled” upon it in college. “When I’m at the beach and everyone is running away from jellyfish, I get excited and run up closer to check it out!”

Wilcox began at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, as a double major in physics and marine biology. After her first semester, Christie decided that the more advanced math that physics required was not for her, so she dropped physics and continued with her major in marine biology. Once Christie became more involved in marine biology, she realized that she wanted to focus more on cells and how they function, and their inter-relationships to the whole animal.

During her sophomore year at Eckerd College, Wilcox approached her mentor, Dr. Nancy Smith, to get involved in one of her projects. Smith had previously worked with fiddler crabs and was studying its impact on mangroves in the area. Together, Wilcox and her mentor designed a research project. Shortly thereafter, Christie was out sloshing through the mangrove marshes. Their research consisted of two studies. In the first, a transect study, the mangroves were left alone and every couple of weeks their trunk diameters were measured and leaves were counted. Wilcox statistically examined the number of crab burrows and plants in the area and their affect on the mangroves. The second study consisted of a manipulation experiment and was more hands-on as mesh cages without tops were built to prevent crabs from getting into the area. Wilcox got her hands dirty as she dug up every plant around the mangroves, built the meter by meter cage 25 cm into the ground, and removed any crabs within the caged area. In the other experimental condition, the crabs were not restricted from the mangroves. Wilcox sought to determine how the crabs affected plant growth and its soil chemistry.

“Fieldwork in Florida’s heat is no picnic,” says Wilcox, who spent hours outdoors digging in the sand and the sun. It also contained some inherent dangers. During one exhausting day of digging cages, Wilcox tuned around and found herself within 10 feet of a 15-foot alligator sunning himself. “I remember crawling back to my car as slowly as possible… As far as I could tell he had no interest in eating me – he was just getting comfortable. It found a big patch of sandy, plant-free soil right where I was working. That’s field work in Florida for you!”

 

Wilcox became a published author in July of 2009 when her study was published in the journal Marine Biology. The study found that fiddler crabs have a marked effect on the mangroves growth rate, as well as some factors in the soil. When the crabs were present, the soil was more oxygenated and had a lower salinity, which made it easier for the mangroves to grow. Those mangroves became taller, thicker, and bushier. In short, more crabs meant healthier and happier mangroves.

Upon graduating from Eckerd in 2007 with a degree in marine science with a concentration in biology, Wilcox worked as a research assistant in Dr. Stuart Critz’s lab at the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM). Dr. Critz’s lab studies heart cells, particularly focusing on their adenosine pathways. Wilcox was involved in experiments studying the effects of A_2B receptor stimulation on survival kinases. A_2B receptors are one of 4 types of adenosine receptors located in the heart and have not been studied as intensely as the others. Western blots were the primary methodology being utilized. They found that the A_2B receptor typically promoted survival pathways.

Wilcox has just begun her PhD program in cell and molecular biology at University of Hawaii. The program requires her to complete three lab rotations prior to selecting her project. She is studying avian genetics in Hawaii’s native bird population for her first rotation.

As a conservation biologist, Wilcox’s goal is to use cellular and molecular technique to protect endangered or threatened species. “I want to have a conservation edge to whatever I end up doing. I figure its sort of giving back to the nature that I’ve loved and has given so much to me for so long.” While she definitely wants to have research as a significant role in her career, Wilcox says she would probably enjoy teaching and would consider being the professor who also participates in research. “But,” she adds, “I also see myself working for a conservation organization and being very happy about it as well.”

• Follow Christie’s Blog: Observations of a Nerd

• Follow Christie on Twitter: @NerdyChristie

• Visit Christie’s Google Page

• Read Christie’s 2009 Publication: Marine Biology DOI: 10.1007/s00227-009-1253-7

To learn more about Plant Aquaporins read:

KALDENHOFF, R., BERTL, A., OTTO, B., MOSHELION, M., & UEHLEIN, N. (2007). Characterization of Plant Aquaporins Methods in Enzymology, 428, 505-531 DOI: 10.1016/S0076-6879(07)28028-0