These slides are from a presentation given by Dr Jackie MacArthur as part of the 2015 season of Careers After Biological Science at the University of Leicester (UK)
2. Summary
• Current role
• Scientific Curator
• Project Leader (GWAS Catalog)
• Career path
• PhD
• Postdoctoral research
• Advice
3. GWAS Catalog scientific curator/project leader
• Scientific curator – 3 years
• Project leader – from September 2014
• European
Bioinformatics
Institute (EMBL-EBI)
• Hinxton, 10 miles
south of Cambridge
4. What is a scientific curator?
• Curator
• a keeper or custodian of a
museum or other collection
• Scientific curator
• “museum catalogers of the
Internet age”*
(* Bourne et al., 2006; Burge et al., 2012)
5. GWAS Catalog
• The GWAS Catalog is a manually curated, literature-derived
collection of all genome wide association studies and significant
associations (http://www.genome.gov/gwastudies/)
• As of January 2015 the Catalog includes 2,100 publications and
15,257 SNPs
9. Scientific curator
• Identification of GWAS publications
• Reading publications and extraction of data into curation interface
• Study design and methods
• Association results
• Checking and public release of data
• Working collaboratively as part of an International team of scientists
10. GWAS Project Leader
• Improving availability of data for users
• User interface
• Scientific content
• Preparing scientific reports, publications and presentations
• GWAS Catalog outreach and promotion
• Answering queries from GWAS Catalog users and other curators
• Organising and chairing meetings
• Training curation staff
• Managing curation workload
11. Scientific curator – person requirements
• MSc or PhD in life sciences or genetics
• In depth understanding of genetic variation and genomics
• Enjoy reading scientific papers
• Attention to detail
• Good organisation and time management skills
• Self motivation
12. BSc to scientific curator
BSc Biological Sciences (Genetics)
Leicester UniversityPhD
Nottingham University
Postdoc 1
Newcastle University
Postdoc 2
University California
San Francisco
Postdoc 3
Sanger Institute
Scientific Curator
EBI Project Leader (GWAS Catalog)
EBI
13. PhD
• “Evolution and population genetics of the H-ras minisatellite”
• Develop research skills and scientific knowledge
• Experience managing a project
• Experience working in academic environment
• Needs to be the right project!
14. Postdoctoral academia
• Newcastle University
• Genetic alterations involved in
medulloblastoma development
• University of California, San Francisco
• Using array CGH to analyse copy number
variation
• Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
• Mechanisms of chromosomal
rearrangement leading to genomic disorders
15. Why do a Postdoc if you don’t want to stay in
academia?
• Experience working in research/science
• Project management skills
• Networking – getting to know more people in science
• Transferrable skills
• Problem solving
• Analytical skills
• Opportunities to develop additional skills depending on your
interests/career goals
16. Leaving research
• It was never my goal to stay in research/academia
• I wanted an interesting job in science that fitted in with my
personal life
Was this a good choice?
• Using scientific expertise and experience
• Looking at the bigger picture
• Benefitting the scientific community
• Still get to publish and present work at conferences
• Still not a permanent position
17. Advice – jobs in science outside research
• Get a PhD
• Build up a network
• Do what you find interesting
• Think about what your skills are/what you enjoy and try to
match these to a job
• Keep an open mind – the job you are suited to may not exist
yet
• Think about the priorities in your life