Dear miRcorers,
Happy February and Wednesday!
1) Genes and Health contest success
Congratulations to all of you who participated in the 9th Genes and Health Contest last Saturday. I was happy to see so many students enjoying the contest. A huge thank you to UM GIDAS for transforming it into an all-virtual event. Next year will probably be virtual as well.
I have heard it was a great learning experience, which makes me very happy.
I am also impressed with how well many of the new GIDASes did, both in terms of participation and winning awards. Wonderful job to new GIDAS leaders!
2) Main meeting format
UM GIDAS group leaders want to spend the entire second hour with group members, so we will try to make the second hour be dedicated group time. If some groups have a smaller number of members attending, I will combine two groups for that week to assure that the breakout room experience is good. During the breakout session, you can always ask for help and talk to me in the main room. If you ask, I will do my best to deliver.
3) R session
For those who want to analyze the series matrix file, we started hosting matrix sessions 30 min before the main meeting. I learned that this weekend is ACT, thus California students who are taking the ACT cannot join this session. To reduce any disadvantages for such cases, I will spend time on RStudio troubleshooting and then walk through a simple task in R. For those who haven’t, please make sure to download both R and RStudio before the meeting.
4) Summer camp
Our summer camp site is open. Please let your current and potential GIDAS members know in order to strengthen your GIDAS. I also want to have students who may not be sciency now but are interested in changing the world to be a better place through your network. We have a track record of converting students to enjoy science, and summer camps pose the best opportunities.
https://www.mircore.org/2021-summer-camps/
Once again, all camps are online. A new sequencing camp (mapping data to human and SARS-CoV-2 genomes) will be added to align better with MVP programs.
Are you practicing science, compassion, collaboration? I hope so!
Inhan Lee, Ph.D.