Shuchen Feng

We, the Loyola University Chicago postdocs, call for an urgent raise in compensation. We addressed this open letter to President Reed on May 22nd: drive.google.com/file/d/1Ujhw7N… 1/10

@Andrew_Akbashev Plus I have a kid to deal with!!

And my daily routine: I wake up at 5 am. Get to the gym at 5:30 am. While working out, I listen to a science podcast for 1h. Have breakfast and respond to emails at 7:30 am. Reach to my lab at 8 am.  Work until 6 pm. Have a dinner at 7 pm. Read research reviews for 60 mins. Read a book for another 60 mins. Write down the work plan for the next day. 9 pm: I’m in bed, thrilled to start another super-day in 8 hours. ▫️ Sounds perfect, right? Except that this is not real. It’s NOT about me. ▫️ In real life: - I can get sick of office work - I can get sick of writing grants, papers, reports - I can get sick of working in a lab (hell, yes!) - I can get too tired for a gym ▫️ My life as a scientist is not about productivity.  It’s about creativity and fulfillment. Such a daily routine can quickly exhaust us, mentally and physically. ▫️ As a student, postdoc or faculty: Do NOT feel guilty when you get sick of your lab duties. Do NOT feel ashamed of your slow writing process. Do NOT get upset by your mental and physical fatigue. ▫️ Your strength is in your personality and curiosity. Not a productive daily routine.  #AcademicChatter #AcademicTwitter #Phd

Manuscript in preparation (2̶0̶2̶0̶2023)

@SolidEvidence From what I've been looking at, some deletions of my interest can be within a certain region, and with multiple "subtypes" of the deletions. I am also doubting if it was assembly error, RNA secondary structure disruption etc. Totally agree it's confusing...

@ShuchenFeng Your paper brings up an important point that we were discussing. I'm not sure which sequences we can trust. Was the deletion really missing in a fraction of the lineages after BA.2, or were those assembly errors. I suspect it was the latter.

SARS-CoV-2 just keeps surprising me. This is the saga of the s2m stem. (Correct me if I get any of this wrong.) Many Coronavirus (and other viruses) contain a highly conserved stem loop at their 3’ UTR called the s2m. Function unknown. 2004 paper: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/ar…

@SolidEvidence As someone who currently focuses on this virus in hospitalized and immunosuppressed patients, I have noticed this s2m deletion as well- here is a paper that may help: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Now here is the surprising part. 7 of 10 of the cryptic lineage samples contained sequences with T29758G. A reversion to the pre-COVID sequence! 4 of the samples contained just T29758G (including the WI sample), and three contained a mixture of T29758G and s2m deletions.

@Warish73 So glad to see this comparison! The SARS-CoV-2 concentrations of the two methods agreed with what we've found for qPCR and sequencing!

Online early. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Check out our latest work of investigating SARS-CoV-2 variants in older and immunosuppressed patients during the transition of Delta to Omicron here in Chicago, IL. mdpi.com/1698994 #mdpiviruses via @VirusesMDPI

Standing in solidarity with the Asian and AAPI community, colleagues, and students

Read a cover story about School of Freshwater Sciences' Dr. McLellan's cutting edge work on tracking COVID-19 in wastewater. #science uwm.edu/news/2021-uwm-…

“Did I close the -80?” twitter.com/AnimalsWorId/s…

A lovely preshcool newsletter for this week I received. The poor kid from a two-postdoc family 😂😂

Our preprint is out! Great job McLellan lab! Evaluation of sampling frequency and normalization of SARS-CoV-2 wastewater concentrations for capturing COVID-19 burdens in the community medrxiv.org/content/10.110…

@ashrestha Exactly the same one as in my old lab!! I really love the automatically turned off UV function!

I could sit and stare at it all day long! 🤩 #simplepleasures #LabEveryday

Just when I thought today couldn’t get any better!!! #InaugurationDay #brandnewPCRworkstation #COVID19 #wastewater #surveillance #Chicago

@ashrestha Thanks 😆😆😆😆😆

@ShuchenFeng Welcome to Chicago @ShuchenFeng! :)

@sandralmclellan Thank you so much Sandra!! For everything!! And miss you too❤️❤️

@ShuchenFeng so excited for your new position! You're going to work with some great people but will definitely miss you!!

@JillMcClary @waterscienceUWM @DHSWI @AdelaideRoguet @aqcrobial Yeah!!! So proud!!

Dashboard comes alive!!! Check out our SARS-CoV-2 real-time wastewater surveillance results!!!

FYI a happy lab is recruiting a postdoc!

Measurement of #SARSCoV2 RNA in wastewater tracks community infection dynamics go.nature.com/3kyakNx

Sometimes I feel my life is getting back to “normal”, especially after the kid went back to the daycare- but I just couldn’t deny how everything has already changed...A moment a little bit down and missing my family.