Gabriel Starrett

@TripletStateGuy @AmandaLSmythers It's annoyingly inconsistent. I had a trainee apply this year and her "Below average" GPA (~3.4) was commented on, but nine years ago mine was funded with a GPA of 3.0? GPA should be thrown out altogether.

My low undergrad GPA (3.40) was the excuse reviewers used to reject my NSF GRFP application twice, and this year I had multiple offers to join R1 universities as an assistant professor. That's how accurate it is to use GPA to “guess” long-term scientific success.

Speaking of virus integration, a couple months ago we published on numerous HPyV7-host integration junctions detected in a biopsy of a virus-associated rash. HPyV7 is not associated with cancer, but this suggests the PyV infections may broadly induce genome instability.

After a long road, our study on the genomics and transcriptomics of bladder cancers of solid organ tranplant recipients is published in @eLife. Nearly half of all tumors contained polyomavirus or papillomavirus DNA and many had evidence of integration!

Apologies, my Twitter account had been hacked. Hopefully no one clicked on any of the links from the last 48 hours.

@EGALL8 We lost our previous golden at nearly 8 from an undiagnosed hemangiosarcoma of the heart hemorrhaging, so we didn't want to take any risks. Unfortunately, no matter what action is taken with HS overall survival is short. We were lucky that Mia didn't have it.

@EGALL8 She was about 9 at the time. She's still doing great. We elected to do the splenectomy immediately because if it were hemangiosarcoma, research supports that this achieves best overall survival. HS metastasizes rapidly and hemorrhaging is the major risk of death for the dog.

In other good news, my dog Mama Mia does not have hemangiosarcoma! The incidentally found tumor on her spleen was just a marginal zone lymphoma. Her spleen has been removed and her blood work looks good, so prognosis is as favorable as can be!

@the_real_KVD Congrats!

@bielleogy From my wife a PT

@the_real_KVD Hope Jimmy and Mia help

As I #newPI, I am finding myself very stressed with each application (funding/grad school/etc) that my trainees submit. I'm worried that I missed something during revision that will doom their application and therefore let them down. Does anyone else feel this way?

I am beyond excited to announce the Schomer Lab will be launching in January 2023 at the stunningly beautiful @UArizona @UAZPlantSciences! My lab will study the chemical ecology of the rhizosphere (the root-soil interface) & the role of chemosensing in plant-microbe interactions.

Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigators | NIH Intramural Research Program. Applications due sept 30. I’m chairing the search in Virology so please RT and apply! irp.nih.gov/careers/trans-…

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to message me. 🧵 8/8

Lastly, since we don’t write grants, we can try higher-risk experiments and go in new directions fairly freely. However, NIH labs are evaluated every 4 years to assess that our research programs are in line with the NIH mission. 🧵 7/8

Are you looking for an investigator position with unparalleled flexibility? Consider applying to the NIH Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator search. Applications are accepted until September 30th. 🧵 1/8 irp.nih.gov/careers/facult…