To learn to get more out of seminars.
To keep you aware of the many speakers who come to the New York Area.
Attend 7 seminars* in Molecular Biophysics during the semester
(about one every two weeks).
BEFORE THE SEMINAR: Review the speaker’s recent publications.
DURING THE SEMINAR: Take notes and ask questions.
AFTER THE SEMINAR: Submit a brief report to me by email.
*Because of travel considerations, Staten Island students must attend 5 seminars
and satisfy the remaining 2 requirements as described below.
Browse the Seminar
Series Listing on the CUNY
biophysics home page. Several of these links are dead (especially for the
CUNY campuses. If you have any updates from your campus please send me the URL.
Pick a seminar series on your own campus. Most likely the Chemistry or Biochemistry
seminar.
You may find that not all the seminars qualify as Molecular Biophysics, but
go weekly anyway. You will learn about new scientific areas and get ideas for
your own research.
Be sure to go to a few seminars at other universities. Try another CUNY campus, Rockefeller U., Columbia, NYU, Einstein Med School, etc. You may also learn something about the environment, students, and faculty at that institution – handy information when you are shopping for postdoc positions or collaborators.
And don’t forget the the New York Structural
Biology Seminars.which features evening presentations at Rockefeller University
every other month. The first meeting this year is Oct 1 at 7:30. These gatherings
are informal, fun, and followed by food and drink. The New York Structural Biology
Seminar Series - this consists of three speakers per evening presenting short
seminars - the very first time you attend this it will count as two seminars
assuming that two of the speakers are reviewed but every subsequent time it
will count as one. This shouldn't discourage you from attending each and every
seminar of this series because it would give you the opportunity to meet and
interact with a large number of structural biologists and biophysicists in the
New York area over sandwiches and drinks in the elegant setting of the Rockefeller
University Faculty Club.
Please submit a tentative list of seminars you are planning to attend
to your instructor gunner@sci.ccny.cuny.edu
by Monday, September 22, 2003. You may change them later, but make a plan in
advance and try to coordinate the trips with your classroom and teaching schedules.
Please plan to go to a few seminars each month rather than doing them all at
the end!
Preparing for a Seminar.
Do a quick Medline or ACS journal search for the speaker. You may want to print out abstracts of several recent publications or find an appropriate review article to read as you ride the subway or ferry to the talk. (You will be commenting on one of these papers after you attend the seminar – se below.) Even a small bit of background knowledge will go a long way to enhance what you get out of the seminar itself.
You are not there as a passive consumer of the oxygen in the room!
Keep a seminar notebook and take notes during (or directly after) the talk. Taking notes helps to focus your attention and gives you something to look back at, weeks or months later when you remember vaguely that so-in-so said something-or-other that might be useful in your research work. The notebook is also a handy place to clarify what you heard on the way home, record confusing terminology that you want to look up, save handy website addresses mentioned by the speaker, etc.
Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything that is said! At the beginning you may feel that you understand just a little, but you will learn how to glean partial information from unfamiliar topics and how to focus your attention on the important points the speaker is trying to make (even if he or she is not making them crystal clear!). Years later, you will be surprised at how much you know about topics you never studied, just from going to seminars.
Submit a report of about 2 pages to your instructor by e-mail within 1 week of attending a seminar. Use the following format (you may want to make a template and carry it with you to each talk).
Speaker Name & Professional Affiliation
Title of Seminar
Date & Location of Seminar
Content of the Talk
What biochemical systems are being worked on?
What physical or spectroscopic techniques are being used?
What is the central problem/question being addressed?
What was known generally about the problem before the speaker’s current work?
How does the speaker hope to add to or change our understanding of the problem?
What are the speaker’s principal conclusions?
Preparation & Organization of the Talk
How was the talk organized? List major topics.
How effective was the presentation of the talk? Discuss the scientific level, clarity, and length of the introduction, results, and conclusions. Discuss the speaking style and use of slides, overheads, etc.
What part of the talk did you enjoy the most and why?
How are the work or methodology you heard in the talk related to what you are learning in your classes or research?
How could the talk be improved?
Question-and-Answer Session
How well did the speaker answer questions from the audience? Describe one question and comment specifically.
OR
How well did the speaker answer YOUR question? Describe one question and comment specifically.
It is a course requirement for you to ask at least two questions during the semester – think of some in advance and be brave!
Supporting Literature
Go back to the abstracts of recent papers you found in your literature search of the speaker prior to the seminar, selecting one for closer reading.
Which paper did you read? Cite the authors, title, journal, volume, pages, and date using a standard format from Biophysical Journal, Biochemistry, or another journal you read frequently.
How is the topic covered by the paper related to the seminar topic?
Attend and submit reports as described above for (at least) 5 seminars.
For each of the remaining 2 assignments,
Choose 2 papers by someone who is speaking in the NYC area.
List the following information:
Speaker Name & Professional Affiliation
Date & Location of Seminar
Citations of Papers (authors, title, journal, volume, pages, and date)
Answer the following questions:
What biochemical systems are being worked on?
What physical or spectroscopic techniques are being used?
What is the central problem/question being addressed?
What was known generally about the problem before the authors’ current work?
How does the speaker hope to add to or change our understanding of the problem?
What are the authors’ principal conclusions?
How was the paper organized? List major topics.
What part of the paper did you enjoy the most and why?
How could the clarity or organization of the paper be improved?