The Faculty Lunch Series continues in July with Dr. David Altshuler, Chief Academic Officer and Deputy Director of the Broad Institute. Space is limited so if you’d like to attend, please register at your earliest convenience!

David Altshuler, a clinical endocrinologist and human geneticist, is a founding core member of the Broad Institute and has directed the Broad’s Program in Medical and Population Genetics since 2003. In 2009 he was named the Broad’s first chief academic officer.

Altshuler studies human genetic variation and its application to disease, using tools and information from the Human Genome Project. He has been a leader in The SNP Consortium, International HapMap Project, and 1000 Genomes Project, public-private partnerships that have created public maps of human genome sequence variation as a foundation for disease research. On this foundation, he and his colleagues have developed laboratory tools and analytical methods necessary to enable the systematic study of human genetic variation for its role in common diseases. He has discovered gene variants that influence the risk of common conditions, including type 2 diabetes, blood cholesterol, heart attack, prostate cancer, systemic lupus erythematosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Altshuler has been on the faculty of Harvard since 2000 and is currently a professor of genetics and medicine at Harvard Medical School, and in the Department of Molecular Biology, the Diabetes Unit of the Department of Medicine, and the Center for Human Genetic Research, all at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 2012 he was also appointed as an adjunct professor of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Among his honors are elections to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association of American Physicians, and the US Institute of Medicine. He was elected to the Board of Directors of the American Society of Human Genetics and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. He has served in many advisory capacities, including on the Advisory Council of the NIDDK (National Institutes of Health), the Strategy Committee at the Wellcome Trust, and the Board of Reviewing Editors at Science. He was awarded the Curt Stern Award from the American Society of Human Genetics and the Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award from the American Diabetes Association. Altshuler was also named a Champion of Change by the White House for his leadership role in the global alliance for sharing genomic and clinical data.

Altshuler received his B.S. from MIT, Ph.D. from Harvard University, and M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He completed his internship, residency, and clinical fellowship training at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“Privacy and the Ethics of Genetic Data: A conversation with David Altshuler,” Wednesday, May 29, NOON, Monadnock Room

Concerns about the privacy of genetic data made headlines earlier this year, and at least two recent journal articles (one published this week and one from January) have addressed the topic.

On Wednesday, May 29, as part of the Broad’s Responsible Conduct of Research Program*, chief academic officer David Altshuler will lead a discussion on “Privacy and the Ethics of Genetic Data” in the Monadnock Room at noon.

All Broadies are welcome and encouraged to participate in the conversation. Come hungry, both for lunch and for lively discussion.

*Broad Institute’s Responsible Conduct of Research program is coordinated by the Office of Sponsored Research to meet the NIH requirements related to research ethics and integrity.

The Broad Institute NextGen Association for Postdocs and Graduate Students is hosting a panel discussion, “Postdoctoral Fellowship in Industry.” If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to pursue postdoctoral training in an industrial setting, please join us on May 28, 12:00-1:30 PM in the Monadnock Room at 7 Cambridge Center.  Lunch will be provided.  Panelists include: Broad alum Dr. Raquel (Kelli) Deering, Novartis; Dr. Justin Piro, Pfizer; Dr. Marie Schoumacher, Novartis; and Dr. Justin Slawson, Biogen Idec.

Topics covered will include what led them to decide to undertake a postdoctoral position in industry and what advice they might have for current Broad trainees thinking about postdoctoral positions in industry.

If you’d like to attend, please register via: http://industrypostdoc2013.eventbrite.com. Lunch will be served!

Panelists include:

Raquel (Kelli) Deering

Raquel (Kelli) Deering, PhD, is a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at the Vaccines and Diagnostics division of Novartis in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She completed her undergraduate work in biochemistry at Bryn Mawr College in 2004. Between college and graduate school, Dr. Deering worked as a research associate in Dr. Jordan Orange’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania studying innate immune signaling defects that drive the development of primary immunodeficiencies. Dr. Deering graduated from Harvard Medical School with a PhD in immunology in 2013. She completed her dissertation work in Dr. Nir Hacohen’s laboratory at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While there, she uncovered the mechanisms of function for several RNA binding proteins using cutting edge RNA biochemistry approaches. In particular, she focused her work on the regulation of antiviral signaling pathways by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)-linked RNA binding proteins. Her continued interests are to 1) understand how RNA processing factors coordinate distinct cellular events and 2) explore novel mechanisms of promoter regulation.

Justin R. Piro

Justin Piro is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Neuroscience Research Unit at Pfizer.  Prior to joining Pfizer, Dr. Piro was a graduate student in the Biochemistry Department at Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, NH. Dr. Piro grew up in Connecticut and earned his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Eastern Connecticut State University. His Ph.D. research was focused on prions— the causative agent of several infectious neurodegenerative diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jacob, Kuru, Scrapie, and BSE (Mad Cow Disease). More specifically, his work centered on understanding how a single misfolded protein can encode infectivity and associated strain properties. Justin has published several papers in the field of prion biology and has presented his work at international conferences. Currently, Dr. Piro is a member of the “A-Team” within Pfizer’s Integrative Neurocircuitry department. Recently, Justin and his colleagues identified a new route of synthesis for arachidonic acid in the brain. This pathway establishes a link between endocannabinoid metabolism and neuroinflammation. This cross-talk is being studied to understand how neuroinflammation subserves neurodegenerative diseases and drives secondary damage in acute brain traumas. He is also an elected member of the Postdoc Committee at Pfizer.

Marie Schoumacher

Marie Schoumacher, PhD, completed her undergraduate study on Cancer Biology at the Ecole Normale Supérieure/Université Paris Denis-Diderot in Paris, France and completed her PhD training at the Curie Institute (Paris, France) in the lab of Daniel Louvard and Danijela Vignjevic.  Her PhD work was focused on the mechanism of cancer cell invasion and metastasis formation in colon cancer. In 2011, she joined the Oncology department at NIBR (Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Research) in Cambridge as a postdoc. Dr. Schoumacher’s research aims to identify novel functions of the PARP enzymes named tankyrases (TNKS). The goal of this project is to increase our understanding of TNKS biology in cancer and will impact on how we could best target TNKS as a novel anti-cancer treatment.

Justin Slawson

Justin Slawson earned a B.S. from Haverford College in 2005 before pursuing his doctorate at Brandeis University. Under the direction of Dr. Leslie Griffith, Justin’s dissertation work focused on the behavioral plasticity and function of motor circuits within the CNS of the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster. It was here that he became interested in the question of why neurodegenerative pathologies appear to affect specific neuronal populations, while other groups of cells remain relatively resistant to these aberrant processes. After receiving his Ph.D. in early 2012, Justin spent several months as senior video editor at the Journal of Visualized Experiments before beginning his postdoctoral training at Biogen Idec later that year. His project seeks to answer the question of cell-type-specific vulnerability related to neurodegeneration using novel cell profiling methodologies in both in vitro and in vivo systems.

 

Get ready for the job market – bring your resume or CV and get resume-writing tips from professionals involved in hiring decisions in industry, academia, consulting, tech transfer, and more.

Location: Monadnock Room (7CC)
Time: Wednesday, June 19, 2013  6:30 to 9:00 PM

The following experts will be in attendance to critique your resume:

• David C. Anderson, Talent Acquisition, Pfizer
• Nikki J. Borman, Ad Interim Director, Office of Technology Licensing, Brandeis University
• Lauren Celano, Founder and CEO, Propel Careers
• Mike Christopher, Talent Acquisition Specialist, Philips Healthcare
• Katelyn DeMaio, Recruiter, Charles River Analytics
• Jon Edwards, Consultant, ClearView Healthcare Partners
• Eli Grigsby, Professor of Mathematics, Boston College
• Jennifer Price, Associate Director, StratAcuity
• Melanie V. Sinche, Director, FAS Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, Harvard University
• Sarah Wolfrum, Manager of Health Informatics, Fenway Health

Registration is only $10 for Broadies! Register here: http://goo.gl/LbosL

Sponsored by Mass AWIS • Download the event flyer

Propel Careers, MassBio, and the MassBioEd joined together to organize a series of networking and panel events focused on raising awareness of career paths that exist in life sciences for individuals with advanced degrees. The Futures in Life Science program brings together experts across a wide range of disciplines and functional areas within the life science industry, who detail their roles and provide a rich context for the audience to gain a clear understanding of the skills, aptitudes, competencies, and personalities that thrive in their particular functions. Attendance for this program is open to current graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and medical residents who are interested in careers in the life sciences industry.

The next seminar will take place on May 21, 2013, from 5:30-8:00 p.m. at MassBio office (300 Technology Square, Cambridge).

The focus for April is on careers paths in Clinical, Regulatory, and Medical Affairs with panelists Bill Ferrell, Client Solutions Team, UBC-Envision Group; Laurie Halloran, President and CEO, Halloran Consulting Group; and William Tobia, Clinical Instructor, GlaxoSmithKline.

Registration is $20. Visit fils42013-eorg.eventfizz.com to register and see the schedule of upcoming seminars.

You’re invited to a special career development event, “Career Decisions: How to Find a Science Career That Fits YOU,” on Friday, April 19, 2013, from 2:00-4:00 PM in the Monadnock Room.

Do you want to find a career path that you’ll enjoy and find rewarding? Of course! But HOW do you find such a path, especially since there are so many different directions scientists can go with their careers?

There are more than FIFTY career options available to biomedical sciences PhD’s. If you’d like to see a list of these career options, while learning about how to select the best option for you, then don’t miss this thought-provoking and interactive workshop! Here you will learn about a logical, step-by-step process for exploring your career options and deciding which will provide the best fit for your own set of skills, values and interests.

Presented by Bill Lindstaedt, Director, UCSF Office of Career and Professional Development, and Co-author, AAAS/ScienceCareers myIDP Career Development Application.

This is a hands-on workshop. You will need to bring a laptop or tablet with you. Space is limited. Free and open to all Broad-affiliated academic trainees. Please visit broad2013careerdecisions.eventbrite.com to register!

This event is sponsored by the Broad Institute Office of Academic Affairs and the NextGen Association for Postdocs and Grad Students as part of an ongoing series of career development seminars and workshops.

Propel Careers, MassBio, and the MassBioEd joined together to organize a series of networking and panel events focused on raising awareness of career paths that exist in life sciences for individuals with advanced degrees. The Futures in Life Science program brings together experts across a wide range of disciplines and functional areas within the life science industry, who detail their roles and provide a rich context for the audience to gain a clear understanding of the skills, aptitudes, competencies, and personalities that thrive in their particular functions. Attendance for this program is open to current graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and medical residents who are interested in careers in the life sciences industry.

The next seminar will take place on April 16, 2013, from 5:30-8:00 p.m. at MassBio office (300 Technology Square, Cambridge).

The focus for April is on careers paths in Research and Development with panelists Kenneth Olivier, Senior Director of Toxicology -Merrimack Pharmaceuticals; Andrew Taggart, Senior Investigator I -Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research; David Proia, Associate Director, Cancer Biology-Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp.; and Brian Bronk, Vice President-Satori Pharmaceuticals.

Registration is $20. Visit fils42013-eorg.eventfizz.com to register and see the schedule of upcoming seminars.

Beacon VP Investments is a private investment group composed of graduate students, Ph.D. candidates, and postdoctoral fellows from Harvard University and MIT.  It invests in small and mid-cap biotechs that have drugs progressing through the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process. Its recent successes include:

• Greater than 25% net return on investments during the group’s inaugural year.
• More than 53,000 views on published research articles since late October of last year.
• A recently introduced method for public investors to mirror its investment modeland trades.

One of the founding principles of Beacon VP Investments is “learning and leveraging collective intelligence.” In keeping with this principle, the group has created a “Beacon VP Basic Investment Education Series” in order to share its knowledge and experience with students who are interested in investing.

If you’re interested in participating, please RSVP here.

The Investment Education Series is a 3-month long course, consisting of three parts:

Part 1: An Introduction to Investing and Investment Approaches. Topics will include Value Investing, Growth Investing, Company Analysis, and Sector Rotation.

Part 2: Basic Concepts for Creating a Trading Plan and Portfolio. Your team will create a trading plan for a portfolio and ways to test your trading plan.

Part 3: Managing, Presenting and Fine-tuning Your Trading Plan. Your team will present actual trading results and ways to improve upon your plan.

This is a team-oriented and learn-by-doing course. You will be assigned to a team on Meeting 1. You will construct, manage and present a trading plan and portfolio with your team. While no investment or business experience is needed, you must be willing and able to commit to your team for the duration of the series. Therefore, we charge a $75 fee ($25 non-refundable and $50 deposit), due on 04/14/13, for this course and a $6 penalty/meeting for deserting your team. The net (deposit – penalties) will be refunded to you on 06/30/13.

All meetings will be held at One Broadway, Cambridge (CIC) from 4 to 6 pm.

Part 1: Value & Growth Investing

Meeting 1. (04/14/13)                           Idea Generation

Meeting 2. (04/28/13)                            Company Analysis (bottom-up approach)

Meeting 3. (05/12/13)                            Economic Cycle & Sector Rotation (top-down approach)

Part 2: Trading Plan & Portfolio Construction

Meeting 4. (05/19/13)                            Idea generation – brainstorm a trading plan with your team

Meeting 5. (06/02/13)                            Present your trading plan as a team

Meeting 5. (06/02/13)                            Start testing your trading plan- back testing may be possible

Meeting 6. (06/09/13)                            Portfolio Creation & Risk Management

Part 3: Portfolio Management

Meeting 7. (06/16/13)                            Trading Psychology

Meeting 8. (06/23/13)                            Share your actual paper trading results

Meeting 9. (06/30/13)                            Trading plan modifications

Are you wondering how to make connections to help you find your next job?

LinkedIn has become an incredibly powerful tool for professional networking and enhancing your job search. The Whitehead Postdoc Association is holding a workshop on how to use LinkedIn and they’ve invited Broadies to attend.

What: Hands on session featuring information on: what to include in your profile, building your summary, how to connect with others, groups you might want to consider, making contributions to discussions, and researching/following companies and industry trends.

When: Monday, April 8th from 2-4 pm

Where: Whitehead Institute, 9 Cambridge Center, McGovern Auditorium

This is a “working” workshop, so please bring your laptop. Also, you need to create a basic LinkedIn profile and join at least one group before you come.

You’re invited to a panel discussion with former postdoctoral Broadies now established in academia.  Bring your questions about what the transition was like, why they opted to go into academia instead of industry, and how they leveraged their connections with the Broad Institute to get to their current academic position.

This event will take place on Wednesday, April 10, in the Monadnock Room (7CC, 2nd Floor) from 12:00-1:30 PM.

The event is open to all Broad-affiliated trainees and lunch will be served. If you’d like to attend, please RSVP to academicaffairs@broadinstitute.org.

Panelist Biographies

Benjamin Ebert, MD, PhD

Dr. Ebert is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an Associate Physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, co-Director of the Cancer Program at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and an Associate Member at the Broad Institute. He received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College, a doctorate from Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship, and an MD from Harvard Medical School. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and a fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute before pursuing postdoctoral research at the Broad Institute. His laboratory is based at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and focuses on the molecular basis and treatment of hematologic malignancies, with a particular focus on myelodysplastic syndromes.

Melanie P. Leussis, PhD

Melanie P. Leussis is an assistant professor of psychology at Emmanuel College.  She joined Emmanuel College after a four-year postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral neurogenetics in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and in the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at The Broad Institute, and a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in developmental neuropharmacology at McLean Hospital.  Dr. Leussis holds bachelor’s degrees in biology and psychology from the University of Ottawa and Dalhousie University, respectively, and a Ph.D. in psychology with a concentration in behavioral neuroscience from Boston College.  Her current research focus is on animal models of psychiatric disease.

Steven McCarroll, PhD

Steve McCarroll is a professor in the Genetics Department of Harvard Medical School. He is the Director of Genetics at the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute. Steve was a Ph.D. student in Cori Bargmann’s lab (genetics and neuroscience in C. elegans) at U.C. San Francisco, then a postdoc in David Altshuler’s lab (human genetic polymorphism and the genetic basis of complex phenotypes) at MGH and the Broad Institute.

Kiran Musunuru, MD, PhD

Dr. Kiran Musunuru is Assistant Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University and Associate Physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Musunuru received his M.D. degree from Weill Cornell Medical College, his Ph.D. degree from The Rockefeller University, and his M.P.H. degree from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He trained in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Cardiovascular Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, followed by postdoctoral work at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Dr. Musunuru’s current research focuses on the genetics of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.