Interview with Stephanie Pearl, PhD; written by Anna Lau, PhD As cofounder of the Athens Science Café, Dr. Stephanie Pearl occupies a special place in our collective heart. She shared with me her path to a nontraditional career as a Science Communicator at a federal agency. What struck me was how her concern for issues
By Leslie Roldan, PhD; edited by Anna Lau, PhD Please let me introduce Dr. Leslie Roldan, published researcher, doctorate, educator, and now published book author.* In this installment of the series, Leslie talks to us about her path to a nontraditional career that merges two seemingly disparate areas, English and Biology. We learn from her
By Anna Lau, PhD In 2011, academic institutions in the US awarded a total of 49,010 Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees, including 28,149 PhDs in Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Engineering combined. Notably, the majority of PhDs in Life Sciences were awarded specifically in Biological/Biomedical Sciences (71%) [see footnote a], making this the most common
By Anna Lau, PhD, Athens Science Café Earlier this year, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a drug, palbociclib, for treatment of advanced breast cancer. Palbociclib works by inhibiting the function of a protein that controls cell division. Cancer cells divide uncontrollably, so this drug stops these cells from multiplying. Palbociclib is what drug
In 1963, at the dawn of the molecular biology age, Dr. Joshua Lederberg predicted that this nascent biotechnology would eventually allow direct control of human DNA, including the ability to change specific genes. [1] He recognized the potential of molecular biology to bring about gene therapy to cure human disease and to be misused for
