{"543061":{"#nid":"543061","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Building Lab Skills","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBaseball has spring training and football has its rookie camps and summer workouts. For young researchers at the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, there is the Techniques Symposium.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe annual two-day scientific training event is always filled with seminars and hands-on workshops on laboratory techniques, software and analysis, as well as scientific communication \u2013 skills that are just as important to a scientist as arm strength and foot speed are to an athlete.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOur goal is to educate student attendees in a really efficient way, to introduce them to all of these different techniques,\u201d says Kathleen Bates, who co-chaired this year\u2019s symposium (June 1-2) with fellow fourth-year grad student, Joshua Hooks.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBates and Hooks are co-leaders for the Research Committee in BBUGS (Bioengineering and Bioscience Unified Graduate Students), the group that organizes the Techniques Symposium each year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe try to design the symposium as a way to provide a good start for student researchers,\u201d Bates says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a good place for them to connect with the experts.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThose experts include faculty and lab staff from the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as technical whizzes from the corporate world (people who have a wealth of experience using the equipment they represent), all of which conduct an array of training sessions across two busy days.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis year\u2019s event included representatives from the following sponsor companies: Airgas, BD Biosciences, Beckman-Coulter, Bruker, Essen Bioscience, Li-Cor, and Renishaw.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe training sessions were held in core facilities and other labs located in the Petit Biotechnology Building and the Engineered Biosystems Building (EBB) and covered a wide range of techniques and disciplines, including flow cytometry, histotechnology, biomechanics, microscopy, biopolymer characterization, and an MRI demonstration.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMeanwhile, the Suddath Room (Petit Biotechnology building) and the CHOA Seminar Room (EBB) was the place to be for seminars on topics that included (among other things) an introduction to data analysis and visualization as well as image processing and machine learning with MATLAB, live cell imaging, optical microscopy, using Abobe Illustrator for infographics or academic presentations, and a session entitled, \u201cIt Takes a Genome \u2013 and a little Passion,\u201d conducted by Petit Institute researcher Greg Gibson.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAll in all, two days filled end-to-end with useful skills training and knowledge sharing. Most of the attendees were grad students and postdocs, but a number of undergrads also participated.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI think this is a particularly effective for early stage grad students and undergrads, simply because they benefit the most from this kind of shotgun approach,\u201d says Hooks. \u201cReally, it\u2019s for any student, because they\u2019re learning skills that they\u2019ll actually be using as they go forward.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECONTACT:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Techniques Symposium offers wide-ranging \u2018shotgun approach\u2019 for young researchers"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETechniques Symposium offers wide-ranging \u2018shotgun approach\u2019 for young researchers\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Techniques Symposium offers wide-ranging \u2018shotgun approach\u2019 for young researchers"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2016-06-08 13:02:50","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:21:53","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-06-08T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2016-06-08T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"543051":{"id":"543051","type":"image","title":"John Robbins","body":null,"created":"1465696800","gmt_created":"2016-06-12 02:00:00","changed":"1475895333","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:33"},"543031":{"id":"543031","type":"image","title":"Aaron Lifland explains","body":null,"created":"1465696800","gmt_created":"2016-06-12 02:00:00","changed":"1475895333","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:33"}},"media_ids":["543051","543031"],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"4943","name":"BBUGS"},{"id":"1808","name":"graduate students"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}