School days and a lifetime of learning

The autumn season is always a nice reminder of my school and college years. I can honestly say that I looked forward to going back to school each year, even though I always enjoyed having the summers off. Autumn is the start of a new school season, with all the hype, expectations and focus that a new start entails. That feeling of starting a new school year has never left me, even though I am far removed from my school days; I always have a bit of it when I go back to work after a long summer vacation. But now that I do consulting work for the university, I feel that sense of ‘new school year’ excitement when I walk past groups of students gathered nervously together on campus—that sense of anticipation about new courses, new books, new teachers, new social experiences, and a lot of studying. I’m glad I’m finished with all that, but it’s interesting to be back on campus as an adult doing an adult job. I enjoy seeing the students and remembering back to my own college days at Fordham University. Those years were something special, and I knew that already at college age. I knew that such an opportunity to be able to focus and to study uninterruptedly for four years would never come again. And it’s true, it never did. But those four years were a wonderful immersion in biology, literature, Spanish, organic chemistry and history, on a lovely campus in the middle of the Bronx.

I went to work full-time right after college, halfway through my master’s degree in cell biology that I ended up finishing at night. I was offered the chance to do a PhD by professor Loren Day, my biophysicist boss at my first job, but I turned down the offer so that I could work for some years while I figured out in what field I wanted to do doctoral work. I knew it would not be biophysics (my first working lab experience—isolating and purifying bacteriophage DNA in order to study its helical structure). Although the technology we used at that time was fascinating, I was more fascinated by the use of computers in the lab—the early computers that let us feed DNA sequences into crude programs in order to get back protein sequences, for example. The computers that were programmed to tell us “Cool your jets, I’m adding up the sites” while we waited for the output. They were being funny with us, of course programmed to be so by the offbeat programmers who had offbeat senses of humor. I became friends with Roy, our resident computer programmer, who showed me how computer circuit boards were designed, and who was patient enough to explain the chemistry involved in their manufacture. He taught me the rudiments of the programming language UNIX, and got me interested in the first small personal computers. My interest in computers led to my taking a course in FORTRAN and in machine language at New York University, courses that I have never regretted taking. I hit the wall countless times, but I managed to pass both courses and I learned some really cool things in the process, like how to move 0’s and 1’s around in the data and address registers that make up the CPU. This binary language is the language needed to talk to the guts of the computer; the executable programs that are written in higher level languages like FORTRAN in the early days and in C++ nowadays are translated to executable machine (binary) code by a compiler and linker. So I waded carefully into the programming waters, but I was not clever enough to continue in this field even though it interested me tremendously. I don’t regret this decision, because biology was and still is the field of study that interests me the most, with literature a close second. The exposure to computers and to complex instrumentation in my first job laid the groundwork for my next job, which was to be the daily leader of a flow cytometry core facility at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Laser flow cytometers/sorters were used to analyze different cellular parameters and to physically sort different cell types from each other; most of them were coupled to computers that were programmed to run these instruments and to perform the complex analyses involved. When I look back to that time, the 1980s, I remember it as a phenomenal time in terms of learning. The use of flow cytometry in biological and cancer research was just taking off, and it was fun to be a part of it, attending courses in Boston (sponsored by Ortho Diagnostic Systems) to learn how to run these complicated instruments, as well as a course in Los Alamos, New Mexico at the government lab there to learn how high-speed flow sorters were being used to sort chromosomes and to make chromosome libraries, among other important things. We learned how to do some pretty novel stuff at that course, and got a chance to see a lot of New Mexico in the process. I joined the Society for Analytical Cytology (SAC) that later became the International Society for Analytical Cytometry (ISAC); I have attended countless conferences in different countries since 1985, but the conference that stands out is the one at Cambridge University in England in August 1987. It was here that I met Trond, the Norwegian man who became my husband. It was also my first trip to Europe alone; my lodging was a student dormitory room not far from the building where the conference was held. All conference attendees lived in this way for the week we were there. I loved the feeling of living in the dorm; it was a monastic room, simple, small, with very little furniture save the bed and a desk. But it gave me a real feeling of what it must have been like to study at Cambridge, and the city itself was attractive with its many bookstores and music stores. All I know is that one day I hope to really study there—to take a literature course of some sort during the summer months. It’s on my bucket list.  

Maybe it’s not so strange that I ended up in academia. I don’t teach, even though I have achieved the level of professor competence. I prefer to mentor students on a one-to-one basis or in small groups, and I still like being in the lab from time to time. I don’t like bureaucracy, power politics, or the ‘publish or perish’ mentality of academia. What I do like is the ability and privilege that we have to immerse ourselves in lifelong learning if we want to, and I try to take advantage of this as much as possible. Because life is short, but also because society is changing at a rapid rate, and has changed immensely within the last thirty years. Being able to keep up with the rapid change is important, and the only way we can do that is to remain open to learning for the rest of our lives. 

The New Science and Math Library at the University of Oslo

The University of Oslo will be building a new, modern Science and Math library in the Vilhelm Bjerknes' building. Renovations and construction will begin in the Vilhelm Bjerknes' building at the end of February / beginning of March. When the new library is completed in 2012, it will be actively used for debate and discussion about science and the importance of science to society. 

You can find the Library's Facebook page here--https://www.facebook.com/realfagsbiblioteket. 

There were some wonderfully interesting Arrangements at the Library during 2010--Bill Bryson, Marcus du Sautoy, Karen Lunsford, and Drew Endy held exciting lectures that had their audiences enthralled. There was a really interesting lecture by Ellen Henriksen followed by a panel debate about young women and why they don't choose careers in math and science. There were two important, exciting, and well-attended conferences--the BioConference 2010 with its Biodiversity theme, and the Bioinformatics Conference. There will be more Arrangements in 2011.  Follow the Facebook page during 2011 to stay up-to-date on all of the new and exciting Arrangements that the Library is planning! Stay tuned......


For those of you who cannot read Norwegian, you can become fans of the Facebook page anyway! Google Translate is a wonderful tool that I use a lot now to go back and forth between English and several languages. It will help you translate the site to English. The translations may be a little weird at times, but you'll get the gist of what is going on at the Library. It is a dynamic, forward-thinking, and future-focused library headed by women who are all these things and more. 

Bacteria bubble lamps, iGEM, and future visions

This past Tuesday the New Science and Math library at the University of Oslo (in collaboration with The Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board) welcomed Drew Endy from Stanford University and a team of students from Cambridge University. They were there to talk about synthetic biology—Drew Endy defined what it is and how he envisions its future uses. He also talked about its impact on society and the potential ethical and moral issues involved in its use. The students were there to present their iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine competition) project for 2010—an E.coli bubble lamp—essentially E.coli bacteria that have been genetically-modified to become a living bioluminescent ‘lamp’. You can see their ‘product’ here in this YouTube video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&v=tUFscEVK5Ks. There were four students and all of them wore T-shirts with the words ‘E. glowli’ written on them. They had their presentation before Drew’s lecture, and they held their audience captive for over thirty minutes with what they had to say. They envisioned a future where London was lit by such ‘living lamps’. But what struck me most of all about them was the (high) levels of enthusiasm and interest they had in science and in what they were doing. They believed in what they were doing. They were not fanatical; they just loved their work. You could tell they weren’t just doing it for the fame and glory, even though they have achieved some of that. Mostly they were just enjoying what they were doing and they weren’t afraid to impart that message. And as an audience, you could not help but be inspired by them. You couldn’t help but smile. These students are not jaded, cynical bureaucrats; they are already budding scientists and who knows what lies in store for them? Who knows how far they can go before a bureaucratic daily life confronts them and tries to slow them down? The danger is not that they get completely or immediately discouraged. The danger is that they get slowly discouraged—a gradual, slow, insidious process that leads to a loss of morale and enthusiasm over time. I don’t know what I have to do to prevent that from happening, but whatever it is I will do it. I will be a cheerleader for the other side—the side that says let students do science and let scientists do science. Science students deserve a chance to love science. They deserve a chance to come up with new ideas, test them out, compete with others, and to learn by trial and error. We had that chance in our generation. I still love science. I just don’t love the administrative infrastructure that has built itself up around the practice of science, which has led to scientific daily life being over-administrated by budgets and accountants and unnecessary amounts of paperwork.

All of the conferences and lectures I have been to at the New Science and Math library this autumn (and helped promote on their Facebook and Twitter pages—my consulting job this autumn) have helped to restore my love of and enthusiasm about science. You’ll find the New Science and Math library Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/realfagsbiblioteket. This autumn has rejuvenated my love for science in so many forms—synthetic, ecological, marine, and polar biology, math, physics; try and explain them to me in concrete, interesting and enthusiastic ways and you’ll find a willing listener and an enthusiastic supporter. And it was clear from the public attendance at these lectures that there were many others who felt the same way. But please don’t talk to us just about impact factors, making money, patents, innovations, which research group is the best and which group is the worst. Deliver us from small-minded, petty and envious principal investigators. Give me instead the principal investigators who think big even if they have small research groups (I know a few), who have visions, enthusiasm, and ideas about the future and who like their students and encourage them rather than being threatened by their intelligence. Drew Endy did not appear to be threatened by the iGEM students from Cambridge. He was proud of them. There was a good rapport between them. There is some really good science being done at the University of Oslo and the Norwegian University of Life Science at Aas and at other research and educational institutions in Norway. But its promotion has to come from the scientists themselves (not from bureaucrats), or from scientists who don’t want to do bench work anymore but who are willing to promote the cause of science in order to inspire future generations of science students, or from science librarians, or from a combination of all three groups. The combination idea seems to be gaining support, which is wonderful—real teamwork! Hopefully, science-interested parties at the University of Oslo will set the wheels in motion to build up a UiO iGEM team after having heard about how well the lecture and iGEM presentation went on Tuesday afternoon at the New Science and Math library. All I can say is—go for it! 

Marcus du Sautoy and the Public Understanding of Science

I had the pleasure of listening to Oxford University mathematics professor Marcus du Sautoy talk about Symmetry this past Monday at the University of Oslo. The lecture was entitled Symmetry: Reality’s Riddle. The event was co-sponsored by the New Science Library (Det nye realfagsbiblioteket) and the Freedom of Expression foundation (Fritt Ord). The library building (Vilhelm Bjerknes house) will undergo extensive renovations starting in 2011, supported in part by the Freedom of Expression foundation. When the building renovations are finished in 2012, the library will be used as a center for seminars and debates about science and its role in society. Professor du Sautoy was invited to give a talk because he is also a professor of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, and the library is interested in focusing on this aspect for the future. After listening to du Sautoy talk on Monday, I can understand why. Here is a man who can talk about mathematics in a dynamic way, in a way that captivates an audience while at the same time educating them. This is no mean feat. He is smart, clever, good at what he does, but more importantly, he can talk to people outside his profession and get them interested in his work and in mathematics. He has done this by writing best-selling books, hosting TV and radio programs in Britain, holding lectures internationally and so forth.

During his lecture on Monday, he spent a good deal of time talking about the symmetry found in the mosaic tiles of the Alhambra, a building in Granada Spain designed by Moorish architects. He also talked about M.C. Escher, whose art fascinated many of us when we were younger. He was the artist who drew staircases in space that merged into other staircases and it was impossible to know where one started and the other ended http://www.mcescher.com/Gallery/back-bmp/LW389.jpg. What I didn’t know was that Escher has done an entire gallery of symmetry drawings as well http://www.mcescher.com/Gallery/gallery-symmetry.htm, and that he was fascinated by the Alhambra. So I can thank Professor du Sautoy for this new bit of knowledge. Overall it was a very interesting lecture, and it struck me while he was talking that he did not have to hold an actual talk about the ‘public understanding of science/mathematics’ in order to impart an understanding of his field. His subject was complex, and this was clear to the audience, but his presentation was not obscure or unintelligible. His talk imparted a general understanding of the complex mathematics underlying symmetry (the number riddles involved—hence the name of the lecture, Symmetry: Reality’s Riddle) in a way that was fun, exciting and challenging. The other thing that struck me was that the audience had a lot of questions for him after his lecture, and that is the sign of a good lecture. People were not afraid to ask questions or to share their own experiences and thoughts, and that simply means that he inspired his audience rather than driving them away. I found myself remembering my calculus professor from my freshman year in college. He was such a poor teacher, even though he probably had a good grasp of his subject. He simply could not communicate his knowledge to his students, and the majority of students failed his class. That did not seem to matter to him. I stuck it out for the full year, but never took a math class again after that. I hit the wall somewhere around ‘integration by partial fractions’ which he could not intelligibly explain to us to save his life. But in high school, I really enjoyed all my math classes, and that was due in no small part to Ms. Moloney, our math teacher, who could explain what needed to be explained in an understandable and fun way. That made all the difference. Good teachers who know how to communicate their knowledge and who do so in interesting and motivating ways are the key to attracting students into math and science professions. Professor du Sautoy is one of them.