Patrick Murphy

@pjmurphy249.bsky.social

Associate Professor @Cornell #Genetics #Epigenetics #Chromatin #Zebrafish #Development #Reproduction #EvoDevo #Bioinformatics #ZGA #StemCells #Regeneration #GoBills #BillsMafia https://blogs.cornell.edu/murphylab/ 🦬🏈💪

Researchers working on model organisms don’t do it for funzies. It’s because the questions they ask are important and can’t be solved using mouse, or human cell culture systems. Notice: This message is especially intended for journal editors.

When postdocs and grad students move on, I don’t worry about “losing” projects. If a postdoc wants to extend their work beyond my lab, my answer is yes. They should take their momentum with them. I have plenty of ideas, and there will always be more questions to ask.

I cannot emphasize this enough, if you're cold-emailing me applying to my lab I would so much rather get the bulleted broken list of genuine interests than whatever letter ChatGPT spits out in its stead If you're training with me, I'm working with you not an LLM. I want to see who you are!

Great advice received as a postdoc: Do the easiest thing. I was 3 years into my postdoc and juggling projects w/nothing concrete = career crisis I went to my advisor Paul Sternberg for help. He asked what was going on & what mutant had the strongest phenotype. "Clone the easiest one." It worked.

Arjun Raj@arjunraj.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Blog post: Just quit Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it. open.substack.com/pub/arjunraj...

I still receive email inquires about postdoc jobs in my lab, with generic cover letters from applicants who don’t seem to be genuinely interested in our research… please save everyone time and read this article before emailing PIs: network.febs.org/posts/consid...

Considering a postdoc? Read this first

Looking for your first postdoctoral position can be confusing but being proactive, and focusing on your research interests and career goals can help. This useful post from a recent postdoctoral fellow...

network.febs.org

Any recommendations on getting a journal editor to respond to an email? Desk rejection is taking longer than peer review these days, and I don’t seem to get any response emails back from editors.

Pls Repost: I am putting together an edition of “Methods in Molecular Biology” focused on early development, encompassing gastrulation. I am making a list of potential authors for chapters. If interested, please contact me - An excellent opportunity for trainees to co-author with their advisors.