2019 BE Departmental Retreat

Targeting the targets: 
high density monitoring of signaling pathways in phosphoproteomics

Each year, the Biological Engineering department at MIT holds a retreat primarily for graduate community and faculty. The retreat is comprised of short 10 minute talks from graduate students and post-docs, as well a a keynote speaker, panel, and poster sessions, and a state of the department talk by the graduate leadership.

I remember older students giving talks at the retreat in October of my first year. They seemed so accomplished, so knowledgable. I wondered if I’d ever do anything worthy of sharing… time flies! This year I was selected to speak, and I chose to present a shortened version of the work with Thermo Scientific on targeted tyrosine phosphorylation mass spectrometry methods.

It was challenging to adapt a talk I had crafted for a mass spectrometry technical audience to a general bioengineering audience, with only 7 minutes! I ended up spending very little time on background and methodology, providing the bare minimum information required to motivate the project. Instead I highlighted the story of how the project began, what the results mean in a biological context, and why we are excited by the results.

It was such a privilege to share this work with my talented peers in bioengineering!

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