Tuesday 27 December 2011

Of banks and universities

Are some public universities becoming as big (or even bigger) than some "too big to fail" banks such as citi and BofA? Will it become more cost efficient and better managed if they are smaller? Does the top management know what are happening inside the university? Have they lost touch with the lower tiers staffs? Or are they too busy looking outside, or pleasing other senior staffs?

One big reason for any failure is comunication (the lack of).

A good report that might be applicable to "too big to fail" universities?

Saturday 24 December 2011

Tuesday 18 October 2011

LSM4213 Writing your SDL3

>90% of documented AD cases are sporadic in nature. However, almost all availale AD animal models and cell models are created based on mutations linked to familial AD. Without these mutations, the experimental models will not be able to generate high levels of amyloid-beta to induce cellular and tissues changes mimicking features in AD. The neuropathology of familial and sporadic AD are rather similar. The major differences are earlier onset in familial cases.

The article highlighed in the SDL3 only document using iPS on familial AD experimental model. However, there are some review papers discussing the possible use of iPS on sporadic AD. You can evaluate these thoughts to strength your arguments.

The objective of this SDL is to test your critlcal thinking and analysis skills, rather than "synthesizing" available information into desired format.

BoonSeng

Friday 14 October 2011

LSM4213 Reading on Biochemical Techniques

The following book can serve as a refresher to understand the "use" of the commonly used molecular and biochemical lab techniques. Sample pages are available at the Google links (new and old editions).

http://books.google.com/books/about/Principles_and_Techniques_of_Biochemistr.html?id=lan8PqqnDacC
http://books.google.com/books/about/Principles_and_techniques_of_practical_b.html?id=0NvlqobpwCwC

Copies are also available in NUS Library.
Textbook

Wednesday 24 August 2011

Mentoring

Please read this blog entry.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/preparing-the-student-or-preparing-the-students-path/35539

Thursday 18 August 2011

NGS-GS6882A Presentation 1

To create greater transparency, I will share what I will be looking for when assessing your presentation next week.

For the scientific article, ask yourself the following questions,
(1) what is the status of the research field prior to the publication of the article?
(2) what are the "major" knowledge gap in this research area at that period?
(3) if and how the authors try to address this gap?
(4) what are the experimental models and tools the authors used? Why did they choose these models and tools?
(5) Are you able to identify other approaches or tools that can be used to answer these questions?
(6) do the results support the conclusions?
(7) how do the results contribute to the knowledge "gap"?
(8) what should be the next stage of investigation?

Good luck!

BoonSeng

LSM4213 SDL3

SDL in this module used to be individual effort. However, we will realize that in the "working" world, we have to work in group as teamplayer. Your group members are unlikely to be your good friends and they are likely to have different personalities.

Hence, starting this year, i decide to implement group work for my SDL. I strongly encourage you to form team with others that you do not know instead of gathering all the familiar faces.

BoonSeng

Thursday 4 August 2011

NGS-GS6882A

Welcome to this module. I will post any message on this blog and unlike IVLE, you can also leave your feedback. I hope this will make the module more interactive - in lecture and in the virtual space.

LSM4213 Welcome

Welcome to the module.

Instead of using IVLE to post message, I will do it here. Unlike IVLE, you can also comment on my post. Making this more interactive and hoping your feedback can make the class less "boring".