Sam Wattrus

Paul Nurse describing the main job of a PI

(From ‘The Thinking Game’, 2024)

So awesome to see this! Congrats :)

Also, I will always take credit for being the person who convinced him to get his first smartphone and taught him how to take selfies

He was a consummate gentleman and scientist. The ways he treated people, loved science, and ran his lab are all things I’ve always tried to emulate. He had an outsize impact on me and so many others, and he will be sorely missed.

He entrusted me with resources and space to try things, ask for help, fail, and succeed on my own. He had tea with us every day and chatted freely about life and science. He always kept doing benchwork – his office had a microscope, incubator, and injection rig so he could do his own experiments.

Even as an inexperienced student, John treated me - and everyone in his lab - as a colleague. When I showed up on my first day, John was the one who met me at the front door to let me in and show me around the institute which bore his own last name.

When I was an undergraduate just starting lab work, I (somewhat naively) cold emailed John asking if I could work in his lab for the summer. Even though I was just a random student from the US that really had barely any experience to speak of then, John agreed to take me on.

Nobel Laureate Professor Sir John Gurdon dies aged 92 It is with great sadness that the University shares the news of the death of Professor Sir John Gurdon, founder of the Gurdon Institute.

So incredibly sad to learn of John Gurdon’s passing. It is hard to overstate what a big deal he is to developmental biology - a legend. Leaving aside his phenomenal scientific achievements, I want to take a moment to highlight how he was also an exceptionally kind person and incredible role model.

We are hiring! The Wattrus lab at MGH is seeking talented postdoc applicants to join our group and study differences in regeneration and wound healing across species using fish models. We are a fun group - come and join us! Fishy friends, please spread the word! #zebrafish #medaka #zebrafishjobs

on left: dog with muscles, it says "doing experiments as a postdoc: 12 hours a day, all successful, much data" on right: sad weak dog, it says "doing experiments as a PI: i loaded 6 mass spec samples, hope it works"

this is me today

Academia may not give you job security, flexibility, or wealth, but it will let you unexpectedly connect to eduroam in foreign cities

Graffiti at the end of an underpass in Heidelberg saying 'LAB!'.

Some PIs will stop at nothing to motivate their lab members. 🧪

😭😭😭 devastated to hear this honestly — Thank you for everything Kevin!! Have loved ZR at every stage and appreciate everything you’ve done for the community

Good luck - excited to see what you do next!

A single yellow post-it note in the middle of a big black screen. The post-it says "Fish".

Being a zebrafish researcher means you leave yourself this kind of ominous notes sometimes

Congratulations!!

Zebrafish Rock! is, no joke, a core part of the fish community that helps tie it all together

This is gonna kill my productivity if this is true 😭

Harvard rejects Trump administration’s demands with federal funding at risk The university’s response comes after the government announced a federal review of nearly $9 billion in funding to Harvard and its affiliates.

Never been more proud

Congratulations!

Counterpoint: the synthetic wolf species thing could never have happened without NIH funded research in academia happening first

Inside me there are two wolves. One of them has a 15 genome edits the other 20 genome edits. Neither of them is a dire wolf.

Me, after repeating a PCR for the fourth time

Finally someone said it

Lungfish xkcd.com/3064

red button meme with options of "mention the collapse of democracy, science, and freedom in the US" vs "fine"

Me, whenever I'm asked how it's going

am i even good enough to have imposter syndrome

Congratulations!!

This is wisdom

RNA xkcd.com/3056