Educating the Next Generation of Scientific Leaders

Alan Saltiel
Mary Sue Coleman Director of the Life Sciences Institute 

Do LSI faculty members teach or just do research?  I get this question a lot and the answer is:  Yes!  The essence of an LSI laboratory and the hallmark of a University of Michigan education is the opportunity to learn by working alongside some of the world's experts on the most important problems of our time.  Right now there are 74 undergraduates, 99 graduate students and 55 post-doctoral fellows training at the LSI. From the time we opened in 2003, 45 students who did their research at LSI have received PhDs. Upon joining our laboratories these students and fellows are at once immersed in both the high level questions, and the day-to-day experiments that must be precisely executed to answer them. Our research tools may be high-tech, but the education occurs at the bench in an old-fashioned, one-on-one way.

Read the full column  

LSI Student Voices     

We asked a few of our students to write a short piece about why they became interested in science and about their experience at the LSI.   Follow the link to read the full essays and be amazed at the diversity and similarity in their stories.

Andrea Thompson Graduate Student, Gestwicki Lab "What began as the simple questions of childhood, like why is the sky blue, grew into a desire to answer some of the unknown mysteries of the world around us.  For me, the question was never whether I wanted to be a scientist, but rather how I could become a better scientist."

Donald Raymond Graduate Student, Smith Lab "The natural world always fascinated me, and living on a small island in the Caribbean, the opportunities for experimentation were endless. As I got older, I became interested in viral pathogens like Dengue fever virus, yellow fever virus and HIV that were infecting our small population in large numbers."

Allison Billi Medical Scientist Training Program Fellow, Kim Lab "I receive no small amount of criticism as an aspiring physician scientist for using the (lungless, heartless, mostly brainless) nematode as a model organism. But research at the Life Sciences Institute has a diversity in the scientific questions, approaches, and organisms that invigorates the faculty and students."

Vishan Dhamsania LSA Undergraduate Student, Tesmer Lab "I have learned that in science there are no typical mindsets; rather, each person has the opportunity to fine tune his or her interest and discover unique aspects of science."

Katie Dumas Graduate Student, Hu Lab "I think that I've always been interested in science, in finding out what makes things tick.  As a kid, I remember wading into ponds with my brother to see what kinds of creatures we could find in the pond water."

Read the full essays  

LSI's Business of Biology Course  

U-M President Mary Sue Coleman recently visited the LSI's Business of Biology course to answer questions and share insights. The graduate course is cross-listed in multiple schools and explores the challenges of science-based businesses.  Liz Barry, managing director of the Life Sciences Institute, and David Canter, executive director of the North Campus Research Complex, co-teach the course which is in its eighth year at UM.    

Read the full story

For this issue on education at LSI, we wanted to spend a few minutes with David Walt, Robinson Professor of Chemistry at Tufts University and co-founder of Illumina, Inc. and Quanterix Corp.  As a scientist, educator and entrepreneur, Walt has an important perspective on the value of the educational experience at LSI.

Why are you involved with LSI? 

I strongly believe in the LSI's mission of collaborative science.  Science today is interdisciplinary but most interdisciplinary projects still are "siloed"-they have one primary investigator and several collaborators.  LSI is all about team science-collaboration is the modus operandi and its primary goals are doing the best science and getting things accomplished.  Credit is a non-issue at LSI-the team is the focus rather than the individual-successful projects lead to recognition for everyone.

What do you think LSI has to offer students?

That's a tough one because it has so much to offer students.  Probably the most important thing LSI has to offer is the experience of working in a genuinely collaborative environment.  In the real world, science and innovation get done by collaborations with teams-scientists, engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists, and business experts.  Learning by immersion in that kind of environment, as is done at LSI, is the best possible training ground for students. 

Read the full interview

So You Think You Can Do Research?
LSI faculty member Steve Weiss leads annual course on research for MDs-in-training

It was a beautiful summer day in Ann Arbor -- 80 degrees, high puffy clouds and a warm breeze wafting up from Palmer Field across Washtenaw Avenue from the Life Sciences Institute. But instead of being outside enjoying the rare perfect weather, a dozen physicians-in-training at the UM were crowded around a table in a windowless conference room in the chilly air-conditioning of LSI. Not only did they choose to be there, they had to compete for one of the limited spots in this 10-week course on conducting original research organized by LSI faculty member Steve Weiss, who is also a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the UM Medical School.

Read the full story

The Latest LSI News & Research 

Shawn Xu's lab maps the neural circuits involved in worm movement revealing a surprising complexity and human-like parallels

Lim lab collaborates with Korean and U.S. researchers to discover new properties of an important iron complex