Re: This one is pretty good (fwd)

[smithjb@sas.upenn.edu (Joshua Smith)]

At Jim's request, I post this for your collective review.


Farlow,James wrote:
> From Farlow@IPFW.EDU  Wed Jan 21 10:40:12 1998
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:37:52 -0500
> Message-ID: <000D000C.1817@IPFW.EDU>
> From: Farlow@IPFW.EDU (Farlow,James)
> Subject: Re: This one is pretty good (fwd)
> To: smithjb@sas.upenn.edu (Joshua Smith)
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> Content-Description: cc:Mail note part
> 
>      This is too nice to keep quiet.  Please post on the dinosaur or VP 
>      discussion network.
> 
> Ben A. LePage wrote:
> > From blepage@sas.upenn.edu  Wed Jan 21 09:43:41 1998 
> > Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 09:43:41 -0500 (EST)
> > X-Sender: blepage@postoffice.sas.upenn.edu
> > Message-Id: <v01540b02b0eb740f100c@[165.123.20.51]> 
> > Mime-Version: 1.0
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" 
> > To: smithjb@sas.upenn.edu
> > From: blepage@sas.upenn.edu (Ben A. LePage) 
> > Subject: This one is pretty good (fwd)
> > 
> > Abstract
> >>
> >>Success in academia is hypothesized to require specific phenotypes. In
> >>order to understand how such unusual traits arise, we use human clones to 
> >>identify the molecular events that occur during the transition from a
> >>graduate student to professor. A pool of graduate student clones was
> >>subjected to several rounds of random mutagenesis, followed by selection 
> >>on minimal money media in the absence of dental insurance. Students
> >>surviving this selection were further screened for the ability to work 
> >>long hours with vending machine snacks as a sole carbon source; clones 
> >>satisfying these requirements were dubbed "post-docs". In order to
> >>identify assistant professors from among the post-docs, this pool was
> >>further mutagenized, and screened for the ability to turn esoteric results
> >>into a 50 minute seminar. Finally, these assistant professors were
> >>evaluated for their potential to become full professors in two ways: first
> >>they were screened for overproduction and surface display of stress
> >>proteins such as Hsp70. Assistant professors that displayed such proteins 
> >>(so-called "stressed-out" mutants) were then fused to the M13 coat
> >>protein, displayed on phages and passed over a friend and family members 
> >>column, to identify those that were incapable of functional interactions. 
> >>These were called full professors. Although these mutants arose
> >>independently, they shared striking phenotypes. These included the
> >>propensity to talk incessantly about their own research, the inability to 
> >>accurately judge the time required to complete bench work, and the belief 
> >>that all their ideas constituted good thesis projects. The linkage of all 
> >>these traits suggests that these phenotypes are coordinately regulated.
> >>Preliminary experiments have identified a putative global regulator.
> >>Studies are currently being conducted to determine if overexpression of 
> >>this gene product in post-docs and grad students can speed up the grad 
> >>student-full professor evolutionary process."

-- 
__________________________
Josh Smith
Department of Geology
University of Pennsylvania
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