1. Paper
The main "output" of a basic biology research lab is journal publications. We were therefore excited to publish our first major lab paper this summer in the journal eLife, which is a fairly prestigious journal.
This was exciting because it was the first paper consisting mostly of work done in The Norris Lab, and the first with me as the "senior author."
A small news article, intended for a non-scientific audience, was written about the study. Take a look at it here if you're interested.
2. Funding
In order keep the research funded and papers published, it's necessary to obtain funding for the lab in the form of grants. In my field that usually means grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Competition for NIH grants is fierce, so I kept my goals modest. My work on worms is fairly cheap, so we wouldn't need a "big" NIH grant, but could survive on a medium-sized NIH grant.
Well this summer we got word that we'll likely be receiving not one, but TWO BIG NIH grants! This much money so early in the life of the lab is definitely unanticipated. Now the goal is to turn this money into data.
3. People
The lab continues to grow. This summer we added a new graduate student, as well as the lab's first postdoctoral fellow.
That makes the lab: Me, 1 postdoc, 3 graduate students, 1 part-time technician, and 8 part-time undergraduates. It's getting full!
Here was the 2018 Norris Lab photo, with us holding a worm.
Here is the 2019 Norris Lab photo, with us inside a worm.
