Scientist Talks: Dr. James Quinn
Dr. James Quinn is a research fellow at the Alzheimer’s Clinical & Translational Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In the first of our brand new ‘Scientist Talks’ interview series, we spoke to James about making the transition from PhD to postdoc, moving abroad at the same time, and his experience of the ‘new norm’ of virtual conferences and presentations.
Hi James! Could you tell us a bit about your background, where you’re based now and what you’re working on currently?
I was born and raised in Kent and moved to Manchester for my PhD where I worked on tau proteolysis in different forms of dementia. After completing my PhD, I took a postdoc offer to come to Boston to work at Massachusetts General Hospital, affiliated with Harvard Medical School.
My current project is looking at neuropeptides, which are the signaling molecules in the brain, and I’m studying the brains and the cerebral spinal fluid of patients with dementia to see if we can identify novel biomarkers for disease. I’m doing a lot of the cell and molecular biology experiments to push through the mechanistic understanding of these neuropeptides.
In the last year you made the transition from PhD to postdoc, and moved countries during that time. What was that experience like and what's been the biggest adjustment for you?
After finishing my PhD, I was very fortunate. I went travelling around South America for a month, which was an incredible experience. I'd really recommend, if you are able to, to have some time just for yourself after finishing your PhD. I also worked as an assistant in a consulting company for five or six months which was a really interesting experience. Originally I was supposed to go to Sweden to start a postdoc but there were some admin issues so it didn’t happen. But during that interim period I was approached by Dr. Becky Carlyle, who is my boss now at MGH, whom I’d met at Alzheimer's Association International Conference in 2018 in Chicago. She really liked what I was doing so we set up a collaboration between Manchester and MGH which was really exciting. Shortly afterwards she contacted me about one of their projects which she thought I would be a good fit for, and asked if I would be interested. I didn’t have a postdoc in place at the time and although the consulting work was enjoyable and the people were great, I really was missing the lab work.
So, we had an interview in February 2019 and they offered me the position as soon as I got back to the UK. I moved over to the USA in May 2019, so I've been here for over a year now and it's been an incredible opportunity. Fortunately, I was able to move out before COVID and the current visa issues started affecting the USA. It's been amazing to work at a great institution like Massachusetts General. There's some fantastic research going on and I've joined a really good hub of researchers. I think the biggest adjustment was obviously moving abroad, and COVID of course has meant I haven’t been able to go home or have my parents over to visit. But thanks to the wonders of technology I'm able to call my family every week and we sometimes eat dinner or have drinks together which is nice.
What do you wish you'd known when you finished your PhD that might help other early career scientists to know?
Quite a few different things! I was so glad that my friend pushed me to go travelling after my PhD. I’d been so stressed in September while writing my thesis, so it was good to have something at the end of the tunnel to look forward to when it was finished. Knowing that I had a job lined up really helped too, because I didn't want to start that job with the thesis still hanging over me, so it was a really good incentive to get it all done. It was a stressful time but it definitely gave me that motivation I needed to get everything finished. I also think it was healthy for me to spend a little bit of time outside the lab to realise how much I really enjoyed lab work. I missed working on my own project and pushing my own data, or data that my collaborators had generated. Whereas in the consulting role we were helping pharma companies to use their own data to help price their drugs, so it was a very different avenue of research for me.
I’d also say it’s important to finalise those postdoc offers when you get them. For me it was unfortunate that we couldn’t make the Sweden offer happen, but I eventually had five or six other offers and was very selective over the ones that I wanted to pursue. I made sure that I visited all the places that I’d accepted, which is more difficult to do right now obviously, but even spending time on Zoom with members of the team can be helpful. We interviewed two new postdoc candidates for a position at MGH recently and they spoke to my boss, my boss's boss, and everyone in the lab via Zoom! I think you can learn a lot about what's going on in the group through those ‘meet and greets’, even if they’re just virtual. Also I was very much of the mindset that I wanted to go somewhere where I already had some connections. I had a few friends out here in Boston which definitely helped.
So I think it’s important to look not only at the supervisor, but also the place and the project as a whole when choosing a postdoc. Those are the three most important things to consider when you're looking at that transition. Travelling and moving abroad is especially hard right now but I think if you can get a solid understanding of the immigration issues and of your offer then it will definitely benefit you. Don’t be afraid to talk to people who've done it before. There are some really good communities out there, especially on Twitter. I'm always happy to help people who are looking at moving over to the US. Make the most of your supervisor's networks and contacts too, but I think the majority of the offers that I got were from interactions that I’d generated myself, at conferences, on Twitter, or just by responding to job adverts and contacting the PI in each case.
So in short, my advice would be to have a bit of time after your PhD to relax and give yourself something to look forward to. Get your postdoc offer finalised in writing and make sure you’ve done everything you can before making that kind of transition. And most importantly, just look after yourself. It's so important you look after your mental health. It was tough writing my thesis. It’s a tough time for anyone, but there are people out there who can support you, so never be afraid to ask for help.
This year all scientific conferences have been cancelled or moved online due to COVID-19. Last month, you presented a poster at the first virtual AAIC. How did the experience of presenting a postdoc online differ from presenting in the real world?
There are definitely pros and cons. I'm fortunate because the AAIC offered us the opportunity to record our own audio commentary over our presentations which was really great. You could either upload a PDF or upload your own audio description, and I would recommend doing this if you can because it allows people to hear your voice and really connect with you, plus you can summarise your poster in two or three minutes, which is really advantageous. I got some good feedback, and a few people interacted with me based on the poster.
Also, present your data as clearly as possible. At a virtual conference the attendees will be visiting the website and clicking on the individual posters, so make sure yours is clear and concise. I put my poster on Twitter too, with a summary of my data which made it that bit more accessible, and people who weren't at the conference were able to just click through to see what I was presenting.
A virtual conference allows you to reach so many more people. There were 5,500 attendees at the event in LA last year, but over 32,000 people registered this year for the virtual event. So it has really opened up the conference to people who wouldn’t normally be able to travel. It was good because my dad was able to take a look and he wouldn't have been able to attend the event otherwise. It's definitely a very different experience, and I found it easier than presenting at a real conference, where sometimes you’re stood by your poster for a couple of hours waiting to see if anyone walks by! I definitely missed the real-life conference, but I appreciate the fact that many more people were able to attend this way.
So what's the biggest piece of advice you would give for online presentations?
Definitely try to include audio or video in your presentation rather than just uploading the PDF directly. Also, make sure your data is as clear as possible, because people will be keyword searching for topics that interest them. I found myself searching the poster abstract list for the things that I would normally search for, for example, on PubMed. So your poster will be much more accessible this way, and it’s more likely that the right people are going to find it. And finally, as you would with a normal poster, ask your boss and your lab mates to take a look at it. Get as much advice and input as you can from the people around you.
What else do you have coming up, and how can people contact you online?
I'm currently helping to organise an early career researcher conference in neurodegeneration with Proteintech. It takes place on 22nd October and I’m really pleased to be involved. Also I'm also taking part in a 'Chatathon' which is being organised by Dementia Researcher who are raising money for Alzheimer's Research UK by asking 55 researchers to speak about their research for 12 hours! Contact me on Twitter (@tweetwithquinn) or email me on jquinn14[at]mgh.harvard.edu. I’m always very happy to connect with people and talk about my project in a little bit more detail.
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