At lunch following the session, we asked the OSU students what they expected to get from the course. One student remarked that she didn't really expect to learn new material, but that in fact much of it is new to her. I concur- a lot is new to me too, as I found out while preparing my lectures- the science we are covering will transform biology. On the other hand, another student was expecting to learn new material, but has been surprised by just how interesting the international component is. We were happy to learn that she had been chatting to student colleagues in India and then got to connect the names to the faces during the video introductions. How cool is that? (Sorry but in this case it seems to be the appropriate word.)
Next time I will be discussing functional genomics and as luck would have it a brand new fantastic paper was just published on genome wide RNAi in flies looking for Notch pathway genes. The Notch pathway is important in human disease and this is another case of using a model genetic organism for discovering the 'genes we share'.
It is a privilege to part of this joint enterprise and I thank you all for energizing me for the rest of the weekend!
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