Endy: Regular Journal Club

I would like to propose that we start a regular Journal Club.

Benefits of having a regular Journal Club:

• We will explore current research topics more deeply through discussion than by individual reading.
• We will be exposed to new topics that we wouldn't normally flag ourselves.
• We will become more knowledgeable of other Endy/Knight lab projects.
• We will discuss more papers than the sporadic one or two per year that we read under the current Journal Club model.

I know that we have tried holding regular Journal Clubs in the past, and that they all fizzled. So I would like to propose a new format that would perhaps be more sustainable:

• Meet once or twice per month
  • We would meet on the same day of the week at the same time, so it would become a habit (like group meeting).
• Assign each journal club to one club member
  • This person would be in charge of selecting a paper and leading the discussion.
  • We could assign slots in a similar manner to group snack (a duty which is never neglected, hehe)
• Invite people from outside the Endy/Knight labs, who may have an interest in our topics of discussion.
  • This might freshen up the meetings, so it isn't always the same group with which we always hang out.

I would love to hear any thought you guys might have about this.

Thoughts/Suggestions

• Whoever is leading JC should be prepared to present the paper in brief to set up discussion. (This lowers the barrier for people to attend JC.)
• JC should be recorded on the wiki to generate summaries of important papers and allow ongoing/archived discussions.
• Papers to be discussed could be selected from a [Endy: Journal Club: Suggested Reading |"wishlist"] that everyone contributes to. Seconding suggested papers will determine the level of interest.

If you are interested in participating in a regular Journal Club, please sign up below:

(Name, topics of interest)

1. Samantha, Synthetic Biology, Protein Engineering.
2. Alex, buildin' squishy stuff
3. Barry, chassis engineering, well-characterized simple parts - plasmids, promoters, RBSs
4. Reshma, biological energy, magnetotactic bacteria, measuring PoPS, synthetic biology
5. cmc, synthetic biology, design rules for modularity in Standard Biological Parts. Measurment technologies for characterizing SBPs.