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Occasionally I was asked by trainees, ‘Does the abroad postdoc training or even a postdoc training have to be included in the CV when you apply a PI position in China?’ As a junior researcher growing up in homeland China, I actually experienced something during the past few months. I’ve been talking about this with junior or senior PIs. Here are my perspectives so far and I hope it will help.

1. I actually applied for independent PI positions from three institutions in Beijing, and I have never felt left out during the application and interview issues. Some of the senior researchers even encouraged me much since they really hope the junior but with academic potential scholars, who grow up in homeland, could emerge and contribute to scientific communities in China as they said.
2. It could be not surprising that the local trainees also have the opportunity to lead a team in top institutes like the ones from outside. That is because, we do have a incredible environment to receive a high-quality training in homeland: huge financial supports from the government, and of course the mentorship from our solid supervisor (mostly they got outside training background, decided to come back homeland to start their own independent careers and become your supervisors). Then trust your nation, mentors and yourself.
3. A postdoc training must be needed? Generally yes if your aim is the positions in top institutions. Nowadays you consider to become a PI without any postdoc training probably because you have already published a so-called high-impact papers. Let’s leave ‘the occasionally you are selected to do some important project the mentor make you do’ alone first. However, the first papers should not be your signatures but the comprehensive quality in independent thinking, problem solving and academic scope, etc. People usually confuse the two yet a senior faculty-searching committee doesn’t. There are always exceptions, such as Feng Shao from NIBS, one of my academic idols. He actually did not want a postdoc training in Harvard since he already have so much abilities and views in science then. You should carry no doubts about it as long as you talk with him. This indicates either you firmly believe yourself like Feng Shao did or consider a mature postdoc training for the long run. It is true that the faculty search committee will use much more cautious than you can imagine if you lack that experience.
4. You may say, ‘How do you know that I couldn’t work it out like Feng Shao, or even better than he did?’ Well, we never know. Therefore, on the other hand and needless to say, if you got the specific biomedical questions you are desperately eager to understand by yourself, and calmly believe that your expertise will largely meet your long-term research assumptions beyond PhD, then why not try to go for leading a team directly (become a PI)? The exceptions do happen around.
5. These are some additional suggestions. You always consider the career plan by a lot of reasons. If you wanna a balance between your career plan and families. Keep it that way. You never know which one will be more important. Just follow your heart and make a decision. I’ve heard a PhD student said, ‘I just try my best in the research. If I can not make it finally, I will transit into other fields like a salesman and I will be an outstanding salesman’. ‘Keep looking, don’t settle.’ -by Steve Jobs.
6. If I could go over again and the family issues didn’t show up when I got my PhD, I probably will choose to go outside like ideally Boston for a further training. That is because my personality always guides me to explore something new. This is from the button of my heart. It is so true that the wertern world still majorly take the lead of life science, especailly the original researches, meaning there are more opportunities for traning outside. Meanwhile, I’m also so glad I chose to stay in homeland and join the following amazing team, initiated an brand new direction and balance my families simultaneously. Such an unbelievable and joyful journey!
7. Try something (directionally or/and technologically ) different when you are considering a postdoc plan. Never limit yourself in the warm but narrow circumstances. Be pure to search your own beloved things, definitely not the valuable things in others’ eyes. This will largely help you find a better and true self.
8. Never think about a postdoc plan just because you are not ready for others. Use cautious about a postdoc plan if you are not that eager for a long-term academic career. Every node between two periods could be a gold opportunity to make some change or correction. Be courageous and do not waste it.

What the sharp interview-questions inspired me most was a single line: What is your signature and uniqueness?

Try to think about it often and it will help.

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The other day I was initiating the Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (物种起源) based on my supervisor Fuchou Tang’s recommendation. A absolute must read although the conclusions from it seems obvious and true in modern knowledge. You will be shocked by the views in the book only base on the large number observations of species, geography oversea. His logic was so clear that he could make absolutely definitive conclusions without any genetic knowledge at that early stages.

It means, a systematic and acurate description absolutely can provide prospective and new knowledge.

During my PhD at Bing Liu’s lab, I focused on the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) formation during mammalian embryogenesis.

1. We firstly explored a new marker to enrich the so rare functional HSCs (10-20 cells per embryo) by the unique single-cell initiated in vivo transplant system.
2. We combined the single-cell transcriptome profiling to uncover the gene expression patterns. The endothelial-to-HSC transition(EC-HSC transition) enriched multiple signaling pathway.
3. We hypothesis the mTOR could potentially regulate the HSC emergence.
4. We specifically inhibited the mTOR in the endothelial cells before the HSC formation, resulting in a deletion of HSC emergence.

This looped study strongly indicates the single-cell gene expression patterns (so-called descriptive sequencing-based results) largely helped us mine so much critical potential candidate regulators during this EC-HSC transition. This story and my experience told us these resources could powerful to uncover the principles of many biological process if it is based on,

a. Whether we provided a higher-sensitivity/precision or untouched-yield database by a newly-developed wet/dry strategies, compared with the previous studies.
b. Whether we launched inspiring hypothesis based on the data mining (otherwise it maybe just visualize the well-known conclusions in an omics ways).
c. Whether we initiate the study with specific questions.
d. Whether we link the omics-based conclusion with the phenotype by following functional validations.

The single-cell biology indeed presents a unprecedented opportunity to explore the cell heterogeneity (accurate molecular landscape of the specific cell types) from the multidimensional molecular patterns at a so-far limiting resolution. The deep meaning could be that we can harvest a clear molecule activity map with THE TARGET CELL, which will never been read out with the measurement from bulk cells since it always only contains a AVERAGE level within the mixture of target and untarget cells. Taking the HSC emergence for example, we would never know any new clues from a bulk profiling of the whole AGM tissue (the core site of HSC derivation) or even CD31+CD45+/- cells (containing just one functional HSC from the other fifty cells) of the embryo at the very beginning of our study.

Taking the training from both the conventional developmental biology and single-cell biology together: Besides technically, the higher throughout, more accurate, more applicable in other fields (e.g. industry and clinical diagnosis), simultaneously more multi-dimensional omics methods at single-cell level and less costly, I assumed there will be no widespread question that the near future is absolutely the world of data mining and molecular feature-phenotype linking (a must read from J. Gray Camp et al.). I’m recently thinking about this by myself (you probably heard a lot from others),

1. Measure/describe the scientific phenomenon/principle.
2. Explore/understand the deep mechanism behind the principle.
3. Manipulate the principle to promote the public health and nature.

These probably could be the three major steps and outcomes of life science. Are you enjoyable with your current queue?

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I have joined a lot of journal club(JC) in my post and current labs. Thinking about the immature experience of JC presentations during my PhD and the latest ones I’ve attended, I got some notes (I’m still learning):

Make it clear that the speakers take both responsibility and opportunity: Make the time worth for the dozens of audiences, meaning you must digest the major information of the aimed papers first. Otherwise you’re probably wasting time (especially others’ time, 20 audiences*30min=600min).

You definitely have these benefits:

1. Present your own perspectives based on your digesting.
2. Harvest helpful discussion and feedbacks.
3. Practice your speech in public.

Common problems/suggestions:

1. Choose your favorite papers (you will be much more self-motivated with the preparations and passionate about your speeches).
2. Raise your voice and be passionate.
3. Modernize your own understanding of the detailed and critical investigation logic.
4. Outline the valuable information that our own projects may refer.
5. Discuss the potential drawbacks and future challenges.
6. Setup the equipment you may need (computer, projector/screen, pointer, microphone, etc. It sounds a regular procedure yet it happens from time to time).
7. Try more research about unsolved questions during the JC and discuss them with the questioner(s).
8. Feel nervous about the public speech? Practice!