The PostDocs Forum

This month’s Featured Scientist of the month is PI Raz Zarivach. Dr. Zarivach was interviewed by grad student Chen Guttman who blogs at Benchwise. Read on to learn more about Raz’s experience working with Nobel Prize winner Ada Yonath as well as his advice to future postdocs.

I will start off by saying that Raz is my PI (Raz Zarivach Website). This interview first came to mind while en route from Israel to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility on May 2010. While Raz drove at 80 MPH on the French highways through a massive downpour, he recounted his days as a young PhD student, describing the difficulties and challenges of determining the structure of the ribosome. It was a glimpse into a period in time in which breakthrough science was taking place, atom at a time. Today, Raz is leading a small group of researchers in the field of biomineralization.

How did you first become interested in Crystallography?

The first time I was acquainted with crystallography, in my undergrad studies, I knew THIS is definitely not what I want to do. I got into it by mistake, while looking for a summer job in the labs at the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) before starting my graduate studies. I came to the secretary and asked if there are any labs looking for student labor for the summer. She directed me to Ada Yonath’s lab. Needless to say, I didn’t know who Ada was or what research field she was involved in.

Thirty years of ribosomal research within Professor Yonath’s group have culminated around the time you started your doctoral study – can you share with the readers the exciting atmosphere accompanying your group at those times?

Oh, indeed these were very exciting times. When I started my PhD, I saw that things were moving fast with great potential. We knew we had a big thing and that we needed to push it forward as fast as possible as we knew there was fierce competition. Work was very intense. I had to learn the crystallography basics and relevant software by myself. For a full year I didn’t do anything other than sitting on a chair in front of the computer monitor, tracing tens of thousands of atoms related to RNA and amino acids. Imagine that one cycle of tracing (1,500 nucleotides) took one week or more. Once I have finished tracing I would send the data over to Frank Schluenzen and Ante Tocilj at the Max Planck institute for refinement processing which took a couple of days and then the maps were sent over to me. We had many such iterations, each time we generated better resolved electron density map. At that time, I sat in Ada’s office and each time she came back from a trip abroad she was excited with every nucleotide we had traced or any other structural motif we had resolved.

What was your experience sharing the office with your PI?

It was a very good experience as I had the opportunity to learn a lot from her. Ada’s vision was to educate the next generation of scientists, so in that respect – I learned all that I could.

How did you choose your lab topics?

On the one hand, I could not continue with the ribosome field as it was highly saturated and competition was fierce. On the other, I could not continue with my post-doctoral research at Natalie Strynadka’s lab so I needed to find a new topic. The requirements for a new topic were intellectual interest, rational, niche that published data is scarce and that it is possible to become an expert in that field. When I was at WIS I took a course about biomineralization and I was interested in the magnetosome formation. Toward the end of my postdoc I was at a conference and again was exposed to the lack of structural biology knowledge in this field. Thus, I took this opportunity and decided to study the structural biology of magnetosome-related proteins. Initially I wanted to study Kidney stone formation (nephrolithiasis) but following several interviews I realized it will be hard to find students that would want to work all day with Urine. In addition, my former PI (in my postdoc era) recommended me to undertake an additional backup topic to my main theme so I would have a safety net. At the time of my postdoc I initiated a collaboration surrounding Type III effector proteins which I am still continuing today.

What are the most common problems you face in the lab on a day-to-day basis?

The most acute problem today is a lack of resources at the lab and departmental levels. The rate at which equipment is malfunctioning due to day-to-day usage is higher than there are financial funds to cope with it. Generally I experienced that modern equipment manufactured today usually malfunctions just a bit after the end of the manufacturer warranty. In the past machines and devices would work flawlessly for 5 or even 10 years without a hiccup. It’s definitely not happening today. In addition, time which should be allocated for student’s supervision is getting very scarce as I need to also write grants and articles and supervise and manage multiple courses. There are several ways to tackle this problem, either by performing bi-weekly meetings with the students (tight management) or meeting once a week. I prefer to use the “open door” agenda in which students are encourage to come with current issues or difficulties and solving their problems on the spot. It can be quite challenging when you need to write down a grant or prepare for an important lecture but I feel it works very well in our group especially because I get to sense the progression of each student and can have an impact on the student’s progress and not just drawing conclusion after the experiment was over. When I will be working on 20 projects, I will have no choice but to empower the lab manager, post-docs and senior PhD students to perform the tasks at hand. I encourage my student to develop independent creative and critical thinking. I also encourage them to explore novel ideas and to press that “red button”, to observe what happened and to draw their own conclusions. Afterwards, I encourage them to advise with me or other students in regard to the experiment performed and conclusions drawn so they can learn and appreciate different perspectives. Micromanagement is not working for me and I don’t think this is a good education strategy for future scientists.

What makes a good student?

Three characteristics of a good student would be: full of interest and curiosity, independent, and efficient.

What tips can you share with graduate students in regard to improving their research management?

Practice good planning. In regard to data management, build a slide from each result you receive so a) you always have a presentation ready and  (b) it lets you monitor how your progression is and if you’re advancing in the intended direction. Plan your day so you make the best of your time. Don’t come to the lab at 10 or 11 AM and start working unless it is planned that way. Multitask your work with reason i.e. don’t purify three proteins that you have never purified before on the same day. Remember, that new experiments require more attention than routine ones. Find the time each month to read and get updated on current literature and don’t forget to interact with your colleagues and PIs in the department. Sharing your knowledge and getting advice from people with other specialties when needed is an important aspect of being a good scientist.

How satisfied are you with the way your lab is organized? What would you improve and how?

I am mostly pleased with the way my lab is organized. I feel that the major bottle neck in the lab’s progression is resources: financial, space allocation for additional work bench and equipment, and human resource. In the lab we have too few students for the potential projects and recruiting students is major problem, especially PhD students.

The lab has most of the equipment required to perform top notch autonomous experimentation and I am quite pleased with the way our storage and equipment is organized, in which all chemicals are documented with their respective MSDS information and that each device has a person that makes sure the device is maintained according to the manufacturer’s recommendation. We routinely perform extensive cleaning day twice a year in which all lab members organize and clean their benches, discard of outdated samples and the common rooms and devices.

What was the most challenging or memorable situation that you faced in your lab?

Well, the biggest challenge I faced thus far was lack of financial resources. We were so broke, and I mean “0”, that I considered closing the lab for a full month, sending everyone home. I was so desperate for funding that I started running in the department’s corridor looking for every nickel I could borrow. At the end I was lucky enough to find a funding source from the National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev (NIBN) and we could push forward.

Can you share any tips for lab management and organization for PIs?

Budget, budget and budget. Don’t forget that you are the CFO of your lab so you need to prepare an annual budget program and not to exceed it. Even more, make sure you keep some funds outside of your budget for crisis events. Look for the cheapest on the same quality, look for ways to economize your expenses. Write many grants, especially when just starting your lab: the ratio of getting a grant is 1:5 to 1:10. Take risks and try promising avenues but know when to shutdown a certain project if it’s a dead end.

What do you think is the most important personal characteristic for a researcher?

I think the most important characteristics for a researcher are interest, deep understanding and drawing conclusion, the ability (and willingness) to get your hands dirty and work hard, observation capability, and order and note taking.

What is the best advice you could give to someone who wants to be a postdoc?

First of all, see that you have a goal after you finish your post-doc. Don’t forget, a post-doc term is a time and money consuming investment so make sure you know why you want to do a post-doc. Secondly, once you’re there, start looking for several places (5-7) a year before graduation. Visit at least 3-4 places so you’ll have more perspective and security. It’s not recommended to do a post-doc in a very large lab (where there are between 15-20 post-docs) because competition among postdocs can be fierce. When confronted with the question “Is this postdoc the best, the average or the lowest level?” the PI with many excellent postdocs might not put you as the best. On the other hand, don’t go to labs in which there are less than 5 postdocs because you won’t have people to talk with or to learn from. Don’t go to lab’s that won’t give you some sort of financial backing. See that the PI encourages you to participate in conferences at least one a year. If you take a tough project, make sure you have a backup so that you can publish at least one article per year. And finally, remember that once you started your postdoc, nobody will count your glorious historical Pubmed list: you’ll start from scratch and need to prove yourself all over again.