Nathaniel Blair
patchyclamp.bsky.social
Nathaniel Blair
@patchyclamp.bsky.social
Preclinical biologist at small biopharmas following cool ion channel and receptor targets to neuro, renal, and immune indications. Likes electrophysiology (still), fine z-primes, and serial commas. Bostonian by choice (oof). He/him
Reposted by Nathaniel Blair
Please re-post! Two Clinical Research Assistant position openings in the Neuroscience of Risk and Development Laboratory! sjobs.brassring.com/TGnewUI/Sear...

sjobs.brassring.com/TGnewUI/Sear...
Job Search Welcome | Boston Childrens Hospital
Search for Internet job openings.
sjobs.brassring.com
February 6, 2025 at 7:40 PM
Reposted by Nathaniel Blair
Grateful to The Scientist for listening to my story and amplifying our concerns regarding bans on NIH communication and govt funding. www.the-scientist.com/freeze-on-ni...
Freeze on NIH Grant Reviews Leaves Scientists Confused and Frustrated
An unprecedented federal ban on scientific meetings halts research progress, sparking widespread concern across the scientific community.
www.the-scientist.com
January 29, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Reposted by Nathaniel Blair
Please help us advertise this new opening 🧠 in our research group. I am happy to answer any queries about it.
The Sensory Transduction and Nociception Group @painchannels.bsky.social at @neuroalc.bsky.social offers a 1-year (extendable to 3) postdoctoral position.
The call is open until the position is filled.
More info 👇
in.umh-csic.es/en/ofertas/1...
January 27, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Reposting for a Monday morning!
An amazing opportunity for an early career scientist looking towards industry. Some of my former colleagues are looking to hire a Ph.D. with experience in membrane proteins (broadly speaking, so channels, receptors, transporters, etc. all considered. 🧪 #biotech www.linkedin.com/posts/magdal...
Magdalene Moran on LinkedIn: Senior Scientist Job Description
We're hiring! We are seeking a motivated and organized Senior Scientist with experience studying membrane proteins to join the Topo scientific team.  This…
www.linkedin.com
January 27, 2025 at 1:40 PM
An amazing opportunity for an early career scientist looking towards industry. Some of my former colleagues are looking to hire a Ph.D. with experience in membrane proteins (broadly speaking, so channels, receptors, transporters, etc. all considered. 🧪 #biotech www.linkedin.com/posts/magdal...
Magdalene Moran on LinkedIn: Senior Scientist Job Description
We're hiring! We are seeking a motivated and organized Senior Scientist with experience studying membrane proteins to join the Topo scientific team.  This…
www.linkedin.com
January 25, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Reposted by Nathaniel Blair
Happy Birthday to Flood. www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-tQ...
They Might Be Giants - Flood EPK promo
YouTube video by ParticleMen
www.youtube.com
January 15, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Reposted by Nathaniel Blair
Boston is seeing an increase in norovirus. To protect yourself and others, wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Hand sanitizer is not effective. If you are sick, don't prepare food for others and make sure to drink plenty of fluids. Learn more: boston.gov/bphc-norovirus
Norovirus
Noroviruses are a group of viruses that cause diarrhea, vomiting and stomach pain. Norovirus is often called by other names such as viral gastroenteritis, stomach flu, and food poisoning. It is not re...
boston.gov
January 8, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Nathaniel Blair
2 PhD positions in ion channel research!
I want to share our latest job offers - maybe something to think about over the holidays?

Have a look (english text below the german version)!

www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/...

www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/...

#phd
#science
#academia
#ionchannels
December 23, 2024 at 11:52 AM
As the family food procurer and preparer, I need to recalibrate the situation as the 18.5 yo, college athlete is home. #whoops #hangry
December 20, 2024 at 10:55 PM
Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume?

Me (ion channel biologist): Oh, that's the medicinal chemists trying to improve solubility without tanking potency.
Interviewer: Can you explain these gaps in your resume?

Me: Oh that's when the ICPMS plasma shuts off every time the bulk argon tank is filled.
Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume?

Me: The HPLC hates me, sir.
December 20, 2024 at 7:41 PM
I've noticed something kinda similar in talking with PhD students as they want to move to industry. There's a lot of focus on skills and techniques (and rightly so for a incoming scientist position) but if we're looking for a PhD level person we expect something more.
December 20, 2024 at 2:13 PM
It was the summer of 2017 I think and we were long into backup compound work doing a ton of patch clamping for IC50s. My research associate and I listened to the radio feeds of all 30 MLB teams, tracking multiple parameters on a spreadsheet. Hamilton was a stand out - this is well deserved!
Tom Hamilton, longtime Guardians radio voice, wins Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence: Hamilton has spent 35 years in Cleveland’s radio booth and called countless classic moments in franchise history.
Tom Hamilton, longtime Guardians radio voice, wins Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence
Hamilton has spent 35 years in Cleveland’s radio booth and called countless classic moments in franchise history.
dlvr.it
December 12, 2024 at 5:49 PM
The other problem with so many subfigures due to large number of panels is that the narrative in the Results that describes the experiment is downplayed to a huge extent. So many times I'm left making my best guess as to what the authors actually did in the experiment.
Modern life science papers tend to have ten or more figures within each like twelve panels are crammed in. Together one paper translates into a whopping hundred experiments 🤯. Can we do less figures, less panels, but better resolution for each experiment? 🙏
This is great and was revealed to me as I became more a consumer of scientific literature rather than a producer. The disregard of the reader in so many papers is frankly shocking. #oldscientistrant
December 10, 2024 at 3:18 PM
This is great and was revealed to me as I became more a consumer of scientific literature rather than a producer. The disregard of the reader in so many papers is frankly shocking. #oldscientistrant
An earlier editorial
The Lost Art of Composing Single-Panel Figures | ACS Energy Letters pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
The Lost Art of Composing Single-Panel Figures
pubs.acs.org
December 10, 2024 at 12:41 PM
Patch clampers of Bluesky...unite and take over
December 10, 2024 at 12:29 PM
Sometimes I go down the rabbit hole on a lot of program/project management literature and think, "it's all Deming cycles with different scopes and rituals for group buy in" and then I wake from my fever dream and shudder.
December 6, 2024 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Nathaniel Blair
here are only 38 patch-clampers on this plattform!?!

Who else?
🧠
🔬
🧪
go.bsky.app/RuCRCgX
December 3, 2024 at 7:49 AM
Post an Onion headline that lives in your head rent-free

theonion.com/bob-marley-r...
December 1, 2024 at 9:44 PM
Reposted by Nathaniel Blair
Watch as this year’s Tree for Boston arrives on the Boston Common from Nova Scotia 🇨🇦🎄
November 27, 2024 at 5:33 PM
Oh I definitely remember: struggling for ~month trying to average over a bunch of use dependent currents until Bruce was like, "just take one or two", to my first draft that was a "very good start", replete with red pen, to the reviewer who asked, "what's new here" (that paper has ~500 cites).
We used countercurrent chromatography and GC-MS to identify rare fatty acids in the microalgae A tamarense. I learned a lot, it was my very first taste of research and it primed me for lipids. I definitely was proud as hell when it got published.

What was your first paper like? Do you remember?
November 29, 2024 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Nathaniel Blair
I rise today, as a veteran radio journalist, to give my annual lecture on why Les Nessman was the only one at WKRP who did his damn job and did it well at the WKRP Turkey Drop on that legendary day in Cincinnati.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGFt...
a man is holding a microphone and saying oh my god oh the humanity .
ALT: a man is holding a microphone and saying oh my god oh the humanity .
media.tenor.com
November 28, 2024 at 11:44 AM
The pace difference was one of the biggest adjustments I had to make when moving to small/startup companies in industry. Holy crap we gotta move fast!
Key rule in #academia:
everything takes forever, plus 6 months.
#PILife
November 20, 2024 at 4:44 PM
Speaking of helping bridge the academic-industry gap, last week I got to to talk to UCONN trainees from Mol Cell Bio and Physiology + Neurobio depts about industry, what life as an industry scientist is like, and how to make the transition - courtesy of Alex Jackson, not on Bluesky! (1/n)
November 20, 2024 at 4:26 PM
Time to fire this feed up a bit with a confession. Despite the handle I haven't patched as cell in over 6 years. Instead I've been doing anything and everything needing doing on the biology side in early drug discovery programs targeting ion channels and receptors (and some unmentionable stuff).
November 19, 2024 at 8:17 PM
Reposted by Nathaniel Blair
Folks! It's the final countdown! Symposia submissions are due soon for Monitoring Molecules in Neuroscience #MMiN2024! Even if you're still working on your proposal, please go ahead and make a profile on the conference web page in case there are technical difficulties! Pls repost
November 26, 2023 at 11:58 PM