Wisconsin has more to offer than just cheese

As graduate students, we do not have ample opportunities to participate in legitimate training courses on specific techniques that help to advance our science. As a result, I sought out a chance to receive formal training in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), a structural technique that has played a critical role in my dissertation project. I had trouble finding such a course, especially because the technique is not covered by any of the meetings or courses offered by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Fortunately, I had worked during my PhD to establish connections and collaborations, and one of my collaborators from North Carolina State University mentioned the 2019 NMRFAM Introductory Structure Determination Workshop. The course lasted approximately one week, from Sunday June 2 to Friday June 7, and took place on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Not only did the course give me a chance to escape the devastating Charleston heat for a week, but it provided me with a community of people who were also interested in furthering their knowledge in NMR.  

“It provided me with a community of people who were also interested in furthering their knowledge in NMR.”
-- Brandon Young

 To be completely honest, I felt overwhelmed upon arriving and began to wonder if this was truly an introductory course. Before we could even begin working, we had quite a bit of intricate software to set up.  Also, the schedule was jam-packed: our days began around 8:30am and went until approximately 6:30pm. After 14 years of offering this workshop, the instructors knew we would be feeling overwhelmed and took quite a bit of time our first morning to calm our fears.  In total, there were 8 instructors for 25 participants, and most of the instructors stayed on hand for all presentations and workshops. 

Workshop participants mainly consisted of graduate students with a couple of post-docs and one research professor.  We had participants from Honolulu, San Diego, and, of course, Wisconsin, who all brought with them new and different ideas.  In fact, I was able to share information about my project and receive valuable feedback on new experiments that I have tried since my return. As a class, we built a real sense of camaraderie that created a very pleasant atmosphere for learning as well as a few friendships.  I have kept in contact with a couple of my classmates, and our conversations about science and life have been nothing short of delightful.

This workshop showed me how a collaborative training environment can even make learning advanced techniques tolerable. The main focus of the workshop was making NMR assignments and eventually determining the three-dimensional structure of a protein through a software program known as NMRFAM-SPARKY. The software has a stiff learning curve, so it really helped that the instructors provided short videos (on YouTube) as well as the printed notes for all the lectures.  The most helpful thing, however, was being able to ask general questions to so many individuals who had been working with the technique for over 10-15 years.  Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and believe that it truly has helped me take steps towards finishing my dissertation.  

I wanted to end with a discussion of how to obtain funding to attend workshops. I funded attendance at the workshop through some internal resources at MUSC and outside funding/reduction of cost by the conference.  I encourage everyone who is thinking about attending a workshop to consult with the College of Graduate Studies and the Department of Academic Affairs here at MUSC for funding support for such workshops.  These workshops not only give us legitimate hands-on training in advanced techniques but also help us to continue to build our networks.