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When Jessica Sacher, a microbiologist from the University of Alberta, saw that scientists were using Twitter to find phages to treat an antibiotic resistant bacterial infection, she shared that tweet with Jan Zheng, a UX designer that she knew. “We had actually met at a lindy hop swing dance event,” Zheng says (networking can happen anywhere!). The pair quickly teamed up to create Phage Directory in a whirlwind three days in November 2017.

Before I started writing for the Addgene blog, sharing Chemistry Cat memes was how I used social media as a scientist. I mean, I had a LinkedIn page and a Twitter handle, but I wasn’t using them to my professional advantage. It wasn’t until I wrote a blog post about a research paper that explored how scientists connect on Twitter that I realized 1) a lot of scientists are using social media professionally, and 2) I needed to start using Twitter.

This guest post was contributed by Johnny Kung, Director of New Initiatives for the Personal Genetics Education Project (pgEd).

Advances in genetic technologies and other biomedical innovations promise an improved understanding of how our bodies work, new treatments for debilitating diseases, and maybe even ways to alleviate health disparities. But as the science moves forward at a blistering pace, it is becoming ever more urgent for scientists to engage broadly with diverse communities, to raise awareness about where science is and where it is going, and to thoughtfully address the hopes and concerns of these communities. This kind of engagement and two-way dialogue is crucial if we as a society are to figure out the best way to shepherd technologies through thorny ethical issues, ensure that everyone will have the possibility of benefiting from the fruits of scientific research, and prevent technological advances from exacerbating existing inequalities and injustices.

When you think about going to a scientific conference, you may think about sitting amongst a sea of chairs listening to talks all day. But nope, not at the American Society for Microbiology 2018 Microbe meeting. Soon after I arrived, I was looking through a paper-based, affordable, and portable microscope called the ‘foldscope’ (Dr. Prakash, Stanford University). Right there on the floor outside the lecture hall.

This guest post was contributed by Nathan Sanders of ComSciCon, the Communicating Science Conference series for graduate students.

I believe that communication is the single most important skill that scientists need to succeed in their work. While it's not always recognized and valued for its immense importance, it may well be what determines whether you get the job after your next interview or whether your receive the next grant you apply for.

After all, the only value your work will have in the world is the value that you can succeed in communicating. Even the most rigorous, insightful, and novel scientific research will be wasted if you cannot convince others that it is important and relevant to them.