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PODCAST

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences

Dr. Synaptologica

Students and scholars in life sciences need to use many skills to survive and excel during scientific training, which involves listening, reading, writing, and speaking. But I have seen many of them struggle in understanding and learning those skills. I am a professor in the U.S., a tenured faculty member with MD, PhD degrees. I will assist you through the skills, so that you will learn and improve successfully in your professional life. Please visit my website for more information

science life sciences

All Episodes

16:40

61. How I prepare for teaching how to read papers to...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/09/01

What does it take to prepare a single lecture? In this episode, I will talk about months-long process for crafting a lecture on how to read clinical papers. I am passionate about teaching this foundational skill. The preparation includes choosing a paper that is best fit for the interest of the student body. It also includes making presentation slides tailor-made for the specific paper. I hope this episode is helpful for both fellow instruct...

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21:26

60. Postdoc training program (that I organized in my...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/08/11

I have set up a training program for the postdoctoral researchers (postdocs) in my home department. Today, I would like to talk about: how and why I have done it, what we do in the program and what (positive!) feedback that I received. This episode might help you if you are a student looking for training opportunities or if you are a mentor who is already guiding your immediate trainees. This episode = mini-series: training-1. (My email is active. But ...

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16:11

59. Happy 2-year anniversary! (plus, how I am...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/07/30

This podcast is now two years old. And it is the start of the third year! Thank you for listening and for your support! I would like to give you my behind-the-scenes information, so that you will have some understanding about how I am preparing the scripts of the episodes for you. This episode = podcast update 8. This podcast is a product of my own thoughts, research, and voice. In other words, it is human-generated, not AI-generated. ...

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16:51

58. Paragraph 1 of Introduction, written by Nobel...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/07/13

Let’s read the first paragraph of the Introduction section in a paper written by the Nobel Laureates. Specifically, we will read each sentence in the paragraph, and think about the meaning and the role of each sentence. One key point is that the structural components of the Abstract will help us understand the paragraphs and sentences of the Introduction. We are reading the paper written by Dr. Katalin Karikó & Dr. Drew Weissman, that led to the Nobel Prize in Physiology or M...

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19:26

57. How to read the main points of Introduction...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/07/06

The Introduction section of a life-science paper tells the main story, sometimes even multiple related ones. But without helpful subheadings, understanding its core points can be challenging. Then, how do we effectively read Introduction paragraphs to understand the section? We will talk about it today, and we will keep reading one of the best papers as our example. We are reading the paper written by Dr. Katalin Karikó & Dr. Drew Weissman, that led to the ...

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13:05

56. How many paragraphs in Introduction?

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/06/29

In combination with the last episode, we will talk about an introduction to how to read the Introduction section. With these two episodes, we will be ready to analyze the content details, from the next episode. We are reading the paper written by Dr. Katalin Karikó & Dr. Drew Weissman, that led to the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023. We call it the Milestone Article 1. Here are two sets of links related to the paper. Milestone Article 1: - “Suppression of RN...

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12:42

55. Does the Introduction section have subheadings?

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/06/25

Sub-sections and subheadings will be helpful. The Methods and the Results sections of life-science papers are divided into sub-sections. And the sub-sections will have subheadings, i.e., the titles that serve as signposts of the sub-sections. How about the Introduction section? What would this finding mean to us, the readers? We will talk about them by scanning the Introduction of a paper written by Dr. Katalin Karikó & Dr. Drew Weissman, that led to...

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14:18

54. Can you explain the role of Introduction in one...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/06/14

The single-sentence rule for understanding research paper Introductions. Have you thought about what the Introduction section of a life-science paper really does? In this episode, we will address that question and discuss a simple rule. We will share a single sentence that encapsulates the entire role of the Introduction. It will make it easy to grasp the authors' intention and the paper’s core logic. Hint: it is related to the key trio in ...

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16:20

53. Minimum features of well-written abstracts

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/06/08

In today’s episode, we will learn which structural components will be minimally essential for an abstract, and which will be additionally necessary for a well-written abstract. These are the abstracts of primary research papers in life sciences, both in clinical- and basic-science fields. There are very many variations in the structures of published abstracts. Why do we want to discuss the above topic? This is because understanding the essential components of abstrac...

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19:57

52. Example of a well-written abstract (other than...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/05/06

Let’s talk about an excellent abstract that I read this week. It was so well written, and I was so excited to read it that I wanted to talk about it with you today. The beauty of it is that the first 3 structural components guide us through the authors’ intention and question very clearly. But there was also a little twist to the structure: we will talk about it, too. The abstract that we talked about today was from the following paper: “A meta-analysis of technology use and cogn...

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8:55

51. Have you read an abstract that was not written well?

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/04/20

My students selected a paper to read in a journal club. The abstract (and the rest of the paper) was not written well. The abstract gave us two precious lessons. Lesson 1: Good structural organization will help the readers understand the content.Lesson 2: Abstracts of peer-reviewed papers can be disorganized.I hope you learn them in this episode, too! This episode = mini-series: reading-31. (My email is active. But my website is under construction. Please wait for a while. Thank you for the...

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5:39

50. Happy 50th episode!

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/04/04

We have reached 50 episodes! Thank you for listening. Today, we will briefly talk about how I have kept sustainable podcasting so far. The most important thing may be that I have set my goal simple and single: It is to create high-quality content for you. That’s it. Here are links to two sources of podcast statistics that I mentioned in the episode. https://www.amplifimedia.com/blogstein-1/lyspqop3ylro9a2t7y2de820uwkgwx https://podcastindex.org/stats (My em...

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18:26

49. Another well-crafted logic loop in Abstract by...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/03/28

We will talk about the second of the two, well-crafted loops of logic, in the Abstract of a paper written by the Nobel Prize Laureates. Not all abstracts have this second loop. But when it is present, it gives a better overview of the impact of the presented work. We can find one of the best examples in our Abstract. We are reading the paper written by the Laureates, Dr. Katalin Karikó & Dr. Drew Weissman, that led to the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023. We call i...

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19:32

48. Well-crafted logic loop in Abstract by Nobel...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/03/20

I can visualize two well-crafted loops of logic, in the Abstract of a paper written by the Nobel Prize Laureates. Can you? We will talk about one of them in today’s episode. Such a loop, together with a linear progression, highlights the authors’ clear and logical thought process. We are reading the paper written by the Laureates, Dr. Katalin Karikó & Dr. Drew Weissman, that led to the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023. We call it the Milestone Artic...

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20:32

47. Why is the 2nd sentence important in an abstract?...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/03/14

Let's analyze a single sentence in the Abstract of an impressive paper. It is the paper that led to the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This is the paper that we call the milestone article 1 (Please see below for details). We will analyze the second sentence. Why is this sentence important? We will discuss four of my approaches to see that this sentence is important, beautiful and helpful for readers outside the field. It is fun to spend one episode for j...

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27:59

46. Let’s analyze the Abstract of a paper written by...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/03/05

Today, we will analyze the Abstract of an impressive paper. It is the paper that led to the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This is the paper that we call the milestone article 1. We will have two essential pre-analysis sub-steps, and then we will analyze each sentence. During this analysis, we will read each sentence of the Abstract, examine the role of each sentence, and assign each sentence to a structural component, so that we will be able to understand the author...

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20:34

45. Let’s read the Abstract of a paper written by...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/02/14

Today, we will take a significant step towards understanding the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. We will read the Abstract of the Laureates’ most important paper that led to the Nobel Prize. This is the paper that we call the milestone article 1. We will have two essential pre-reading sub-steps, and then we will conduct the initial readings. These sub-steps will set the stage for a more in-depth exploration in the next episode. Here are two sets of link...

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22:12

44. An evolving reader: my phases through reading...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/01/27

How are you reading life-science textbooks? My approach to reading textbooks has evolved significantly throughout my academic career, from student to researcher to instructor to course director. Today’s episode is part 2. We will discuss the last two phases of my experience. I am now in the fourth phase. I fully appreciate how well the authors summarized a vast amount of knowledge in one field of life sciences, in coherent and consistent manners. Please enj...

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22:13

43. An evolving reader: my phases through reading...

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2025/01/09

How are you reading life-science textbooks? My approach to reading textbooks has evolved significantly throughout my academic career, from student to researcher to instructor to course director. Today’s episode is part 1. We will discuss the first two phases of my experience. My overall goal of the two-part episodes is to highlight the unique roles that textbooks play, different from those of primary research papers. Knowing these different purposes will help us read t...

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1:01

42. Happy Holidays!

Foundational Skills in Life Sciences ·

2024/12/27

Happy Holidays to you, and I wish you the very best in 2025!

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61 results

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