While the IGBB Service Center can perform low-risk, fairly routine biomolecular tasks on a fee-per-service basis, some of your research goals may require (or would most readily be completed with) the help of professionals trained in advanced procedures and/or data analysis techniques. The IGBB research associates, most of whom have Ph.D. degrees and/or many years of practical experience, can be hired to conduct research tasks associated with their specialties. For example, let's say you need an expert in RNA isolation and RNAseq to help you complete a portion of a research project. You could train a student or postdoc to become proficient in these research tasks, but you may not have the experience, time, or money to train someone. Moreover, you may not have the instrumentation you need to do the research correctly. This is where the IGBB can help. Rather than training someone new, you can hire a highly skilled IGBB scientist to perform the research for you. The savings in cost and time is tremendous! The process works like this:
- The principal investigator (PIs) interested in determining whether
the IGBB can help them in their research/analyses contacts one of the IGBB's Research Leads.
- The Research Lead(s) sets up a meeting with the PI to discuss project goals, feasibility, and
approaches. This consultation is free.
- If the PI and the Research Lead agree to a research plan, the
Research Lead
will generate an itemized quote for the PI that includes salary, fringe, reagent
costs, machine costs, etc. The duration of the employment agreement depends upon the needs of the customer and can range from a few hours to several months. In addition, IGBB employment agreements can cover fairly low weekly time committments spread out over long stretches (e.g., a customer may hire an IGBB employee to work on a project 5 hours a week for four years). Overhead charges and/or HPC² retainage costs may or may not be
applicable. Once a plan is set between a PI and an IGBB Research Lead, a final quote will be sent to the PI for approval. Once the PI approves the quote, work can begin.
If you don't have funding in hand, but are working on a grant proposal, you can include the participation of an IGBB expert-for-hire in your proposal budget (note: you must make such agreements with the expert-for-hire through a MyIGBB itemized quote). To discuss a hiring an IGBB expert, please contact one of the IGBB's Research Leads by phone or e-mail.
NOTE: PIs are asked to consider whether the participation of an IGBB employee in a project merits that employee's inclusion as a co-author on a resulting manuscript(s). The decision ultimately lies with the PI. However, the IGBB encourages IGBB staff and faculty involved in
Proposal Partnerships and
Experts for Hire to discuss/negotiate co-authorship with PIs before starting work on a project.
On the Age of Eukaryotes: Evaluating Evidence from Fossils and Molecular ClocksIGBB Authors:
Matthew W. BrownPUBLICATION YEAR:
2014IMPACT FACTOR:
7.291CITATION COUNT:
173Eme L, Sharpe SC, Brown MW, Roger AJ (2014) On the Age of Eukaryotes: Evaluating Evidence from Fossils and Molecular Clocks.
Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology 6(8): pii: a016139.
DOI:
10.1101/cshperspect.a016139EID:
2-s2.0-84894381498PMID: 25085908
DOWNLOAD PDFABSTRACTOur understanding of the phylogenetic relationships among eukaryotic lineages has improved dramatically over the few past decades thanks to the development of sophisticated phylogenetic methods and models of evolution, in combination with the increasing availability of sequence data for a variety of eukaryotic lineages. Concurrently, efforts have been made to infer the age of major evolutionary events along the tree of eukaryotes using fossil-calibrated molecular clock-based methods. Here, we review the progress and pitfalls in estimating the age of the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) and major lineages. After reviewing previous attempts to date deep eukaryote divergences, we present the results of a Bayesian relaxed-molecular clock analysis of a large dataset (159 proteins, 85 taxa) using 19 fossil calibrations. We show that for major eukaryote groups estimated dates of divergence, as well as their credible intervals, are heavily influenced by the relaxed molecular clock models and methods used, and by the nature and treatment of fossil calibrations. Whereas the estimated age of LECA varied widely, ranging from 1007 (943-1102) Ma to 1898 (1655-2094) Ma, all analyses suggested that the eukaryotic supergroups subsequently diverged rapidly (i.e., within 300 Ma of LECA). The extreme variability of these and previously published analyses preclude definitive conclusions regarding the age of major eukaryote clades at this time. As more reliable fossil data on eukaryotes from the Proterozoic become available and improvements are made in relaxed molecular clock modeling, we may be able to date the age of extant eukaryotes more precisely.
Dr. George V. PopescuAssistant Research Professor
FACULTY
email(662) 325-7369
Pace 118
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