These slides are from a presentation given by Dr Jackie MacArthur as part of the 2015 season of Careers After Biological Science at the University of Leicester (UK)

1. Scientific curation
Untangling research data
Jackie MacArthur
Project Leader (GWAS Catalog)
www.ebi.ac.uk

2. Summary
• Current role
• Scientific Curator
• Project Leader (GWAS Catalog)
• Career path
• PhD
• Postdoctoral research
• Advice

3. GWAS Catalog scientific curator/project leader
• Scientific curator – 3 years
• Project leader – from September 2014
• European
Bioinformatics
Institute (EMBL-EBI)
• Hinxton, 10 miles
south of Cambridge

4. What is a scientific curator?
• Curator
• a keeper or custodian of a
museum or other collection
• Scientific curator
• “museum catalogers of the
Internet age”*
(* Bourne et al., 2006; Burge et al., 2012)

5. GWAS Catalog
• The GWAS Catalog is a manually curated, literature-derived
collection of all genome wide association studies and significant
associations (http://www.genome.gov/gwastudies/)
• As of January 2015 the Catalog includes 2,100 publications and
15,257 SNPs

6. http://www.ebi.ac.uk/fgpt/gwas/

7. http://www.ebi.ac.uk/fgpt/gwas/

8. http://www.ebi.ac.uk/fgpt/gwas/

9. Scientific curator
• Identification of GWAS publications
• Reading publications and extraction of data into curation interface
• Study design and methods
• Association results
• Checking and public release of data
• Working collaboratively as part of an International team of scientists

10. GWAS Project Leader
• Improving availability of data for users
• User interface
• Scientific content
• Preparing scientific reports, publications and presentations
• GWAS Catalog outreach and promotion
• Answering queries from GWAS Catalog users and other curators
• Organising and chairing meetings
• Training curation staff
• Managing curation workload

11. Scientific curator – person requirements
• MSc or PhD in life sciences or genetics
• In depth understanding of genetic variation and genomics
• Enjoy reading scientific papers
• Attention to detail
• Good organisation and time management skills
• Self motivation

12. BSc to scientific curator
BSc Biological Sciences (Genetics)
Leicester UniversityPhD
Nottingham University
Postdoc 1
Newcastle University
Postdoc 2
University California
San Francisco
Postdoc 3
Sanger Institute
Scientific Curator
EBI Project Leader (GWAS Catalog)
EBI

13. PhD
• “Evolution and population genetics of the H-ras minisatellite”
• Develop research skills and scientific knowledge
• Experience managing a project
• Experience working in academic environment
• Needs to be the right project!

14. Postdoctoral academia
• Newcastle University
• Genetic alterations involved in
medulloblastoma development
• University of California, San Francisco
• Using array CGH to analyse copy number
variation
• Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
• Mechanisms of chromosomal
rearrangement leading to genomic disorders

15. Why do a Postdoc if you don’t want to stay in
academia?
• Experience working in research/science
• Project management skills
• Networking – getting to know more people in science
• Transferrable skills
• Problem solving
• Analytical skills
• Opportunities to develop additional skills depending on your
interests/career goals

16. Leaving research
• It was never my goal to stay in research/academia
• I wanted an interesting job in science that fitted in with my
personal life
Was this a good choice?
• Using scientific expertise and experience
• Looking at the bigger picture
• Benefitting the scientific community
• Still get to publish and present work at conferences
• Still not a permanent position

17. Advice – jobs in science outside research
• Get a PhD
• Build up a network
• Do what you find interesting
• Think about what your skills are/what you enjoy and try to
match these to a job
• Keep an open mind – the job you are suited to may not exist
yet
• Think about the priorities in your life

18. Questions?