S1E5.1 - The Maize Genetics Meeting (Bonus)

Gaming with Science

#Interview #Maize #Corn #Genetics #Scientists

It's our mid-season break, so we've got a bonus episode talking to a handful of game-loving scientists at the 2024 Maize Genetics Meeting. We talk about science, games, perseverence, the winding path of becoming a scientist, and plenty more.

Timestamps

01:35 - Introductions
02:25 - How did you get into science?
06:28 - What do you research?
09:38 - Favorite games?
12:29 - Turning your work into a game?
14:24 - Advice to aspiring scientists
17:44 - Closing remarks

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Links

• 2024 Maize Genetics Meeting

Full Transcript

Brian 0:06
Hello, and welcome to the gaming with science podcast, where we talk about the science behind some of your favorite games.

Jason 0:14
Welcome back to Gaming with Science. This is Jason and it's just me today. So right now we're technically in our mid season break. But to make sure y'all have something, I want to introduce you to a bunch of scientists I met at the Maize Genetics Meeting back in March. And that's maize as in corn, not maze as in puzzles. Although of course, you may have been to a corn maze, which is actually a maze maze. And yeah, anyway, one of my goals with this podcast was trying to show the human side of scientists, we see a bunch of things in Hollywood where scientists are all uber-nerdy or geeky or have no social life. And I want to show that scientists are human, we have interests, we play games, we have fun. And so when I was back at this conference, I wanted to show off what real scientists are like and so I grabbed a microphone and started grabbing some people and just talking with them and ask them questions about how they got into science, what games they like, how we could turn their research into a game, that sort of thing. So, many thanks to the people who let me interview them: Briana, Chip, Jacob, Kate, Kyle, Lauren, and Mohammed; I'll let them all introduce themselves in a little bit. To keep things from getting repetitive, I spliced all the interviews together. So you'll hear me asking one question, but then you'll hear a bunch of them in turn, even though they were recorded at different times in different places, you'll have different amounts of background noises depending on where we were and how much stuff was going on at the time. Also, you probably guessed that being a maize genetics conference, corn genetics, everyone here works on corn. If you'd like this, we'll try to do a few more we'll maybe get some other ones. So without further ado, I'm just gonna let everyone introduce themselves and I hope you enjoy this.

Okay, so first off, can you please introduce yourself?

Brianna 1:37
My name is Brianna Griffin. I'm originally from Florida, but I'm actually at Iowa State University where I study molecular plant pathology.

Chip 1:44
Yeah, I'm Chip Hunter. I work for the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Gainesville, Florida.

Jacob 1:51
I am Jacob Kelly. I am a PhD student at the University of Missouri.

Kate 1:56
I'm Kate Eastman, and I'm a graduate student at Purdue and Jen Wisecavers lab.

Kyle 2:01
Hi, my name is Kyle Swentowski. I'm a postdoctoral fellow in David Jackson's lab at Cold Spring Harbor.

Lauren 2:07
I'm Lauren Whitt. I'm a postdoc at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, just recently graduated and I'm a plant genetic researcher.

Mohammed 2:17
My name is Mohammed El-Walid. I'm a fourth year PhD candidate at Cornell University working in Ed Buckler's lab.

Jason 2:25
So what got you into science in the first place?

Brianna 2:27
I've always been interested in science but it was it's a kind of an interesting path though. I actually went to an art school for middle and high school, like science was definitely not the focus at our school, but I just always really enjoyed it. And as I continued to advance it, I actually started to see science as a type of art form. I just thought it was very interesting and very creative, but in a completely different way than like I was used to seeing with like the dancers and the painters and stuff like that. And so actually, when I started in undergrad, I actually thought I was gonna go to med school and I luckily joined a program called Women in math, science and engineering at Florida State University. And they're really big on getting people more involved in research like earlier on. So my sophomore year, I actually started working in a maize genetics lab. So corn corn lab, as I was doing that, at the same time as doing everything for pre med and working at the hospital and stuff, I realized that I really enjoyed science, a lot more than healthcare, nothing wrong with doctors, you know, we definitely need them. But at least for me, science just seems so much more interesting. It was a lot more creative a field, there was a lot more options like to do kind of what you wanted to and each day is very different. And so that was something that was really appealing to me.

Chip 3:36
I was on track to become a dentist like my father, I was studying for the DAT exam in college and I took a course and it was called "the seeds of change". And it was taught by an agronomic professor. But it was all about genetic engineering in crops and plants. That one course changed my trajectory because I was so impressed by the possibility of plant genetic engineering to improve agriculture. But really to improve the world. I think that still holds such great promise. We've seen cool successes. Some of the examples that I was impressed by were, you know, turf grass that can be watered irrigated with saltwater, roses that never wilt, fruit that doesn't spoil, those kinds of sorts of things.

Lauren 4:13
So, let's see, I wanted to be a vet growing up. Where I was from science, scientist wasn't really a thing you could be, it was you could be a science teacher, or you could be a vet, or you could be a nurse, and I'm not good with blood. I'm very queasy, unfortunately, as much as I loved animals. So I was like, Oh, I'm gonna be a science teacher. And so that's what I went to do. And I took a genetics class, and I really liked it. And I just went and talked to the professor, hey, do you have room in your lab? Can you just teach me how to do this stuff? Like how do I extract DNA? How do I isolate a gene, you know, doing PCR, that kind of stuff. And she had a really cool project for me to extract DNA from ancient permafrost up in Alaska, like 50,000 year old soil samples and like, you know, get to try to characterize what the plant population looked like across Alaska as it changed during the Pleistocene. So you know, the unknown aspect that I was like, Wait, we don't really know what that is. And she's like, well, you know, we have theories. But we don't have like, you know, the DNA, we don't have like the proof yet. And it's like, Oh, I get to do something that no one else has known about, like, I get to contribute something new.

Mohammed 5:17
Actually, initially, during high school, I studied more computer science, I always had like an interest in science, but I didn't really think I'd be good at it necessarily, or really think that I, I didn't really know what a scientist looked like. And so it never really occurred to me that that's something I could actually do. But my elder sister was taking this genetics class during her, during her undergrad at the University of Missouri and the genetics professor that she was with requested some like field help from some students. And my sister agreed, and asked if she could bring me along. And this was like, the summer right after I graduated high school. So I went with her. And we were talking about like, heterosis, and things like that. And it was just, it was kind of captivating the genetics and starting to like, understand it a little bit more, and understand what kind of questions you can ask and what it looks like, what it really looks like to be a scientist and to do science. And so instead of going to computer science, I switched to biochemistry. And I found this nice avenue where I can do a lot of computational things for genetics, and now I do.

Jason 6:29
Okay, and what's your research on?

Brianna 6:30
So generally, I would say that I do crop improvement. So I work on diseases and working on plant immunity. So you know, how you have an immune system. And with humans, like there's also one in plants too, but it's a lot less defined at this point. And so I'm trying to help figure out that so that we can make stronger plants so that we just have better crops for the future.

Mohammed 6:49
I do a lot of genomics work, we're trying to map a freezing tolerance in this wild relative of corn called Trispacum dactyloides, a lot of what I've been doing is, is is trying to figure out how we parse through all this genomics data, this genetic data that we have, and try to identify causal genes related to Tripsacum's freezing tolerance, so that we can introduce it into maize.

Chip 7:13
I study maize genetics, and especially focused on defense chemistry, the regulation of defenses against insects, and pathogens by plant hormones.

Lauren 7:24
We look for places in the genome that are different across populations. So just genetic variants, and then we can link that to changes in what we see in the plant. So changes in their traits. And my research is to try to narrow that down to the genes that are actually responsible for that. So just because there's a change at a certain part of the genome, doesn't mean specifically that we know which gene that that's telling us is the causal gene that's actually changing, like, making the plant taller, making plant shorter. And I guess the reason I got into it is because I found out that we actually don't know what all the genes do. So I actually might be able to discover something new. And that's exciting to me.

Kate 8:02
So I study primarily two different projects. The first is a sea slug that steals chloroplasts from the algae it eats and uses its chloroplasts to photosynthesize. And then the next project is actually maize insect interactions, as well as a wild grass called Setaria viridis. And investigating the impacts of different caterpillar on plant defense responses.

Jacob 8:30
I use molecular machines to move large segments of DNA from one location on a chromosome to another location on a different chromosome. It's proof of concept research to show that it can be done. One of the major problems that plant breeders run into is having different genes of interest located on different chromosomes. If we're able to insert a large segment of DNA into a plant, and that large segment of DNA has lots of genes of interest, and then we're able to move that to a specific target site, then, not only can we partially control the expression of the large segment of DNA, like the genes located in it, but because it's all incorporated in the same spot, it inherits together.

Kyle 9:18
In my research, I'm interested in the differences between annual and perennial plants. Annuals are really good at growing and taking everything they've produced in their life and putting it into what's going to be harvested. Whereas perennials have to be able to recycle their nutrients and keep growing year after year. So I'm trying to figure out how that process actually works.

Jason 9:38
So what are some of your favorite games?

Jacob 9:40
So my favorite game is actually chess. I got into chess when I was a little boy, my dad taught me how to play chess, and he and I would stay up in the evenings. And we would play a game or two of chess, sometimes three before bed, and it was a fun way for my dad and I to bond with each other.

Jason 9:57
How long was it until he stopped letting you win and you legitimately, just legitimately just beating him.

Jacob 10:03
So I don't think my dad actually ever let me win. He would kick my butt, he would absolutely wreck me. When I was like four or five years old, he could beat me in just a few moves. And then as I got older and more experienced, it got to where I would win about a third of the games. And then after I left for college, I kept playing with other people that I met that also loved chess, and I got better. And my dad, he kind of stopped playing because he didn't have anyone to play with. And so now whenever my dad and I play, I return the favor from when I was four or five.

Chip 10:37
My favorite game of all really is Magic the Gathering, I think the strategy and you know, constantly evolving game type that it is, is is the most fun for me. So I've played that game for quite a long time now, about 20 years, I think.

Kate 10:53
I primarily love a game called Spirit Island. Other than that, classic board games, things like Monopoly, Risk and thinking of more modern ones. I really like Ecos lately and Mariposas. They're both kind of the same board game producers kind of animal interactions and things like that.

Mohammed 11:16
I think right now I mostly it's a lot of Dungeons and Dragons, mainly because there's not a whole lot of prep time for me, at least that has to go into it. So

Jason 11:25
You're obviously not the GM.

Mohammed 11:26
No, I am not the GM. I've got, so I'm in two campaigns, and one of them started in like 2020 and is still going on right now. And it's a bunch of actually other graduate students and former graduate students. Some of them are real faculty now and join remotely. But we've been playing for a few years now, it's really, a really good, good way to kind of take the edge off, enjoy some time with friends and think about, honestly think about science actually in like a different context really a lot of the time because I feel like, especially with something like Dungeons and Dragons, you have a lot of creative freewill. And sometimes you can use the things that you know to help you.

Kyle 12:08
So, I'm into both board games and video games video game wise. Some of my all time favorites are Age of Empires, Civilization, some first person shooter games, and then as far as board games go, I've lately been into this plant base board, plant molecular biology game called Cellulose. But I also I love pretty much any board game you could throw at me.

Jason 12:29
And so if we were to take your research and turn it into a game, what would it be like?

Brianna 12:35
I probably would say that it would be an open world adventure, where it's kind of a choose your own adventure, there's an overarching goal. But at the same time, there's a lot of different pathways you can take to like reach the end goal. And there's also a lot of side quests you can do that maybe distract you from the main mission, but still may be interesting, and still may get you some cool results along the way also.

Jason 12:53
So is that one about your research itself, or is that about being a graduate student?

Brianna 12:57
Probably both, honestly

Lauren 12:59
It'd honestly be probably pretty similar to the Evolution board game, where you get to evolve your species to out compete with the people at the table for limited resources and give them certain traits and kind of like play with the population size and like the animal size and how much resources they need. So I really liked that aspect of it. But trying to make it more like evolution and actually adding the random part into it actually had a teacher in undergrad who taught us a lab that way where he added in random aspects to it. So maybe adding a little bit more of the plants back into it? And so like, you know, animals are always fun, like maybe more of like, you know, growing like your plant population and competing for maybe underground resources.

Kate 13:35
I've worked a lot with horizontal gene transfer, which is non-hereditary passing of genetic information. So I've looked into these fungi that live in trees and pass genes between the trees that they live in, or other plants. And I also studied this sea slug that we expected had stolen some genes from the algae and eats so that it can support these chloroplasts. So it'd probably be different organisms stealing components of other organisms.

Jason 14:06
Sounds like you'd be stealing bits and pieces from other players creatures and trying to make the best one.

Kate 14:10
Yes, yeah, kind of like Spore. If you ever played that game on the computer, you're making this organism and slowly evolving it and adapting it to its environment. Yeah, that, that would probably be my inspiration.

Jason 14:24
I assume we have some aspiring scientists among our listeners. So what sort of advice would you give to them?

Jacob 14:30
I would say focus on what you love. And then as you focus on the science that you enjoy learning about the most, you will come across people that can point you in the right direction for not just learning more, but actually getting involved in the science and being able to push the perimeter of what is known and ultimately make discoveries and discover things related to what it is that you are interested in.

Kate 14:56
Just stay passionate about things. I have always loved science. Science. But when it becomes your job, you have to remember to separate your love for something from your hatred of a nine to five, or your dislike for school or things like that. So just kind of looking back at what got me passionate about science. And what I really love helps me to stay committed and stay driven.

Mohammed 15:23
It's much more doable than you think. There are a lot of challenges along the way. And then also, you do get paid for your PhD, you don't have to pay for that. So I think that was, that was something that really, I didn't realize until I started working in a laboratory and didn't know that was a thing. And then also, I think that the most important thing is really to make sure that you can maintain good relationships with your advisor, and with your colleagues, and then that you also have like a good balance outside of work, because it really is just like more of a marathon than anything. And I think that transition from from undergrad where everything did feel like a race to kind of slowing it down and just trying to keep taking slow steps forward was a challenge for me initially.

Chip 16:10
Yeah, dive in early as you can and try to find a place that you can have freedom to play, to learn and to do experiments. My personal philosophy is with students is to really let them take a stab at leading experiments and design experiments.

Kyle 16:26
If you really love what you're doing, keep going with it. I know it's gonna be a lot of hard work, but the dedication you put into it with anything in life will really pay off later.

Lauren 16:35
Definitely talk to your professors. I didn't know that that was the thing that you could do until one of my friends told me that she was working in someone's lab. And so it's like, yeah, just go up and talk to a professor. They're normal people, they have first names, a lot of professors I know like to go by their first names, actually. You know, a lot of them are going to be really down to earth and also want to pass on, like, I'm sure every scientist had a previous scientist that inspired them when they were a student. At least for me, and a lot of people I know, it's like wanting to pass that forward. And just showing that you're interested is like all we need, it's like you don't have to know all this stuff. You don't have to know how to do DNA extraction, you don't need to know how to use R or Python, I can teach you that. But if you have the desire to do it, then you know, that's really all we're looking for. And we're all just a bunch of nerds really. So we love sharing common interests. And you know, what makes us passionate. So, you know, don't be afraid to I guess show that side either. You know that I guess there's a stereotype about scientists being a certain way and being, you know, only concerned about their research and very serious and very analytical, but a lot of us are really fun. We have other outside hobbies, we have fandoms that we like to do sports that we like to do. And so just talk to a scientist and figure out if it's for you.

Jason 17:46
And I can't really top that so thank you very much to Brianna, Chip, Jacob, Kate, Kyle, Lauren, and Mohamed for letting me interview them. Thank you for sharing a little bit about themselves. And thank you to you all for listening. This episode was a bit of an experiment. So if you have strong opinions about whether we should do this again or not do it again, go ahead and jump on the Discord and let us know. Link is at www.gamingwithscience.net. You can get the invite there, jump on, talk to us. We really friendly people. Get on & let us know if there's something you want us to do more of. And with that, we'll go ahead and wrap it up for now. Y'all have a great week, happy gaming and have fun playing dice with the universe. This has been the gaming with Science Podcast copyright 2024. Listeners are free to reuse this recording for any non commercial purpose as long as credit is given to Gaming with Science. This podcast is produced with support from the University of Georgia. All opinions are those of the hosts and do not imply endorsement by the sponsors. If you wish to purchase any of the games we talked about, we encourage you to do so through your friendly local game store. Thank you and have fun playing dice with the universe.