Phytos and mycos, my 1st independent publication!

The first paper from my own lab is out in PLoS ONE, YAY!

Chen LL, Chung WC, Lin CP, Kuo CH (2012) Comparative analysis of gene content evolution in phytoplasmas and mycoplasmas. PLoS ONE 7: e34407. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0034407

A lab of my own

I found it hard to believe that almost a year has been passed since I started my current job as a principal investigator. What's even more amazing is the fact that the renovation of my lab space has F.I.N.A.L.L.Y. progressed to a point that we (i.e., two research assistants and I) can say goodbye to our temporary office and temporary lab. For the record, it is not really done yet but at least the space is usable (e.g., there's a window with no glass installed in the wet lab...). Here is what it looks like in my brand new lab, yay!

One of the most critical things, a fancy name plate on the door, is not ready yet. This is our temporary solution:


The wet lab:









The dry lab:





The meeting room:



My office:

It is official!

The contract for my new job finally arrived, so I guess it is safe to say this out loud now: I will join the Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology at Academia Sinica in Taiwan this summer as an Assistant Research Fellow (a tenure-track position that's equivalent to an Assistant Professor in the universities).

We are all very excited about moving back to Taiwan, however, how we are going to handle the upcoming move remains as an unsolved mystery...