The Phage Directory Slack community has over ten channels that you and your colleagues can join, from “introductions” to “phage-manufacturing” to “readings” to “random.” Phage Directory is also always open to suggestions for other topics the community wants to discuss and topic channels can be added.
Introductions
The “introductions” channel is especially great as it is a place for members to introduce themselves and meet new phage phriends. Recently, the “introductions” channel has featured an introduction challenge that has invited members to fill in these prompts and get to know each other:
👋 About me:
🌐 Based in:
👀 What I’m looking for in this community:
🤝 What I can offer:
🤩 Fun Fact:
For example:
From Enrique González Tortuero:
👋 About me: I’m nowadays working as a postdoctoral researcher in the UK in the role of temperate phages of clinic Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains in the host physiology and behavior, mainly focused on the the bioinformatic analyses. I was working previously in phages from my first postdoc in the University College Cork, Ireland (2016 - 2018)
🌐 Based in: Salford, United Kingdom - But who knows where I will be in the future… (Originally I came from Spain, but I was living out of my country for nine years…)
👀 What I’m looking for in this community: Networking with other phage researchers (wet-lab and dry-lab), staying up-to-date in phage research and helping with my (humble and short) experience in bioinformatics applied to microbes and viruses.
🤝 What I can offer: advice on bioinformatics applied to microbes and viruses, including phages obviously
🤩 Fun fact: I can start telling a lot of stories, but I do not want to bother all of you. Let’s say one funny: as a consequence of working with computers for a long time, everybody believes that I am computer scientist or mathematician when I originally studied biology and worked as a lab technician in a plant physiology lab before performing my PhD studies. So, please, do not hesitate to ask to your computer fellows about their background… Maybe you will have a surprise!
Asking Questions
In addition to being a great place to make new phage connections, the Slack community is especially wonderful for asking and answering questions. In each of the topic channels, people can pose questions and members of the community are always eager to answer. Some examples of questions posed by the Slack community:
- What is the average molecular weight of bacteriophage particles?
- I am interested to get in touch with labs and companies focusing on genetically engineered phages. We are looking for potential collaboration partners for a major pharmaceutical company. Any tips or ideas?
- I need some help with Unicycler in Galaxy!
- Anyone know the best way to recover phage from freeze-dried ampoules to create laboratory stocks?
- I’m super new to bioinformatics and I was wondering what tools should I use if I would like to see the differences between WT bacteria and mutants? What should be the approach? And tools
Group chats and direct messages
Slack also features the ability for community members to create group chats and send direct messages.
Join us!
To join the Slack community, click here: https://phage.directory/slack
