URP experiences 2003

[Shraddha Pai]

My memories of the summer at CSHL do not distinguish the time within the lab from the time without: the Sunday afternoons on the porch of the Williams House while working on the data mining pipeline and watching the gorgeous Long Island sound, the quiet walks to the beach down Bungtown Road at dusk (just before the mosquitoes began their nightly buffet), course meetings with some of the best minds in neurological disease on the beautiful Banbury estate. The peaceful, relaxed surroundings mingle effortlessly with the intense research and the sheer density of intelligent thought on the CSHL grounds.

One evening, I sat on the benches right by the beach playing aimlessly with a big, blue, bouncy ball we URPs had bought to play pseudo-volleyball with, all the while singing aloud (some sections of the grounds are wonderfully isolated and yet so secure). I had to stop my rendition of Julie Andrews numbers part-way through, because I noticed someone else walking down the path to the beach.

"Good evening," I said.
"Lovely evening!" he replied.

The gentleman was a participant in the Yeast Genetics course held during the summer at CSHL (held at the same time as the 'rival' C. elegans course); indeed, he had come all the way from Rome to attend it. He explained that he had already finished his laboratory work ahead of the group and thus had evenings at his disposal. And so we spoke of the humidity in Rome, my undergraduate program at Waterloo, the URP program at CSHL, and discussed research in general. For a week more, I also had someone to play ball with whenever we chanced to meet during evening walks. The overall experience was amazing in hindsight because one met continually scientists from all over the world in this utterly informal and natural environment - where else would such a thing have been possible?

A memorable part of spending the summer (oh, the busy, busy summer months!) at CSHL was being a part of all the ongoing activities. Coming from a Math faculty, I thought mathematicians and computer scientists were funny in their nerdiness ... but aha, I was yet to encounter biologists in *their* natural environment!

News of the infamous Plate Race between the Yeast and C. elegans course groups had spread long before the day of the race. Sure, I'd been a part of relay races before, but never where a stack of petri dishes (culture included) replaced the standard baton! The friendly competition in the air inevitably affected the URPs; working on mining the elegans and briggsae genomes, I naturally felt that my allegiances were due to the researchers with 'elegans' while my friends working with S. pombe clearly (and literally) stood on the other side of the divide, cheering on the Yeast crowd.

However, the final banquet where the Yeast and C. elegans groups dined together ... er, takes the cake. During the main course, there were random snide remarks being flung hither and thither between the two groups (all causing much mirth at the URP table). Finally, after the main course, those in the Yeast course group suddently put down their napkins and collectively stood on their chairs.

The room watched in silence, punctuated by a few loud guffaws from here and there.
Those on the chairs took out pieces of paper from their pockets and unfolded them with much ceremony.
Then they cleared their throats and sang a multi-verse song hailing Yeast as the Ideal Model Organism and severely, severely disparaging the nematode ("At least yeast makes beer, what do *worms* do?", that sort of thing)

Apparently the nematode crew was prepared for this outburst, for shortly after the first round of singers had taken their places again, *this* group stood on their chairs and oh, they seemed to have pieces of paper with something written on them, too!

And so came the Rebuttal - another multi-verse song putting down yeast and hailing the Worm as the Ideal Model Organism.

Thankfully, there were no follow-up songs.
This entire experience was new to all of us.
I repeat - where else would such a thing have been possible?