October 2015

Inside this issue….

www.uhntrainees.ca

For information on UHN training courses, scholarships, seminars

happening around the city and so much more, visit

www.uhntrainees.ca.

The ORT Times A monthly newsletter featuring UHN Trainees

01

Click here to access past issues from our archive.

The ORT Office of Research Trainees

04 Career Advice

CLICK HERE TO PRINT

Career Advice

Drive Your Way Into a Job: Using CAR Statements to Write an Impactful Résumé

By Shaalee Dworski, UHN Trainee and ORT Writer For academics, transitioning into industry poses many challenges. One common roadblock is crafting a compelling one- to two-page résumé that translates years of graduate school experience into real-life work skills applicable to the job.

The majority of new-graduate résumés look like a laundry list of degrees, lab techniques and papers. To the trained eye everyone’s laundry lists look pretty much the same fresh out of graduate school. The best way to sell yourself is by telling stories about your unique experience and highest impact achievements. Storytelling is critical to being memorable in interviews (see ORT Times article about

storytelling here), and is equally important when writing a résumé to get an interview. The Science Career Impact Project is helping trainees distinguish themselves and get noticed. Co-founders Drs. David Sealey and Anne Tran, along with fellow University of Toronto (UofT) graduate alumni, are teaching trainees how to tell better stories about their achievements by using context-action-result (CAR) statements, which improve their résumés and make them more memorable. Through their Résumé Impact Workshops, they have helped over 120 students and postdoctoral fellows improve their résumés since the series began in 2014. Their latest workshop was held in September 2015 with 12 trainees at the University Health Network.

CON’T TO NEXT PAGE

09 Editorial

07

Upcoming Events & Funding Opportunities

11

Money Matters

Conference Reports

10 Travel Awardees

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

CAREER ADVICECAREER ADVICECAREER ADVICE

Office of Research Trainees 02

CON’T FROM PREVIOUS PAGE CAR is an acronym made up of the first letters of the following words that highlight the main components of a CAR statement: (C) Context: Explain the problem that needed solving. Set the stage. (A) Action: Use positive action words to describe what you did to solve the problem. (R) Result: The amazing things that happened as a result of your efforts. This is a “good news” story with a happy ending. Be specific and include numbers to quantify results if possible. A typical graduate student has written papers and gotten scholarships, which is nothing out of the ordinary. CAR statements are the key to making these routine accomplishments unique to the applicant and demonstrate the specific skills that hiring managers are looking for. Here are a few examples demonstrating how CAR statements can tell a more personal and memorable story: (C) With the aim of identifying new targets for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (A) Synthesized literature, identified knowledge gaps, and wrote a persuasive scholarship application; (R) awarded one of five federal scholarships worth $15,000 in an applicant pool of 270. (C) To identify the neurological defect in a mouse model of an orphan disease, (A) performed experiments and managed communications and milestones with international collaborators, (R) resulting in a new understanding of the role of lipids in numerous neurological diseases, three oral presentations at international conferences, and a peer-reviewed publication. That sounds like the applicant had a direct impact on the successful outcome. The CAR structure is also helpful for non-academic experiences, as it demonstrates how an extracurricular experience can be applied to the role. The beauty of the CAR technique is its clarity: it allows you to describe past actions and achievements as evidence that you can have a similar impact in the role you are applying for. Who better to hire for a position than the person who has already proved that they can do the job? I have a confession. After the workshop I was addicted to framing everything I did as a CAR statement, even organizing a bachelorette weekend for 12 friends: as a bridesmaid I planned and coordinated the activities and logistics of a unique and memorable out-of-town bachelorette weekend for 12 women that created a joyful, lasting memory for the attendees and showed the bride how much she is loved. Shortly after the workshop, I met with two friends who are not in my discipline. We each wrote down experiences and then shared them aloud with each other. They asked me questions about what I did and why, which helped me identify what the most interesting parts of my stories were. We worked together to rephrase our stories to be more meaningful and impactful than we originally felt they were. The success of this technique is real. Former workshop participant and UHN trainee, Monan Angela Zhang says, “I was able to utilize what I learned from this workshop, along with what I learned from Dr. Nana Lee as part of the Graduate Professional Development course, to truly enhance my résumés for subsequent job applications, leading to many leads in industry and pharma, as well as a job offer less than two months after finishing my degree.” That is a goal we can all aspire to. Even if you’re not interested in applying for industry jobs right now (or ever), this exercise will make you feel good about yourself. It draws out the many positive impacts that we have had and that we have taken for granted. Are you ready to transform your résumé? Be ready to put in A LOT of work because this is a paradigm-shifting strategy. If you would like to participate in a Resume Impact Workshop keep an eye out for upcoming dates announced by the ORT.

CON’T TO NEXT PAGE

CAREER ADVICECAREER ADVICECAREER ADVICE

Office of Research Trainees 03

CON’T FROM PREVIOUS PAGE The ORT caught up with the co-founder of The Science Career Impact Project, Dr. David Sealey: ORT: Where did you learn the CAR technique ? David: Around the time I was finishing my PhD, I applied for many, many jobs with a résumé that looked more like an

academic CV, and received only a few interview offers. As frustration set in, I learned the CAR technique while attending a workshop preparing scientists to enter the consulting field. Soon after, I watched my friends in business school use one-page storytelling résumés to get interviews at large corporations. Clearly, I had been doing it all wrong! I swallowed my pride, deleted the technical content that I had spent years at the bench cultivating, and came up with my own one-pager. The next résumés that I sent out led to interviews and a job offer! Even though I had relevant skills, it was not until I learned how to speak their language that employers could see my potential.

ORT: In your experience, how often do you see job applicants with résumés using CAR statements or similar

techniques? David: For applicants with a pure science background, almost never. Applicants with a business background or who have

taken on career development experiences outside the lab tend to have a better handle on their résumés. ORT: Why was it important for you to return and teach this to UofT students? David: In my >10 years of training at UofT and UHN, I learned from many smart

and passionate scientists. All well-intentioned, their approach to self-promotion was aimed at publishing papers and getting grants, and they were successful! After making the science-to-business switch the hard way – through trial and error – I wanted to give back to the community by sharing what I learned. Every time a participant in our workshops has that ‘aha!’ moment, I am inspired to keep spreading the word.

ORT: Any other tips to help students transition from academia to industry? David: It is important to build a portfolio of experience that shows your potential

for impact in the types of organizations where you can see making a career. Sometimes lab experience is enough, but remember that every MSc and PhD graduate has lab experience. Pursue your interests and find a way to stand out from the crowd.

Top five tips for successful CAR statements Chat with a partner. What we do in our roles every day is easily taken for granted - a partner can capture

the exceptionality of our actions. Choose one to three skills to exemplify in the CAR statement. It is tempting to cram many skills into one

statement but this muddies the impact of the story. Write down CARs as you experience them. Reaching back into our memories for CAR-worthy experiences

can be a challenge. Take note of special results as they come along. Writing CAR statements is a skill that improves with practice so noting them regularly will make it easier.

Exchange résumés. Read other people’s CAR statements to help you recall similar experiences that have been long-forgotten.

Take your time. This process takes a lot of thought and reflection. You will put down words on the page and want to rearrange them multiple times before coming up with just the right way to represent your experience. Don’t rush the process; give yourself time to work on it over several days.

Dr. David Sealey UHN alumni and facilitator for The Science

Career Impact Project

MONEY MATTERSMONEY MATTERSMONEY MATTERS

Office of Research Trainees 04

Personal Finance and Your Future

The recent federal election put the spotlight on retirement security, including election promises to tweak the Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) and Old Age Security (OAS) systems.The ORT Times met with Dr. John Robertson, Techna Research Communications Officer and author of The Value of Simple: A Practical Guide to Taking the Complexity Out of Investing, to talk about what research trainees should know about saving for the future and their finances. ORT: How did you get interested in personal finance? I have my dad to thank for setting me up with some good habits from a young age and being there as a resource for me. But the big push that really got me to take this stuff seriously was when I got a 4-year scholarship for my PhD, yet knowing that almost no one in the program finished that fast (it took me just over 5 years). I knew I had to figure out how to save and invest enough of it to last for a while, to get through grad school without taking on any debt. And of course that's a miniature version of the same problem everyone faces for retirement savings: we all have income streams from jobs that will last a few decades, but have to find ways to save and invest to stretch that out for our full lives, including in retirement when the money from the job stops coming in. ORT: Any tips for UHN trainees? Trainees include students and postdocs, and there's a world of difference between them there. For graduate students it's mostly just about survival. Try to get by on the stipends and scholarships you get, without going into debt, which can be a challenge, especially if you brought some debt with you from undergrad. Frugality is the operative word. Build up an emergency fund as soon as you reason-ably can—and this goes for postdocs as well. There's nothing quite like having that little bit of wiggle room in your budget if something comes up, or knowing that you can lean on that nicely stocked savings account if life throws you a curveball. The feeling of security you get from having that emergency fund will improve your life far more than whatever marginal expense you cut out of your budget to make the savings possible. But for graduate students the absolute best thing you can do for your finances is to just stop being a grad student. I'm the last person to give specific tips on how to finish early, but do what you can to stay focused on your work and push your experiments forward, write up your papers and thesis, and move on to pursue the next chapter of your lives with your MSc and/or PhD in hand. ORT: And what about for postdocs? Then for postdocs, you're starting to get to the point where you are making more, where you can find a bit of leeway, and it's time to start setting yourself up for the future. Pay down your student loans if you have any, and start saving and investing. If you’re lucky, you’ll soon be in a position with a defined benefit pension, which are great things because they take away so much uncertainty, and there's nothing for you to do except sign up. However, even with a pension plan you need to be doing more on your own: a defined-benefit pension (like the one available to UHN permanent employees through HOOPP) is a great core for your financial stability, but you'll also need an emergency fund and likely some extra long-term savings and investments too.

CON’T TO NEXT PAGE

Dr. John Robertson Author and TECHNA Research Communications Officer

MONEY MATTERSMONEY MATTERSMONEY MATTERS

Office of Research Trainees 05

CON’T FROM PREVIOUS PAGE ORT: Everyone says starting early is important. Is this true? It's so important. On the one hand it gives your money more time to grow, for you to reap the magic of compound, exponential growth. It also spreads the "pain" of saving over a longer period of time less intensely. It's also important because of the huge role that behaviour plays in success. Personal finance involves a bit of math and a bit of knowledge of the money stuff, but what really matters and what affects whether you'll be successful is all about behaviours, and simple behaviours at that. Starting early means learning to live within your means early, which will help you get to the point where it just becomes automatic. And for many people budgeting is automatic, whether or not it includes savings: across all incomes many people out there are magically able to live within whatever means are available to them. For some unfortunate souls they spend and spend until their credit cards are maxed out, but we see that once there's no more easy credit to be had, they find a way to live within those means—few will end up going to loan sharks or into bankruptcy. For those who are more debt-averse, they may live right at their means: never accumulating debt, yet somehow finding a way to spend all the money every year. It's not because people's needs coincidentally equal their incomes, but because spending is like a gas: it expands to fill all the available room. So people have found that if you make saving a priority and automatically take your contributions to long-term savings out right away, as soon as your paycheque is deposited, you'll manage to adjust and live off what's left. It even has a clever name: "paying yourself first." Building that habit and setting up those processes early—preventing that expansion before it happens post-grad—will get you on the right foot for the rest of your life. I'm not saying you have to be unrealistic: postdocs will likely do the bulk of their savings for the future in the future, after they start making more. But there will never be a perfect time to start saving for the future, it will never be so easy that it will just happen without effort, and the longer you put it off the harder taking that first step will be. So start with what you can as soon as you can, and build those good habits. ORT: So if you don’t have a pension, where do you start investing for the future? The TFSA is the ideal place to start investing on your own. Despite the “Savings Account” in the name, TFSAs are a fantastic, flexible tax shelter that you can put all kinds of investments into: regular savings accounts or GICs, as well as mutual funds and other investments. The newly elected government promised to roll the yearly contribution room back to $5,500 (it was just increased to $10,000 for 2015), which is causing no small amount of debate and hand-wringing in the world. But any way you slice it, the TFSA didn’t exist even just a few years ago, and is a great “container” for your investments, making any gains you make on them tax-free—a feature that coincidentally also cuts down on your paperwork burden. Most Canadians are more familiar with RRSPs, which have been around longer. For a post-doctoral fellow, or someone early in a more permanent position, you may not have much RRSP room and the TFSA will likely be the better choice for now. Later in your career though, long-term investments in an RRSP will be a core part of your retirement preparation.

CON’T TO NEXT PAGE

Ima

ge c

ou

rtes

y o

f M

iste

r G

C a

t Fr

eeD

igit

alP

ho

tos.

net

MONEY MATTERSMONEY MATTERSMONEY MATTERS

Office of Research Trainees 06

CON’T FROM PREVIOUS PAGE ORT: You've mentioned saving and investing a few times. Should trainees really concern themselves with investing? Isn't that complicated and for rich people? Investing just means putting your money into something with a higher likelihood of providing a better long-term return, with the risk that there will be some bumps along the way. You absolutely don't have to be rich to start investing, it only takes a few hundred dollars to get started, and while there are lots of ways of making it complex, it doesn't have to be. It can be really simple and easy. And as I've been saying starting early helps build those habits, and also helps you get used to the kind of volatility investing will produce over a savings account or GIC. It's better to go through a market crash and come out the other side when you only have a few hundred or thousand dollars at stake, than to try to figure it out for the first time when you're at the point of managing tens of thousands of dollars. I can say that volatility is a normal part of long-term investing all day long, but the first market crash a person experiences with money on the line is always a different experience. ORT: Are there any resources for trainees to look at as they try to figure this out? There are a lot of books out there on this stuff. I've put together a reading guide to help orient people to some of the material. Whether you need help with tips on frugality, how to make and stick to a budget, or the nitty gritty on setting up a TFSA and RRSP for investing, there's a book recommendation in there for you. Plus there are a lot of blogs and forums out there where you can follow someone else's journey, ask questions of your own, or find the best deals and coupons to help keep your budget in check. For more information about how you can start investing, please visit: http://ValueofSimple.ca

_______________________________________________________________________________ Would you like to contribute to The ORT Times?

Your story could be featured here! The ORT invites UHN Principal Investigators, sup-port staff, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to contribute to its monthly newsletter The ORT Times. This is your opportunity to showcase your writing skills and report on issues important to you and fellow trainees. Lab groups are also encouraged to write about their research and scientific discoveries. The ORT Times features editorials related to trainee life, how to make the most of your research experience at UHN and furthering your career development. Issues also showcase recent awardees, UHN trainee alumni and highlight the contribution of UHN trainees to high impact research publications. The Editorial Series is a great way to expand your experience in writing and to communicate your ideas to the trainee community. Trainees can also share their advice on technical or transferable skill development in our Tutorial Series. To contribute to the Editorial or Tutorial Series, please send us your idea to ort.admin@uhnres.utoronto.ca. Go to www.uhntrainees.ca for examples of past newsletter issues. We are eager to hear from you—contact The ORT today!

Ima

ge

cou

rtes

y o

f Ju

st2

shu

tter

at

Free

Dig

ita

lPh

oto

s.n

et

EDITORIALEDITORIALEDITORIAL

Office of Research Trainees 07

Lost in Translation

By Dr Stuart Faulkner, UHN Trainee and ORT Writer

Bleary-eyed, early on a recent Friday morning I watched an inspirational lecture in which the speaker recounted his 20-year journey to translate a promising new biologic from its discovery to its clinical application. This journey encompassed numerous pivots in direction, setbacks and lateral thinking to circumvent numerous hurdles such as spiraling costs, lengthy or ineffective clinical trials, lack of pharmaceutical engagement, lack of end-user uptake, and incorrect assumptions of target population.

It struck a chord with me as to what is the obligation for research to fulfill genuine ‘translational’ potential and what tools can researchers use to accomplish it.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) defines translational research as ‘the movement of discoveries in basic research to application at the clinical level’ (1). Research that is touted as ‘translational’ can at times seem to be at best an idea rather than a process that will be initiated and completed.

The development of a new drug demonstrates the inherent difficulties of translating a scientific discovery into a marketable product that improves health. In the US, it takes an average of 12 years for a drug to travel from discovery to your bedside cabinet, with only one in every 5000 drug discoveries reaching the market. A dichotomy exists between drug discovery and translation. On the one hand increased intellectual property (IP) applications combined with an increased number of phase I and II clinical trials over the last decade would suggest that there are more promising drug discoveries than ever ready to be developed into a market product. On the other hand there has been a parallel decrease in R&D spending by pharmaceutical companies over a similar period, often stung by high profile and expensive clinical trial failures.

While not all research needs to or can produce a marketable product, researchers who have genuine translation of their research in mind need to change the way they think before they submit a grant proposal.

There are a number of enablers, which can be applied in different disciplines, to improve the translational potential of research:

Seek support with hypothesis-driven research with genuine translatability and reproducibility in mind: Performing sys-tematic reviews of the literature and engaging fellow experts and clinicians in developing hypotheses can obviate many of the past mistakes. Countless systematic reviews across multiple disease states generate similar findings; preclinical research and early phase clinical trials are often poorly designed using incorrect models of disease, irrelevant endpoints of efficacy, heterogeneous patient populations, over estimates of effect size, underestimates of sample size, and lack evidence of independent verification of results.

Engage with patient advocacy and stakeholder groups from the start. They will ultimately benefit from any translational discoveries. This enables a move away from traditional PUSH knowledge (i.e., discovery to development to product) to PULL knowledge (i.e., identify a product that is actually beneficial to the patient leading into discovery and development phases). http://health.gov.on.ca/en/pro/programs/drugs/patient_evidence/registered_advocacy_groups.aspx.

CON’T TO NEXT PAGE

EDITORIALEDITORIALEDITORIAL

Office of Research Trainees 08

CON’T FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

Engage with organizations that promote adaptive approaches aimed at streamlining the research, licensing and market access processes by engagement of all stakeholders including the sponsor, regulator, payers/providers and the research community. Following Health Canada licensing, health technologies must undergo a process called, ‘health technology assessment’, which is an evidence-based economic analysis to demonstrate that they meet the needs of the health system.

This significantly increases the time to market adoption, which can be a step too many for most. New organizations like MaRS EXCITE (Toronto) assist with a harmonized pre-market assess-ment of technologies. Engaging the health system early on, at a pre-market stage, supports Health Canada and reimbursement reviews, potentially leading to enhanced uptake and shortened timelines for technology translation. http://www.marsdd.com/systems-change/mars-excite/mars-excite/.

Two examples of Ontario’s forward thinking include the creation of the Ontario Institute for Regenerative Medicine (OIRM http://oirm.ca/about-oirm), which recently showcased a variety of experts in clinical trial development during a workshop on September 24th, 2015, and the Centre for Commercialisation and Regenerative Medicine (CCRM, http://ccrm.ca), a Canadian, federally incorporated, organization supporting the development of technologies that accelerate the commercialization of stem cell- and biomaterials-based products and therapies. These organizations provide resources and expertise for translation.

Across the pond in the United Kingdom, there are similar organizations (e.g., CASMI) gaining significant traction with European Union stakeholders and the government. ‘Adaptive Pathways ’, backed by the European Medicines Agency (http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/regulation/general/general_content_000601.jsp) is driving drug-specific development plans. By laying down a pathway of translation for a specific drug from the beginning rather than jumping through all the regulatory hoops at the end, developers can provide sufficient information on risk versus benefit to enable prompt authorization in a defined group of patients and/or treatment settings, reducing the time to market of new drugs and overcoming some of the barriers to translation highlighted earlier.

Some of these themes may seem a long way off for a graduate student or early career postdoctoral fellow; however, if you are pursuing a career in academic research, innovative thinking now could sustain your career for decades to come. If you challenge engrained thinking and embrace innovative reasoning, you could go a long way.

Additional links:

1) "Advancing translational research with the Semantic Web". http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ . BMC Bioinformactics. 2007; 8(Suppl 2): S2, 09 May 2007. Retrieved 12 June 2015.

2) Canadian Foundation for Innovation: http://www.innovation.ca/en/ResearchinAction

Ima

ge

cou

rtes

y o

f js

crea

tio

nzs

at

Free

Dig

ita

lPh

oto

s.n

et

Office of Research Trainees 09

SUCCESS July 2015 ORT Conference Travel Award

The ORT would like to thank all of the applicants for this award. It is our pleasure to announce the recipients of the July 2015 ORT Conference Travel Award:

Pictured above (Left to Right) Bottom Row: Doris Lam, Michael Chang

Top Row: Ying Xuan Zhi, Jake Cosme

The winners are:

MSc Program (alphabetical order):

Harsh Desai, Supervisor: Dr. Minna Woo, TG

Michael Li, Supervisor: Dr. Babak Taati, TR

Aria Nouri, Supervisor: Dr. Michael Fehlings, TW

Ying Xuan Zhi, Supervisor: Dr. Azadeh Yadollahi, TR

PhD Program (alphabetical order):

Michael Chang, Supervisor: Dr. Taufik Valiante, TW

Hae-Ro Cho, Supervisor: Dr. Mingyao Liu, TG

Jake Cosme, Supervisor: Dr. Anthony Gramolini, TG

Doris Lam, Supervisor: Dr. Lyanne Schlicter, TW

Serisha Moodley, Supervisor: Dr. Mingyao Liu, TG

Postdoctoral Fellow (alphabetical order):

Zhaleh Safikhani, Supervisor: Dr. Benjamin Haibe-Kains, PM

David Roulois, Supervisor: Dr. Daniel De Carvalho, PM

Valerie Crawley, Supervisor: Dr. Kevin Kain, TG

Marie-Andrée Coulombe, Supervisor: Dr. Karen Davis, TW

Melanie Jeffrey, Supervisor: Dr. Peter Carlen TW

CONFERENCE REPORTSCONFERENCE REPORTSCONFERENCE REPORTS

Office of Research Trainees 10

Trainee: Aria Nouri, postdoctoral fellow

Supervisor: Michael G. Fehlings, TW

Conference: Congress of Neurological Surgeons, September 26-30th,

2015, New Orleans, LA

Abstract Title: The relationship between preoperative clinical symptoms

and quantitative MRI features in patients with degenerative cervical

myelopathy .

Click here to read Aria’s conference report!

Trainee: Jake Cosme, PhD candidate

Supervisor: Anthony Gramolini, TG

Conference: 14th Human Proteome Organization World Congress,

September 27-30, 2015, Vancouver, BC

Abstract Title: Label-free quantification of hypoxia-induced changes

of the cardiac fibroblast secreted proteome.

Click here to read Jake’s conference report!

Trainee: Michael Li, MASc Candidate

Supervisors: Babak Taati and Geoff Fernie, TR

Conference: IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference

(EMBC), August 25-29, 2015, Milan, Italy

Abstract Title: Predicting clinical dyskinesia scores from head motion

tracking.

Click here to read Michael's conference report!

U P C O M I N G E V E N T S & F U N D I N G C A L E N DA R :

03/11 Postdoctoral Fellowship The National Science Foundation is offering

Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology (PRFB). Click here for details.

16/11 Call for Abstracts The Personalizing Cancer Medicine Conference

2016 is now accepting abstracts. It will take place February 1-2, 2016 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in

Toronto. Click here for details.

01/12 Postdoctoral Fellowship The American Association for Cancer Research

(AACR) is offering a fellowship in the field of ocular melanoma. Click here for details.

04/12 ORT Career Development

SAVE THE DATE. The ORT is hosting a career development seminar for UHN research trainees entitled, “Improve Your Career Success Through

Social Media”, facilitated by 9thCO.

Visit www.uhntrainees.ca for more events and funding information.

To print this issue, click here.

Office of Research Trainees 11

QUESTIONS? Please contact: ORT Coordinator

University Health Network ort.admin@uhnres.utoronto.ca

t. 416-634-8775

WANT TO STAY UPDATED ON A DAILY BASIS? Follow us socially on:

“Piled Higher and Deeper” by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com

The ORT Times publishes interesting articles every month. From our archives, two articles have been highlighted for your reading interest. Click on the issue above to access the article.

To access more past issues from our archives, click here.

The ORT Times. From our archives.

You are more marketable than you realize September 2014

To PhD or not to PhD—That is the question

February 2015