At the end of October, our paper on gene regulation in the retina was published in Cell Reports. (We paid good money for open access, so go ahead, click the link – there’s no paywall.) Our editor asked us if we wanted to try two things to help explain our work to our broader audience. The first is Figure360, a brief video guide to one figure in our paper. This is still fairly technical; it’s how I might explain our work in a conference poster presentation.
The second way we were invited to explain our work was in an informal post on the Cell Reporter blog. Here I tried to explain what we did in a way that would make sense to my mother. (Who has a bachelor’s degree in biology, so at least I had a chance) My mother’s response: “I read it 3 times to better understand it. It is a difficult topic.” In other words, I failed to make sense…
It’s not the most jargon-free thing I’ve written, but for your edification and enlightenment, I’m posting the link here. Check it out to understand massively parallel reporter gene assays and our Goldilocks theory of gene expression.
The Finch and Pea 