Someone once asked me how I decided to become an editor. My answer was: I didn’t. Sometimes careers just sort of evolve. I graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in genetics and moved to San Diego, the city of sun, sea air and biotech. My plan was simple; I was going to get a job doing lab work, and maybe someday I’d take a year off and write my book (Doesn’t everyone have a book they are going to write “someday”?). I loved research; I once wondered aloud how people who sat at desks all day could stay busy. What did they do all day? Were there really that many papers in the world that need shuffling about? In the lab I got to do something different every day: cloning, plasmid preps, cell culture, transfections, RNA preps, Northerns. It was like following a treasure map and not knowing what was under the big “X”. Continue reading “Following the Unexpected Path: Pipettes, Printers and Beyond”