Jeremiah was a Xenopus,
Actu'lly and embryo.
We study how the cells move during gastrulation,
Challenging the status quoJoy to the lab!
Make a Keller sandwich now!
Joy to the graduates who work for me,
Joy to MCB.
So many article submitted every day,
Some people ask me how we pick the ones that stay.
For them there's one reply, and this is what I say:
There must be 50 ways to get in Science.Keep studying cats, Shatz.
Find a Xenopus niche, Rich.
Learn how flies stare, Ger.
Then send it to me.Get the genome in line, Rine.
Have it sequenced in no time!
Give T cells more vim, Jim,
And we'll accept happily.
Yeast today,
Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
First they're alpha, then they change to a.
Oh, I will study yeast today.Suddenly,
Replication-esque machinery
In transcription, there for all to see.
Can cells work so holistically?All these genome projects
I wish would go away!
LBL's a drag
So it's back to yeast today, ay, ay, ayYeast today.
Yeast today,
Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
Mating factors coming into play;
Oh I will study yeast today.Suddenly,
Signals get transduced from Sterile3,
And from Sterile2, and "shmoos" we see.
Who named these things so trivially?All this GAU stuff is turning my hair gray.
Send a memo out that I'm back to yeast today, ay, ay, ay.Yeast today.
It's nine o'clock Monday morning,
When I get to the lab.
There's a post-doc sitting next to me
With his hand on an agarose slab.He says, "All my exper'ments are working now,
But I'm on my last fellowship check.
If you don't put me onto a training grant,
You'll have to make do with a tech."
Now Mark in the stockroom's a friend of mine.
- (chorus)
- Get us a grant, you're the PI man.
Get us a grant today.
For as much as we love doing research,
We cannot make do without pay.
He gets me pipets for free.
He's quick with a smile, or acetonitrile,
But there's someplace that he'd rather be.He says, "Gary, I think this is killing me,"
As he hands me some more HindIII.
"I'm sure that I could work for Genentech,
If I could get my Ph.D."(Chorus)
There's some pretty good news from the NIH,
And the Institute gives me some cash.
I can live without fear for at least one more year,
Before I'm thrown out with the trash.(Chorus)
You get into the lab and you wanna clone a gene
So you pour some agar plate and you set up a screen
Your library's fine but your bugs won't grow
You want an undergrad, but your boss says "No!"You gotta fight...for your right...to Petri!
You transform again but it just won't work
And your overpaid technician's being such a jerk
Then suddenly it's working, and you don't know why
Sometime's it's so confusing that it makes you wanna cry!You gotta fight...for your right...to Petri!
Then it's time to write a paper from the things you did
And to tell about your plans to do a two-hybrid
Your paper gets accepted, joy of joys,
So it won't be long till people cite the Yeasti Boys!(2X) You gotta fight...for your right...to Petri!
When Marcus cloned some genes from the flu
He wanted to know just what they'd do.
So after reflection
He made a projection,
And then he went ahead with some gene transfection.
The antigen was hard to get,
- (chorus)
- Gene transfection, for expression, or for knockouts:
It's generally putting DNA into eukaryotic cells;
It's transformation in bacteria.Electroporation, vaccinia,
Calcium phosphate, DEAE,
Microinjection, lipid micelles.
A gene transfection starts the project right!
But Lisa knew she'd find it yet.
She'd make a connection
With T cell selection
As soon as she got started with gene transfection.(chorus)
Gene transfection, for expression, or for knockouts,
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelu-u-u-ujah!