Graduate students can hear about the research being done by their colleagues in the biological and biomedical sciences, while learning about jobs in the scientific field, at a joint symposium and career fair for Yale bioscientists being held Friday and Saturday, Feb. 5 and 6, at the School of Medicine.

Now in its fourth year, the Graduate Student Research Symposium seeks to promote communication among more than 500 graduate students in the following departments: cell biology, genetics, neurobiology, pharmacology, experimental pathology, immunobiology, ecology and evolutionary biology, molecular and cellular physiology, molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and molecular, cellular and developmental biology, as well as the interdepartmental neuroscience program. The event, which is entirely student-organized, will be held in Harkness Auditorium, 333 Cedar St.

Eleven graduate students will discuss their scientific works-in-progress at the symposium, which will also feature poster sessions detailing other students' research projects. Scientific sessions will take place 1-4:30 p.m. on Friday and 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The symposium also features talks by senior research scientists who can impart their wisdom and knowledge to the students. This year's guest speakers are Susan Hockfield, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Eric Lander, professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of the Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research.

In conjunction with the symposium, there will be a career fair featuring booths and representatives from more than 10 leading corporations.

The fair will begin in Harkness Auditorium on Friday with a series of panel discussions 9 a.m.-noon featuring Ph.D. bioscientists who are working in the pharmaceutical industry and in alternative careers. Later that day, 1-5 p.m., Yale scientists can discuss career options with corporate representatives at company booths set up on the third floor of the Jane Ellen Hope Building, 315 Cedar St.

On Saturday, there will be a special panel discussion on careers in science writing 4:30-6 p.m. in Harkness Auditorium. Panelists will be representatives from the Boston University School of Journalism, the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University Press and the journal The Sciences.

A show of products by science vendors and a banquet will also highlight the symposium weekend. For further information, visit the symposium's web site at info.med.
yale.edu/gsrs/.