Dear miRcorers,
I happened to walk a dog on a cold Michigan night. Dark and snow covered road. I couldn’t see where to go. I turned on a flashlight attached to my beanie. Light just around me. I felt comforted. Though night overwhelmed me with darkness, that little light showed me how to navigate snow/ice-covered places.
Would you be such a light? Shedding lights in front of your and one more person’s steps. Combining such light spots together in miRcore, we can broaden light-shed areas. To advance science and medicine through compassion and collaboration. Let’s build a trusting, science-loving community.
1) miRcore volunteering
We had several occasions to think about volunteering. By definition, volunteering is to contribute for a cause without expecting personal gains. Of course, I will do my best making our programs for your growth in various areas and I truly believe in it. Also, everyone has different reasons to become a miRcore’s volunteer. However, our primary reason should be the same – making medical research available to the public and advocating science. Promoting miRcore, miRcore’s mission and values is the key aspect of miRcore volunteering. If you are focusing only on your personal development, you are not volunteering. Do you contribute to your group research and to general miRcore programs? Committees are designed to improve volunteer programs. Do your committee activities help the miRcore volunteer program? Let’s reflect on ourselves.
2) Officer Election
We will hold the 2026-27 MVP officer election on February 28th weekend. Next year’s officer will shadow current officers for the rest of the year. If you are interested in the 2026-27 officer position, the form will be shared this weekend.
Here is the 2026-27 miRcore Board Roles and Responsibilities for your reference.
2/7/2026: Officer application form available
2/14/2026: Officer application form submission due
2/21/2026: Candidates notification for speech
2/28/2026: Officer speech and voting over the weekend (by 3/1/2026)
3) From the Fundraising Committee
The fundraising committee needs your help in reaching our goal of $10,000 for Dr. Rishi Chanderajj’s work and our microgrant! Currently, one of our biggest initiatives lies in our MVP merch, which was carefully created by the fundraising committee and our fellow officer board. We would greatly appreciate your help in supporting this through your purchases of our t-shirt and hoodie to help us reach our goal!
Here is the link: Support MiRcore Volunteer Program 2025-26 Merch!
Thank you for your time and consideration!
4) From the Education Committee
The Education Committee will have Office Hours this Saturday for ~30 minutes before the main MVP meeting (10:30 – 11 am PT/ 1:30 – 2 pm ET). This is a great place for any clarifications, questions, or learning support! To attend, please use the same Saturday meeting link.
Note: you can ask about the sequencing data that were taught last weekend.
5) GIDAS Seminar for Fundraising
GIDAS Support Committee will hold the GIDAS seminar for the topic of fundraising on February 14th. Current and future GIDAS leaders, please mark your calendar.
6) Homework
We have homework to watch the Youtube video of RNAseq.
If you can understand a portion of it, that’s a good start. It was planned to teach the portion of the timeline 1:02-6:57 so that you can understand Illumina sequencing reads. However, if you can understand the count reads per gene (last part of last week’s teaching), it will be amazing.
7) Groups and attendance projection form
Consult the weekly email for the form link. Group: We updated groups before the last meeting and now it’s mostly settled.
attendance. Please respond as soon as possible. If you don’t submit the form by Friday 11 pm ET, you are not guaranteed to get this weekend’s meeting link.
Thanks for reading the important messages above as you pledged to sign up for MVP.
Inhan Lee, Ph.D.
Have Questions?
Visit the FAQ page to see commonly asked questions and their answers!
Eric Green, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH talks to miRcore students about the role of genomics in modern medicine.
Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D.Director, National Institute of Health speaks to miRcore students about COVID-19, health disparities, and precision medicine.
Jonathan Pevsner, Ph.D, Chief of Genomics Research Branch, NIMH, NIH speaks to miRcore students on the topic of Genes and Mental Health.
• March trilogy (graphic novel, multiple authors)
• Bone series (graphic novel, Jeff Smith)
• The Door Within (Wayne Thomas Batson)
• To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
• Candide (Voltaire)
• The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexander Dumas)
• Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates)
• I Am Malala (Malala Yousafzai)
• The Cactus (Sarah Haywood)
• 1984 (George Orwell)
• The Girl Who Drank the Moon (Kelly Barnhill)
• The Woman in Cabin 10 (Ruth Ware)
• The Awakening (Kate Chopin)
• Silent Spring (Rachel Carson)
• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Robert A. Heinlein)
• The Farewell (2019)
• Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)
• Office Space (1999)
• Vinland Saga (Summer 2019 Anime)
• What Happened to Monday (2017)
• Always Be My Maybe (2019)
• Goodfellas (1990)
• Gattaca (1997)
• Re:Zero (Spring 2016 Anime)
• The Incredibles (2004)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
• “I decided to memorize the dictionary. I got through six pages before I got too bored. I learned next to nothing.”
• Trust Me, I’m a “Biologist”
• “What’s the difference between a poorly dressed person on a bicycle and a well dressed person on a tricycle? Attire.”
• “Why should you save your pennies? Because it makes good cents”
• xkcd
• “Medieval medicine wasn’t always on point, but those medieval physicians sure had a sense of humour!”
• “Twin 1 is in prison for 20 years. After 10 years, he calls his twin.’Hey, remember how we always said we finish each other’s sentences?'”
• “We really need to stop talking about mitosis… it’s such a divisive issue!”
• “A chemist walks into a bar with his friend after work. He tells the bartender, “Can I get an H2O?” His buddy looks at him strangely. “George, you don’t have to say it like that. We’re not at work anymore.”
The first chemist walks into the bathroom and cries. His assassination plot has failed.”
• “Haikus are easy / But sometimes they don’t make sense / Refrigerator”
• “‘My ability to do calculus is limited.’
‘Is it approaching zero?'”
• “‘You got any sodium jokes?’
‘Na!'”
• (^in response^) “I slapped my neon that one!”
• “‘I tried to sue the airline for losing my luggage’
‘Did you win?’
‘I lost the case'”
• Checklists/scheduling
• Planning something enjoyable after studying
• Switching between studying and relaxing
• Using a dedicated study room to shift mindset
• Forest app
• Pomodoro method
• Turning off notifications (Do Not Disturb)
• Classical music/marches
• Turn off any music so it’s not distracting
How to Use Zoom, MVP GDrive, and Skribbl.io
How to use Zoom
Zoom is a free platform that offers video conferencing, screen sharing, and chatroom functionalities. You can seamlessly set up online meetings, send out invitations for people to join, and add meetings to your Microsoft Outlook/Google Calendar using Zoom. All miRcore volunteers are expected to have Zoom installed for use in group research meetings and committee meetings.
You can download the Zoom Desktop application (the “Zoom Client”) for Mac or PC here: here.
Instructions for setting up and using Zoom are available here.
The Zoom application is also available for mobile devices: Zoom at the App Store and Zoom on Google Play
How to Navigate the miRcore Volunteer Program’s Google Drive Folders
At the beginning of each volunteering season, miRcore volunteers receive access to several Google Drive folders containing resources for research, fundraising, and other miRcore activities. Depending on the folder, volunteers will have “View only” or “Editing” permission in each Drive folder.
Please see this presentation (courtesy of Rhea Cong, miRcore Volunteer Program Vice President, 2019-20) for details on how to navigate the Drive system and set up research folders for your research group: https://docs.google.com/
Google Drive Hierarchy (Folders and Subfolders)
• 2019-20 MVP Resources
• Useful files
• RNA division
• Practice Data
• Meeting Slides
• 2019-20 MVP Research
• MVP RNA
• MVP DNA
• MVP online
• MVP general
• Fundraisers
• miRcore Officers 2019-2020 (this folder is accessible only to miRcore Officers)
Skribbl.io Instructions
How to Join:
• Have one member go to skribbl.io
• Have that member click ‘Create Private Room’
• Change the settings to 8 rounds and 40 seconds per turn
• That group member will send the link (at the bottom) to the other people to join
• Once everybody has clicked the link and is in the room, press start!
The goal of the game is to try to guess what other people are drawing. When it’s your turn to draw, try to make your drawing convey the word you are given so that other people will be able to guess. The person with the most points wins.
Today’s game should start and wrap up in about 10 mins.