Vote Hi-C for 2009 Method of the Year!
Congratulations are in order for Erez Lieberman-Aiden. The paper describing his PhD research, which made the cover of Science last week, was nominated yesterday for Nature’s 2009 Method of the Year contest! And here’s why I think his genome origami-detecting method (known as Hi-C) should win.
Lieberman-Aiden’s method is the one and only method in the running that was originally described in dance form. You might think that I’m joking. But no, here’s the YouTube video of Lieberman-Aiden leading a team of other scientists in a Hi-C dance last year:
What’s crazy is that the dance turned out to work even better as an experiment in the laboratory… And that the results of the experiment revealed the 3-dimensional fractal-globular origami structure of the human genome… And that the paper describing all this made the cover of Science!
Incidentally, I hereby propose that Erez Lieberman-Aiden is the first PhD student in history to be first author on research papers that appeared on the covers of both Nature and Science. (He scored the Nature cover by determining the mutation rate of the English language, among other evolutionary properties.)
If you know someone who has already earned this distinction, please share the reference in the comments below. Until I hear otherwise, Erez Lieberman-Aiden shall be known as the reigning PhD Dance King.
