An Online Educational Resource for Cell Scientists

Introduced back in March 2019, Cell Mentor^TM is an online educational resource for biology students and researchers, created by Cell Signaling Technology and Cell Press. To open the resource up to even more scientists, a Chinese version of the site was recently launched.

We spoke to Roberto Polakiewicz, Chief Scientific Officer, Cell Signaling Technology, Dr. Peter Lee, Editor-in-Chief of Immunity and Director of Cell Press China Strategy, and Deborah Sweet, Vice President of Editorial, Cell Press, to learn more about Cell Mentor and the difference it can make to cell scientists.

Anna MacDonald (AM): Can you give us an overview of Cell Mentor and some of its features?

Roberto Polakiewicz (RP): Cell Mentor is an online resource from Cell Press and Cell Signaling Technology (CST). Cell Mentor is full of educational content and information is presented according to the types of challenges students and researchers face during their careers, like how to get hired, how to get published, technical information on experimental design, and a section dedicated to inspirational content.

AM: What was the motivation behind creating this resource?

RP: In speaking to researchers, we discovered there was no one central repository for a scientist that addressed the real-life quandaries they were facing in and outside the lab. As fellow scientists, we strive to contribute to the study of the cellular world through the use of our products while also nurturing young scientists. Over the last 20 years, we have fostered a desire for knowledge, innovation, and discovery through our scientific content, scholarship programs, and now through this educational website, cellmentor.com. Our goal as an organization is to enable experimental success and advance biomedical research.

AM: How is Cell Mentor making a difference to students and researchers? What has feedback from users been like so far?

Peter Lee (PL): In a short period since its launch, Cell Mentor has proven to be a very useful resource for researchers to understand the publishing process, hone their experimental techniques, and help navigate their scientific careers. The response from the community has truly been fantastic and we were thrilled by the response to the launch of the Chinese version of the site in October.

AM: How can Cell Mentor help address the reproducibility crisis?

Deborah Sweet (DS): The launch of Cell Mentor is in direct response to the ongoing global dialogue surrounding the reproducibility of scientific research. The resource aims to equip researchers at every level with the skills they need to perform successful experiments and further their careers. Cell Mentor empowers researchers with guidance on career development, the publishing process, and experimental techniques. We are committed to supporting young scientists and their scientific growth and are delighted to collaborate with CST to provide this unique resource for the scientific community.

AM: Are there any plans to expand on Cell Mentor?

RP: There is a great deal of excitement around Cell Mentor. We have been approached by several different groups to add content to the site but we are only in the investigatory stage at this time and are hoping to expand in the future.

Roberto Polakiewicz, Peter Lee, and Deborah Sweet were speaking to Anna MacDonald, Science Writer for Technology Networks.