Good news from Marsden Fund

Today is a public holiday in Germany but being the crazy scientist that I am I worked. I want to finish another manuscript before travelling to UK next weekend for a week. With only a few people around it was a very quiet day for writing. At the end of the day I met up with Christine to walk around to Spiegelslust for a well deserved beer and schnitzel. A little cool but warm enough to dine outside where there is a great view of the city below.

On Tuesday I caught up with Michael Bölker from the Genetics Dept for lunch at the Mensa after one of his PhD students gave a nice Dept seminar on synthesis of glycolipids (surfactants) in U. maydis.

Progress on the 10 Current Opinion in Plant Biology reviews has progressed well this week. I now have 4 signed off one more ready to sign off tomorrow. Then it is chasing up the tardy authors who have still not submitted their revised manuscripts. It is interesting being in the role of guest editor chasing others up when its usually the opposite.

The good news this week was the invitation to submit a full proposal for the second round of the Marsden Fund. But the downside is knowing the long hours that now need to go in to prepare a good application. That will disrupt my manuscript writing a little but with one week in UK and another week at Usedom and Berlin before submission that will force me to be efficient.