astronomy

James Woodgett

James Woodgett is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand James Woodgett rather than just read about it. In short: James (Jim) Woodgett is a British-born biologist and the Principal Investigator of an active research laboratory at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health System (formerly Mount Sinai Hospital), in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was the Koffler Director of Research at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute from November 2005 to January 2021.

Key takeaways

James Woodgett belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect James Woodgett to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of James Woodgett from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

James (Jim) Woodgett is a British-born biologist and the Principal Investigator of an active research laboratory at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health System (formerly Mount Sinai Hospital), in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was the Koffler Director of Research at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute from November 2005 to January 2021. Woodgett's research spans the fields of Signal Transduction, Cancer Stem Cells, Diabetes, and Neurological Disorders. He is known for his co-discoveries of the molecules PKB/Akt and SAPK/JNKs, which have central roles in the evolution of cancer. Woodgett is also an authority on the functions of the GSK-3 genes, which play significant roles in insulin/diabetes and brain development/Alzheimer's disease, as well as bipolar disorder. Woodgett is a long-time advocate for increasing public support for science and medical research. He is known for his science communication and public science outreach, as well as his support for Women in STEM and early career researchers. Woodgett is frequently interviewed by journalists to provide commentary on questions of research relating to health matters, and also medical and science research funding and policy.

Biography Jim Woodgett was born in Leicestershire in the United Kingdom, He grew up in the village of Quorn. Encouraged by his mother, he entered the BBC's Inventor of the Year competition and won a runner-up prize.

Woodgett studied biochemistry as an undergraduate at the University of York, before undertaking doctoral research at the University of Dundee, Scotland. He did post-doctoral research in Tony Hunter's group at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California. This was followed by five years (1987-1992) at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Middlesex, England, where he headed his own research laboratory. In 1992, Woodgett and his family immigrated to Canada from the United Kingdom. He worked at the Ontario Cancer Institute, based at Princess Margaret Hospital. His fellow researchers at the time included Tak Mak and Josef Penninger. Woodgett went on to be appointed head of the division of experimental therapeutics, and director of the Microarray Centre at University Health Network. In 2005, Woodgett became Director of the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute. He is also a professor of medical biophysics at the University of Toronto.

Research Jim Woodgett has (co-)authored over 300 peer-reviewed scientific research articles. In 2007, he was interviewed for the Question and Answer section of the journal Current Biology, about his research and thoughts on being a scientist.

Scientific Community Service and Leadership Woodgett is a Member of the Medical Advisory Board of the Gairdner Foundation. When the CIHR proposed to change the way that it awarded research grants, including replacing the existing face-to-face peer reviews of grant applications with a virtual, anonymous review system, Woodgett wrote an open letter to Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott criticizing the changes. Within days more than 1,300 scientists and researchers had signed on to his letter. Woodgett subsequently met with Minister Philpott on July 13, 2016. While some plans were re-evaluated, Woodgett later told University Affairs magazine that with the next round of research applications looming, the CIHR grant system "is still a mess." Together with Professor Imogen Coe, the founding Dean of Science at Ryerson University, Woodgett co-organized a one-day conference, held at the end of May 2017 in Toronto, at which researchers came together to discuss, and to support the findings of the Naylor Report: Investing in Canada's Future – Strengthening the Foundations of Canadian Research. In June 2016, Dr. Kirsty Duncan, then Minister of Science in the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, commissioned a nine-member advisory panel, chaired by former president of the University of Toronto, Dr. David Naylor, to consult with Canada's research community and to report on the state of basic science and scholarly inquiry in Canada.

Honours and awards 2000 – Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in the field of Molecular Biology and Genetics 2018 – Awarded the Arthur Wynne Gold Medal by the Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences

Selected bibliography John M Kyriakis, Papia Banerjee, Eleni Nikolakaki, Tianang Dai, Elizabeth A Rubie, Mir F Ahmad, Joseph Avruch, James R Woodgett (1994) The stress-activated protein kinase subfamily of c-Jun kinases. Nature 369 (6476): 156–160 Qi-Long Ying, Jason Wray, Jennifer Nichols, Laura Batlle-Morera, Bradley Doble, James Woodgett, Philip Cohen, Austin Smith (2008) The ground state of embryonic stem cell self-renewal. Nature 453 (7194): 519–523

References

External links Google Scholar Gairdner Foundation Medical Advisory Board Jim Woodgett on Medium Jim Woodgett on Slideshare Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with James Woodgett

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what James Woodgett claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to James Woodgett before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about James Woodgett ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of James Woodgett

In research: James Woodgett appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses James Woodgett in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: James Woodgett is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1960 births, Academic staff of the University of Toronto, Alumni of the University of Dundee, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for James Woodgett outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study James Woodgett in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what James Woodgett means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain James Woodgett out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is James Woodgett in simple terms?

Why does James Woodgett matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study James Woodgett?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on James Woodgett.