what is the greatest drawback in your work?

Algernon Bloom answered on 16 May 2022:

You need to publish your research to be reviewed by the wider scientific community. This has been very difficult for me as I have severe dyslexia and AHDH. However, I have co-founded a start-up that tackles this problem.

Karin Purshouse answered on 17 May 2022:

I’ll answer this two ways! Close up, I often think about how closely my research (which involves growing cancer cells on plastic plates) reflects brain cancer in the body. In the body, there are all kinds of things that influence cancer cells, like the other cells in that area, immune cells, blood supply (or lack of it) – how can you recreate that in a dish and does it matter? I think this is something a lot of cancer biologists think about!
Taking a long lens approach to this question – the greatest drawback to being a clinician scientist is I guess that it can be quite hard to balance being a clinician and a scientist! Being a cancer doctor is fast paced, with lots of daily decisions and can be emotionally tough. Science involves thinking things through in a lot of detail and you might not get results for weeks after starting an experiment. I try to manage the balance by having good mentors and people I can talk to when I’m feeling uncertain.

Jocelyn Bisson answered on 17 May 2022:

Science can sometimes be frustrating – often experiments don’t go as planned and it may take a long time (weeks, months or even years) to get results. However, I’ve realised that even a ‘bad’ result can suddenly be useful in the future and it’s important to be able to change your mind and be excited by unexpected findings.

Chiara Pirillo answered on 17 May 2022: last edited 17 May 2022 8:37 am

Being a scientist its an amazing adventure during which your life events just happen. I will say that sometime its hard to have a normal working hours, I always say that you know when you get in the lab but you never know when you get out!! Of course you can organise your time/ experiments but in general you need to be super flexible and open to work over the weekend as well ( when necessary). Then probably the experiments don’t work as well so its a rollercoaster with your emotions but you get use to it!!! 🙂

Chelsea Gerada answered on 17 May 2022:

For me the biggest drawback is that sometimes the effort you put in doesn’t necessarily equal getting results which you can use to present or publish your work. Some experiments just don’t work even though you try really hard to optimise them. It is easy to take this to heart and feel like your failing but in reality you have to be resilient and accept when things don’t work out but also try and think of ways to overcome the problems you are facing. This is a mindset that has taken a long time to develop and I’m still working on it.

Annabel Black answered on 17 May 2022:

This is a great question – it’s important to know the challenges as well as the positives of working in science! For me, I find perseverance to be one of the biggest challenges in my work. If experiments go wrong, results are not what you expect or even if everything goes super and you submit your work to be published (this is how scientists communicate & how findings in the lab become drugs & medical treatments) you’re not guaranteed to be accepted for publication! Science (especially medical biology which is the field I work in) is VERY competitive and is full of lots of scientists all trying to get their own findings ‘out there’. This means that you often have to try and try again even when things are going wrong or you’ve not been accepted for publication.

Erminia Romano answered on 19 May 2022:

Doing science can be very frustrating. It can take ages to have an experiment working and, in the end, its translation to the patients might also not work.

Tamir Chandra answered on 20 May 2022:

Hi Tmeller,

When I set out to do science, I imagined I would change the world within a few years. The truth is, scientific advance is, at large, a team effort. So you need persistence, a high tolerance for setbacks, and you need to enjoy the process itself.

Best of luck,
Tamir

Maria Peiris Pages answered on 25 May 2022:

To me the greatest drawback is when experiments don’t go according to plan, or don’t work at all. It is very challenging and it happens quite often! Science can be unkind. You work with hypotheses. You think: Hey! I believe this works like that! And then you try to prove it by doing a particular experiment. Sometimes the experiment you desin to prove your hypothesis doesn’t work and then you need to see if there is any other way to do it. Not always the case. And sometimes the experiment works but it doesn’t give you your expected results. Then you have to re-think your hypothesis from the beginning! And this can be very frustating. But over the years I have learnt that even bad results can lead you to good ones!
And as it is with everything in life (there would not be day without the night), when instead you manage to confirm your hypothesis and get good results after a lot of effort, you have the best feeling of all! I have found myself hugging people around me and jumping of happiness when I get good results! And that really keeps me going!

Saadia Karim answered on 26 May 2022: last edited 26 May 2022 11:06 am

Great question. I would like to be able publish data that is negative as I think it would speed up the science, people in different labs can end repeating work other groups have done but not published which slows research down. Also I feel we do not go fast enough with cancer discoveries/treatments, even though I understand the limits of our work and speed at which we can complete experiments.

Ryan Devlin answered on 1 Jun 2022:

One more positive drawback of the work is that there is so little time to do everything! My PhD is 3 years long, and even then I have so many questions that will be left unanswered. That is why is it important to have people working with you, who can help you do more whilst you are working, and who can carry on your work when you are gone.

Rachel Harris answered on 1 Jun 2022:

For me the fact that I have to be inside on a sunny day is a bit annoying. I can see the mountains from my lab and I want to be outside in the sun!

Question: what is the greatest drawback in your work?

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