The famous cancer researcher leaned against the podium, smiling as she fielded questions. For the last hour, she had thrilled us with a truly stellar keynote lecture containing a pleasing mix of historical context and cutting-edge results, and now the audience was showing their appreciation with a slough of thought-provoking queries. Always easygoing, the speaker now seemed entirely relaxed in the aftermath of a job well done. In that mood, it is probably no surprise that she was feeling expansive.<\/p>\n
\n“Do you have any idea,” asked a man in the back row, inevitably, “of the mechanism of action?”<\/p>\n
\nThe audience was silent in anticipation. The cancer researcher paused, a conspiratorial twitch to her mouth as she seemed to weigh up options. And then, leaning forward slightly, she said, “Don’t tell my post-doc I told you, but we’re pretty sure it’s down to…” \u2013 and she then proceeded to expand a little bit on the biology, not giving everything away, but certainly leading us all in the right direction.<\/p>\n
\nAs we filed out of the room towards the reception drinks afterwards, those words kept ringing in my head: Don’t tell my post-doc.<\/em> I couldn’t help picturing this person, giving him a backstory. On the young end of scale, I speculated, maybe coming up to the end of his fellowship funding. For the past two and a half years he’d slaved over his work, trying to tease out the secret that made his protein orchestrate such intriguing behavior in cells. He’d been to two meetings so far, but both times had decided that to reveal the fact that the switch was governed by that particular mode was too easy to follow up; he didn’t like keeping such interesting news under wraps, but he only had two papers from his PhD, so he needed a really big one to even hope to compete for a career-development fellowship next year. <\/p>\n \nAnd a few days before when his boss was preparing her talk, they’d talked it though again and had decided that she wouldn’t mention the mechanism \u2013 after all, the field was absolutely saturated (4000 new papers published a year, the cancer research had told us in her introduction) and many of the best and brightest would be in the audience. No, they’d wait until the paper was submitted before spilling the beans. <\/p>\n \nI imagined how the post-docs might feel when his labmates returned from the meeting with the news that his secret was now out. I’ve been there myself, so it wasn’t difficult: disappointment and anxiety in equal measure. Perhaps he might even have second thoughts about that Christmas break he’d decided to treat himself to.<\/p>\n \nNow this is obviously all speculative, my novelist’s brain on overtime: I have no idea if the data really were that crucial or whether there had been any sort of pact in this particular case. But I do know these sorts of mini-betrayals happen all the time. Lab heads \u2013 especially tenured, well-established ones \u2013 have everything to gain by openness, but pretty much nothing to lose. They can afford to see the benefits of sharing information and can participate in the often joyful process of unfettered communication. Most crucially, they can weather the odd scoop. But to the young first author behind the nascent data point, it is another story. One lost paper, these days, can be the catalyst that transforms an up-and-coming researchers into a failure. <\/p>\n \nI believe that it is very difficult for lab heads to remember this in the heat of the moment, when they are riding the wave of a stimulating meeting and secure in their immutable place in the scientific community. But until the system for rewards and promotions in biological sciences changes, there will always be a clash of priorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The famous cancer researcher leaned against the podium, smiling as she fielded questions. For the last hour, she had thrilled us with a truly stellar keynote lecture containing a pleasing mix of historical context and cutting-edge results, and now the … Continue reading