Duke University | Howard Hughes Undergraduate Program

Here it is. The end. But just the end of one experience, one summer, one episode of our lives. I loved the poster session: it was undoubtedly my favorite activity of the Howard Hughes summer program. Out of the >10 poster session I have done in the past, this was the least stressful and most enjoyable one because the atmosphere was so friendly =). I loved seeing everyone else's masterpieces and talking until I lost my voice. I want to thank my lab for coming to support me at the poster session--they are all so busy and it surprised me that they all showed up =).

At this point, I don't think I would choose to do research as a career, but I will continue to work in my lab next semester and see how that goes. I really enjoyed the career panel and got a lot of good information from it. Hopefully, I'll have my own stories to tell someday!

-Lisa

 I like speakers. I love good speakers. And I have to say, I was very pleased with many of the seminar speakers we had. So pros and cons: lots of biology fields were definitely covered, and I enjoyed learning about the research that Duke faculty are so well-known for. Life stories were always a plus. It almost makes me want to start working in everyone's lab...not practical of course. I noticed that some talks were designed like an interest talks, whereas others got really nitty-gritty with details; the former type of talk was much more effective at keeping my attention.

Unfortunately, the timing of the seminars were, as many of my colleagues mentioned, inconvenient. Many times I had to drop and experiment or rush back after the seminar to finish. I don't think my lab was particularly happy with me leaving 2 hours earlier than them either. Even though it was for seminars, not frolicking in the sun, I probably seem like a bit of a slacker to them. Also, even though I know this is a biological sciences program, I wish there were more interdisciplinary subjects and speakers: for example, some chemistry faculty or some graduate department faculty.

 So, believe it or not, my own "project"/experiment is actually done. Well, not in the sense that there's nothing left to do or improve, but all the data that I wanted and could get by the end of Howard Hughes is already out. From here on out, it's either improving my results--mostly tinkering with antibodies and procedures--or starting on something new. I'm still on the edge of excitement right now though: my last stain (the only one I actually did well) turned out beautifully. I've made so many mistakes already, you guys would be appalled if you knew. Good thing I corrected everything, because these were the last cells of this cell line, so I was under lots of pressure to get it right. I think I will be getting another batch of cells from a different cell line (one that we can actually produce, whew) to culture and stain.

The results everyone will see are about 1/4 of the results I could have obtained, had I made less mistakes. But I'm glad I learned so much from them. =)

 So, for the past two weeks, I haven't really done much in lab. You could say I feel like I'm "floundering at the bench." Every morning, I go into lab at 9am, leave at 4-5pm, and spend the entire day on my computer reading articles/not doing anything. Unfortunately, the postdoc I am working with is on vacation, and even though I begged and pleaded for something to do, there wasn't much assigned to me. So, 2 out of my 8 weeks are uneventful and unproductive. I'm trying to be patient, to not get frustrated, but sometimes reading papers for 5 hours isn't exactly exhiliarating. 

Here I am, heading into the chalk talk with 2 week's worth of work compared to everyone else's 4 weeks. Hopefully it will get better and I will get busier. I know that I like to be busy. Idleness drives me crazy. It's really strange, but my idea of a good day in lab is one where I work 8 hours and still can't finish. =P. Silly. Another bonus: my postdoc has a grant proposal due in August, so she will be isolating herself in a room writing once she gets back from her vacation. I hope I will have something to do.

  I have always been slightly skeptical about scientific research. Having attended a high school with a strong emphasis on research, I've noticed some things about research. 1) Strong high school research programs are like breeding student research robots and sending them to competitions by the masses. Yes, this motivates students and the trips are undoubtedly fun. However, even from the start, we are in the mindset that research is about competing for fame and scholarships. This brings me to my second point: 2) Research at the high school and undergraduate level is so simple. Don't get me wrong, I am not talking about the content of the research. It is almost effortless for us to fill out a piece of paper, get placed in a lab, and start working. And we think we're hot stuff now.

I find that I am talking about somewhat contradictory statements: we work to win stuff, yet we have it easy? From the get-go, before I ever started research, I have always been aware of the realities of the profession. It's hard to get funding. It's hard to get a job. I've never had to write a grant. I've never had to worry about maintaining a lab. All I have to do is come, work, and eventually leave the lab. And I think about how a PI has to make his/her name known, scavenge for money to buy supplies, equipment, and pay the salaries to keep everyone else from becoming unemployed.

Science is never purely objective, and never will be. It probably wouldn't be a human concoction anymore if it was. Sometimes, in a struggle for scientific survival, individuals will compromise proper scientific conduct keep their reputation. Other times, it is a struggle for survival that propels scientists to commit misconduct (if you are about to lose your job or can't support your family, it wouldn't be very pleasant...). Of courses, there are cases of accidents, of other members in the lab who committed the act etc.

As all of us know, the scientific community is brutal and critical, as it should be in order to maintain legitimacy. As a result, those who can't publish get "weeded out" and don't receive any funding. A lot of people would do almost anything to get a paper out. Hopefully, it is also for the sake of scientific progress. Labs can be collaborative, friendly, and very helpful to one another. They can also work against each other in competition, as we saw in the movie. The latter relationship is another cause for the breakdown of scientific integrity.

Of course, proper education, especially at the high school and college level, about scientific conduct would further deter rates of misconduct (I actually don't see that much emphasis on it at all, outside of our program). But only if there was infinite funding and scientists were all reduced to equal status would misconduct disappear. It's kind of like a function approaching an asymptote (at zero). We can do much more to get closer, albeit never hitting zero.

Maybe it's the pessimist or critic in me to write all of that (I guess I would be a hypocrite too, yay). But please, before we look at a case of misconduct, gasp, and say "This is so wrong, why would anybody ever do that," consider that science is a product of humans, and humans are, well, complicated.