It really IS the final countdown now....as of today, I have
69 days left to get enough results to write up a ‘substantial and original
price of scientific work’ - a.k.a. my thesis. It might sound a lot but I know
it is going to fly by - especially as it takes just over a month to run a
single one of my experiments from start to finish. That's the problem with
studying plants - they need time to grow!
I can't afford for anything to go wrong if I am going to
finish the ambitious amount of work I've set myself. Unfortunately, science
attracts problems like a magnet attracts iron filings.... and really, it is only to be expected when
you work on the very edge of knowledge, attempting things no one has ever tried
before. This week has been a classic case of on-the-spot problem solving: just
as I finished planning my final experiments, I realised I simply wouldn't have
room in my growth cabinet to fit all the plants in. Fortunately, I discovered
that my old growth cabinet (which I was using before it broke down) had been
fixed and was now sitting idle. So I nervously suggested to my supervisor that
perhaps I could start using it again, in addition to the current one all my
plants are in...? Amazingly, she actually agreed! I daren't ask about how much it
would cost the lab budget...
Space sorted, now to order the plants.... only to find that
two of the interesting genetic mutants I hoped to test weren't available to
order from the National Stock Centre. After some frantic internet searching, I
managed to track down two labs in Germany that had used these lines recently
and published papers on them. I sent off two begging emails without much hope
but within the day they had replied asking for my address so they could send me
some of the seed. Hooray for the spirit of scientific collaboration!
It's surely only a matter of time though before the next
problem crops up... but even when I am
not preoccupied with troubleshooting
experiments, my head is a constant turmoil of conflicting emotions:
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Doubling my production power! Cabinet 515 (left) full of growing plants in rhizotrons (root observation chambers) and cabinet 502 (right) full of plates of germinating Arabidopsis seed
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Disappointment. I had hoped to have found something more
conclusive by this point. At best, my results are suggestive ‘maybes’ as to
what plant defence pathways are important for resistance against the parasitic
weed Striga gesnerioides. For the
past four years, I have been groping around in the dark but still have no idea
where the light switch is. I do appreciate
that facing uncertainty is all part of doing a PhD, especially in science. It
could even be argued that if your project was something so simple that you
could answer all the questions completely, then it isn't ambitious enough. And,
at the end of the day, I am trying to decipher something I can't even see or
physically take hold of - the intricate biochemical signalling that takes place
between a host plant and an invading parasite. It’s a world that is almost too
wonderful to imagine, and certainly more complex than the simplified diagrams
in plant physiology textbooks. But I am, as my careers mentor told me, very
much a 'completer-finisher'. I don’t like to leave a job with so many unknowns
and open questions remaining. That's why I find writing so satisfying – once it’s
done, it’s done! Perhaps I should just take it as another indicator that my
future doesn't lie in research.
Nervous. I’m not just leaving the lab at the end of
September - I will be saying ‘goodbye’ to Sheffield itself. As I won’t be able
to come into the Department any more and won’t have any funding coming in, then
it doesn't make economic sense for me to pay for my flat here. So, typical millennial
that I am, I will be staying with my parents while writing up my thesis. But
this is putting me under a lot of pressure to think of absolutely every
possible little thing I need to do before I depart. There will be no more
spontaneous conversations with my supervisors in the corridor, no popping in
the lab to check the details of any equipment I used, no access to the
university's statistics support centre or even the software I use to make my
graphs and figures. I feel in a chronic state of anxiety and too many of my
dreams are about trying to finish bizarre experiments!
Hope. It feels sad to have missed out on what has been,
weather-wise, the best summer of my life so far. But hopefully this will be a
watershed point of my life, after which things will be very different. Just possibly, clocking
off at five really could be the norm, ‘leisure time’ could be spent on
things other than reading journals and writing up methods, and bank holidays could be just that- holidays- not an
opportunity to run as many PCR experiments in three days as I possibly can. The whole of last week, the University of Sheffield has been awash with proud families celebrating graduation day... I am determined that next summer it will be my turn!
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| Sheffield is so lovely when the sun shines! Catching a brief bit of sun in Weston Park during my lunch break |
There’s nothing quite like a job in research, but the system
is far from perfect. My original dream of being immersed in my own project has
become tarnished by the pressure to find significant results that satisfy the remit of scientific journals, rather than my own curiosity. Measuring a
scientist’s abilities by publications ignores the fact that so much of it
relies on luck. Perhaps it is an inevitable relic of the olden days, when
making scientific progress typically involved cultivating prestige and
patronage. Evolution can only work on the existing material… if we were to wipe
the slate clean and design scientific research from scratch now, I wonder what
would it look like?
I'm looking forward to having a job where I can work hard at
work worth doing, with confidence that I will at least have something to show
for it. And also to having a life beyond work, opened up to friends, family
and my wider interests. Who knows, I may finally get that novel written….
Better get back in the lab – the clock is ticking!
