The Research Dance

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"- Albert Einstein

Well, that about says it all. The pace and tempo of research is so painfully slow. It is marked by moments of extreme excitement, followed immediately by moments of utter exasperation. For every step forward, there seems to be a step or two back. Last Thursday after a short presentation of my work, I was beginning to see what I like to call, "the paper at the end of the tunnel." Publications are the currency of my industry. Before last Thursday, neither myself, nor my advisors could envision a stand-alone paper coming out of the work I'm currently doing. That's not to say it isn't necessary or important work, it's just that it didn't have a stand-alone spin to to, and so would end up sandwhiched in a paper with some other related work some time pretty far in the future. But Thursday I was able to find the spin that would make the research stand on its own. In fact, it could actually end up being a fairly substantial methods paper addressing some technical and mathematical aspects of a very common reaction that have been largely overlooked by members of my field. So Thursday...Thursday was one of those exciting days.

But Thursday is where the excitement stopped. Nothing came up that threatens my paper, but work has come to a stand still. I spent 8 hours in the lab Saturday ramping up for phase two of the work I'm doing....and I'm having technical problems with some of the reagents I need, and the solution isn't readily available. I simply need 2 more duplicates to finish up the first block of experiments in phase 1 of my work...but the DNA I'm working with has started to degrade and that forces me back to square one....such a waste when I just need to squeeze two more runs out of the DNA I already have. It's not a problem, just a bummer, because the ramp up is time-consuming, and expensive. I really want this to work out, and soon. It would be AMAZING if I could get a paper submitted for publishing before my first year here is up. That is my goal. I'm crossing my fingers that by August I'll have two solid blocks of experimental data ready and in manuscript form. The dance continues...