the game

Here is what I really, really don't like about being a researcher in basic (i.e., not clinical or even really translational) biomedical research.

We have to ought to walk a fine line. On the one hand, it is important for us to promote what we do, to make it relevant and accessible to the people that pay for most of our research (i.e., the taxpayers). Generally this follows the formulation of "understanding the basic mechanisms that regulate phenomenon X (my project) is critical to understanding how to diagnose/treat/prevent/eradicate disease Y, which might very well affect someone you know and love."

On the other hand, (and I think this is the hard part, and that many of my colleagues neglect it completely) we ought not trumpet our marginal successes so loudly as to give false hope to people suffering from disease Y right now (or their loved ones). Because a massive breakthrough in cell biology or basic pharmacology or basic neuroscience typically takes decades to be translated into a viable therapeutic, if that happens at all, which it usually doesn't*.

Maybe my temperament is rare in this regard, but I think hope can be a very cruel thing when it has no basis in reality. It's all good grantsmanship and typical academic politicking until someone you care about looks to you for some sliver of hope, and you know damn well you don't have a single thing to offer them. (There are reasons MDs get paid more than us, generally, and they don't have anything to do with whose is bigger.)

Anyway, that's not an experience I really wish on anyone, but it would, I think, put things in a more sensible perspective.

Moreover, I don't think we do ourselves any favors in the long run by overselling our science. People tend to notice when you don't deliver what you've promised them, and eventually they vote accordingly.





*Incidentally, the poor success rate of translational research is a topic on which I am giving some serious thought to writing a scholarly-to-general audience-aimed book. I'm mostly just making that knowledge somewhat public in the hopes that having mentioned it to people might keep me motivated to pursue it. It is a big project. But I do have a killer title figured out.