Repetition

                This post will be my final one for 2011, which became my inaugural year as a blogger.  I’ve enjoyed being able to share different things about science with all of you, so thank you for reading!  I also like having a place to explain what working in a lab is like every single day.  It’s not quite as exciting as Abby from NCIS would lead you to believe (like - at all), but it’s certainly not bad!  We have the freedom to make our own schedules, we sometimes gather up every item in the lab that matches a post-doc’s shirt color and take pictures, we put dry ice in closed containers to create bombs, we can make water balloon gloves, and we are regularly subjected to meetings about which we know very little but need to act excited.  Most of us are poor actors on that last one.

We do, however, have moments of sheer excitement.  These moments typically follow the endless repetition that is troubleshooting one experiment.  

Let’s review the speed at which scientific research moves by reviewing the breakdown of 2011.

January 2011 – May 2011: completion of one experiment

June 2011 – August 2011: exploring different areas of where my project could go; very little headway on anything.  Cue me having a complete meltdown.

September 2011 – November 2011: Completion of a second experiment

December 2011: Mild troubleshooting, writing a paper

                Okay, look that over.  Two experiments = one mini paper’s worth of work.  It took me five months to complete the first experiment and four months to complete the other.  Yes, they were large and multi-layered experiments that required precise work to get them running properly, but that’s a total of nine months.  I could have grown a functioning human in that amount of time. 

Science is patience.  

And alcohol, which serves to dull the insanity that inevitably follows endlessly repeating the same experiment over and over again.

Okay, let’s discuss why it takes so long.  I’m going to focus on my second experiment and explain, in loose details, about what took three-four months.

Let’s say this experiment required four things: A + B + procedure = results.  This means that I mix A and B together, followed a particular procedure and then was able to see my results.  

Oh man – are you ready?  I first had to make A and B.  Making them is no small feat and required a few weeks worth of work to make them and prove that they were made correctly.  Okay, that’s three weeks there.

Next, I had to perfect the procedure for mixing A and B together.  This means that I take a stab at how the experiment should work.  Then, I look at my results.  Inevitably, they are not great the first time around (if they are, well, you have a horseshoe stuck).  So, I need to tweak it.  For example, I say “Well, maybe I let A and B sit on ice for too long.  Let’s try the procedure again but let A and B sit for a shorter period of time.”  This means I go back and do the same procedure again, but maybe I’ll let them sit for 10 minutes or 15 minutes.  I’ll probably do both and check out my results again.  And I’ll tweak more.

Seriously, perfecting the procedure of an experiment can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks or even a few months!  For me, perfecting my procedure took nearly two months.  Each and every part of the procedure needed to be tweaked and optimized.  This included how much of A and B were added, the length of time things were mixed together, the time I spent working up the experiment, how I viewed the results, the liquid I used to mix A and B, etc.  Ohmygod.  I’m tired just thinking about it.

The best part?  Sometimes you spend so much time perfecting your procedure that you run out of A or B.  This means you must go back to the beginning and make more.  Sure, let’s add another three weeks!  What’s the difference?

When you finally have perfected your procedure, have enough A and B, and are getting consistent results with your procedure, then you do the real experiment.  Up until now, you’ve been working with controls.  Controls are experiments that follow your exact procedure but you know precisely what the outcome will be.  The real experiment is when you follow your exact procedure and add in ONE extra thing.  If your results change from your controls, then you know it was due to the ONE extra thing.  From this, scientists can draw conclusions about that ONE thing.

For example, let’s say A and B will always bind each other.  We have perfected our procedure to show over and over that A and B will bind each other if and only if both are present.  When we do our real experiment, we add in a small molecule with A and B.  When we see our results, we notice that A and B no longer bind each other when the small molecule is present.  This means that the small molecule inhibits their interaction.

For me, running my real experiments took about two weeks.  

This all adds up to three-four months worth of work.

Sigh.  For these reasons, scientists are constantly working on different projects simultaneously.  If one experiment becomes stuck, the scientist still has another project that may be working and yielding publishable results while the other project is stalled (and vice versa).  Keep this in mind when you hear how much money has gone into research over the course of time and ask yourself why science doesn’t move faster.  All of our results need to be reproducible and above reasonable doubt for working correctly.  The time spent in developing and implementing a solid experiment is necessary.  Also, think about the slow madness that envelops a scientist when they march into work for the third month in a row to perform the exact same experiment with one small difference.  There are many reasons why scientists are sometimes called “mad.” 

A few weeks ago, my boss brought in his son for a Christmas party.  The four year old was walking around the lab looking at our things.  At one point he asked, “Dad, why does Mark have so many of the exact same bottles?”  His father said “Because that’s what science is.  Doing the same thing over and over …and over again.”

Here's to a happy and healthy 2012!

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Me, myself, and I