Lights! Camera! Fail! (In science, failure comes with the territory)

I recently was at Starbucks and asked if I could get some soymilk for my coffee, as it was not one of the many carafe options. The barista insisted on pouring the gallon jug herself, saying, “we don’t want you to spill it everywhere.” As I indignantly watched her pour too much, I wanted to reply that I have a PhD in pouring things so I think I can handle it. As this is the only decent coffee shop near work, I thankfully held my what could easily be perceived as arrogant tongue.

A PhD in pouring things is of course not really true, but I think the general public, if and when they envision scientists at work, do not realize how much time is spent pouring and aliquoting liquids. Aliquoting is a favorite science buzzword that means to divide a larger sample into smaller volumes. I've linked to a somewhat maddeningly banal video demonstration of aliquoting. The volumes that need to be maneuvered range from nanoliters (on the order of 0.00002 fluid ounces), which require specialized hand-held instruments called pipettes, to ten liters (roughly 2.5 gallons), which require some muscle and a steady arm. In fact, scientists spend so much time pipetting (an average of 2 hours/day) that it puts them at risk for pipetting-related repetitive strain injury (Björksten et al., 1994). But the science part comes in that this has to be done very accurately and that what we really care about is what happens when we mix liquids containing different chemical properties and biological agents (such as cells and proteins) together. We then determine the outcome through complex assays that allow us to record what we cannot see with the human eye. From this we make conclusions about how our cells work.  

The other component of science overlooked by the general public is the extent of failure that scientists experience every day. I am trying to imagine other jobs where failure is experienced, not just on a large scale (the company makes a product that doesn’t sell well, the company folds, you are fired) but also continuously on a small scale. MOST experiments don’t work. This is due to many factors: equipment, faulty reagents, miscalculations, contaminated stocks, and just random factors (for instance the amount of facial hair of the researcher in the case of x-ray crystallography (detritus from the beard may act a seed for protein crystals to grow)). “Troubleshooting” is as ubiquitous a term in science as, well “ubiquitous”. But it can be demoralizing; demoralizing to spend several 10 hour plus days waiting for one result, a sheet of film for instance to come out of the developer, only to see…nothing. It is best not to calculate the cost of reagents and manpower to create this blank sheet of film.

Failure comes with the territory and even Einstein said that “if we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” And this is where colleagues come in, as well as the occasional happy hour, as safe guards against letting little failures like these stand in the way of achieving…bigger failures (say determining that your hypothesis or model was wrong. But these bigger failures are actually advancing science, creating a platform for the next hypothesis. While relatives and friends of a scientist probably hear never-ending complaints about frustration, they may not hear as much about the exhilaration of having an experiment work, and, as a result, learning something new in science. It is indescribably fulfilling to contribute to the field of science (that same field that makes up the dry textbooks you read in high school) in however a small way. It is hard to imagine that any scientist forgets the first time they publish a paper, and even more so, the first time other scientists cite that paper.

And so the small advances, the feeling of achievement, perseverance, and curiosity about the next step, is what makes all the past failures (and pipetting) worth it.

References: Björksten M.G., Almby B., and Jansson E.S. (1994). Hand and shoulder ailments among laboratory technicians using modern plunger-operated pipettes. Applied Ergonomics. 25, 88-94.