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Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

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Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#261

Post by stocknoob »

junon wrote: post #247
stocknoob wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be difficult to hear, but something is wrong if you have been working for 20 years and old colleagues aren't occasionally checking in to see if you'd like a different gig at their current company. The people who called you a miracle worker, they don't keep in touch? They don't want you to join their current project? You may want to ask someone who you are on good terms with what's going on.

This is insulting and just flat out unrealistic. If you've had this experience, great, but what you're describing is very far from the norm.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-survey-reveals-85-all-job...

Working somewhere for decades and not being in touch with a single colleague is not normal. Imagine hearing "I didn't keep in touch with a single person from my 16 years of primary + university education after school ended."

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#262

Post by idrios »

im3w1l wrote: post #203
idrios wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, and I did consider it. But another semester of college just to boost my GPA would've been expensive. I don't have regrets how things turned out, but point is my story is common

Sounds like you weren't that motivated in the first place. Could have been a blessing in disguise to meet at hurdle sooner rather than later.

Hah, I'm still motivated but I was also pretty aware of the other comments being made here about higher education at the time (excessively political, funding sparse, job search difficulties for bio fields). I was lucky enough to get a scholarship for 4 years of undergrad and graduated with low debt. The extra semester would have doubled my debt with no guarantee I'd be better off after.

I know things I could've done or could do now if I wanted to go back, but I think I'm more interested at the moment in how to make the research I want to do more accessible.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#263

Post by fuzzfactor »

jacquesm wrote: post #213
crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working to create a community model with a communal research lab. It's meant to meet my needs as a researcher while also removing pressures/norms from capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. What do you want to research and what's in your way?

I love this idea. A 'lab space' instead of a maker space. If someone is going to do this in NL then I'd be happy to help fund it.

Are you near Rotterdam?

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#264

Post by fma »

throwaway_gerts wrote: post #216
fma wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's many issues in our science system, but it may be a blessing that you got rejected. I'm a senior software engineer. My wife has a PhD in biochemistry from a top university. When she graduated she could not get a job anywhere. We both agreed she should choose a different path and she started a business in a totally unrelated field. Meanwhile someone like me...I'm literally turning away interviews. I have no dou…

> Meanwhile someone like me...I'm literally turning away interviews. How do you manage that? I've been a software developer for over 20 years now, and every time I lose my job it's a SLOG to find another one, with anywhere from a few months to a year in between. I can't even remember the last time a recruiter contacted me (perhaps 5-6 times in my entire career). It's not like my technical skills are lacking. I've wor…

Lots of replies and I'd mostly agree.

I work for a big company... It's not a FAANG, but it's recognizable world wide. Even though it's not a tech company, I believe the name recognition gives some credibility to recruiters.

I'm lucky to have worked at a previous company that had a lot of well connected software engineers and management. It was a mid size company so I was 2 levels from the CTO. They are my connections on LinkedIn so I think that adds credibility.

I'm a java developer. Despite the hmm...'hate' for Java on HN, if you go to dice.com and put in various languages...Java is very high ranking. Having years of experience in a technology with a lot of jobs help.

Some alluded to keeping in touch with old coworkers. I'd have to strongly agree to that. Strongly. I have your back, you have my back. Right? I hate interviewing. HATE. I've been fortunate in the last several years to have had 4 former colleagues ask if I want to join their team/company. I seriously considered each one, but declined for various reason.

At one point, my company was having layoffs. I knew I should have a backup plan in case my name was on the list. But I hate interviewing...all it took was a phone call to an old colleague of mine (he's now a director) and I was given an open job offer. I enjoy where I currently work {enough} that I'll stay for a while longer.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#265

Post by fma »

throwaway_gerts wrote: post #223
stocknoob wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be difficult to hear, but something is wrong if you have been working for 20 years and old colleagues aren't occasionally checking in to see if you'd like a different gig at their current company. The people who called you a miracle worker, they don't keep in touch? They don't want you to join their current project? You may want to ask someone who you are on good terms with what's going on.

I've never had an old colleague contact me. Is that a thing? Forgive me, but I'm not even sure what I should be asking these people... "Why haven't you contacted me" sounds too abrasive...

Original commenter here. People don't reach out to me. I reach out to people. I make sure I keep the relationship open. People are way too busy with their lives to maintain connections. Imagine how happy you would be if someone you used to work with reached out to see how you're doing. I'd be very happy. That's why I try to do it...because I know on the other end my former colleague would be happy.

I work at a huge company and have been on many teams and projects. Every few days, weeks - I'd ping people just to see what's up and strike a conversation. I don't do it annoyingly...there's a fine balance. You also need to be able to tell who is social and who is not. If you can read that someone has a social personality I'll talk to them more, be friend them...talk to things besides work. There are those who only like to talk about work, and that's fine. Then we just talk about work. I go out of my way to help them out with any problems at work or outside of work.

For example someone is a first time home buyer...so I gave advice (I've bought 2 homes in my young career). Another, a manager...his son is in med school, I gave advice (my roommates in grad school were in med school). Another had problems with implementing PGP...so I stayed late one night to help her out.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#266

Post by fuzzfactor »

neltnerb wrote: post #181
crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working to create a community model with a communal research lab. It's meant to meet my needs as a researcher while also removing pressures/norms from capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. What do you want to research and what's in your way?

I've heard this dream a few times, and have had it myself. Hazardous waste disposal and storage. This is the big kicker for any research project I might want to do. Every other expenses after getting that set up is trivial (in comparison) for an individual researcher, though national lab style shared analytical equipment is nice. That can come later though... It's really hard. It's much simpler to set up a machine sh…

>Hazardous waste disposal and storage.

Partner with a hazardous material testing lab, or another type of operation where they use lots of hazardous material similar to yours and end up turning a bit of it into waste themselves.

Not necessarily an environmental lab where they actually test waste, better an industrial lab that tests material.

Some better opportunities can even be with material or waste handlers who have no lab at all.

Hazardous material does not become hazardous waste if you can legitimately sell/ship it off the site as a worthwhile product instead. Otherwise if you need to truly discard excess (even prime chemical assets then become a liability) you need to not only usually pay, but bump your paperwork and liability up from merely dangerous goods to full waste documentation requirements.

Ideally, as a scientific consultant (giving free advice only) once you get on the toxic site where yours is a drop in the bucket by comparison, you will be able to identify recycling opportunities worth way more to them than the cost of properly disposing of your paltry amount by the established registered professionals, according to the specific arcane regulations in place which you value their expertise for. They will love you.

So you can get the best deal possible.

Don't just recycle the equipment, recycle the chemicals.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#267

Post by fuzzfactor »

ramraj07 wrote: post #209
crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working to create a community model with a communal research lab. It's meant to meet my needs as a researcher while also removing pressures/norms from capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. What do you want to research and what's in your way?

That's great! Honestly I'm still navigating more pressing existential crises (like which country and then city to set roots in, if I even have a choice) but after that the plan is to embrace fields that are amenable for cheap amateur experimentation. In that regards, I have some connectomics projects with c. Elegans in mind, followed by evolution with basic cell lines. Depending on answers to aforementioned crises I…

I find the surplus equipment from universities is not usually sent to _asset recovery_ (auctioned off) until it is older and more worn out compared to industrial operations.

So I always wanted (always did) have my lab in a heavy industrial area.

For biotech the US area of New Jersey and Connecticut has a high concentration of pharma giants and their many satellite contractors.

One business model has been to become enough of a contractor yourself to pay the bills, then research all you want and own it all yourself.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#268

Post by itronitron »

phobosanomaly wrote: post #125
itronitron wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that most researchers work in universities. Every large product company (food, pharma, automotive, gaming) has multiple research groups, and while they tend to be very small relative to the larger company they are probably much bigger than most academic departments.

Add to this that there is a lot of research that goes into production processes and translation from a basic-sciences setting to a production setting. So, say you have a novel antibody, you have to have a ton of non-academic researchers who have to figure out how to make the thing stable, safe, scalable, deliverable, cost-effective, etc. It's all research, just not university-style research.

Another reason not to pursue university-style research is that historically a lot of scientific progress and even breakthroughs have occurred on the 'applied' side due to their access to reams of data and interest in process control and incremental refinement.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#269

Post by OkayPhysicist »

bnralt wrote: post #75
raziel2701 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's been a question I have no answer to: What do we do with all these smart people? Currently most just go inside hierarchical workplaces where they have to learn to play office politics and carry out meaningless job functions in exchange for financial security. We don't have a Bell labs anymore, science is getting more expensive and most of the venture capital money goes to software rather than to the more capita…

It seems like this is exactly the kind of thing that a government is useful for. Why not have more publicly funded research institutions that employ them, and put them to work on useful research without having them worry about grant considerations, teaching classes, or the publishing treadmill?

They're called the national labs, and they're pretty awesome.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#270

Post by fuzzfactor »

lumost wrote: post #131
SCUSKU wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While at first I balked at this idea, I suppose what you're proposing is crowdsourcing academic research funding. Naturally, the first thing that comes to mind is how accountability can be managed. One of the major pitfalls of the crowdfunding model seems to be that the fundraisers can make like bandits with the money, with seemingly little recourse, or incentive for the crowd.

I don't think that I was proposing crowdfunding for science, but rather that the incentives in modern academia would give rise to modern popular science figures as those most able to secure funding. It's likely not the healthiest situation for actual discovery.

There's still this:

https://experiment.com

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