Conquering Setbacks
Three days into Module 1, my partner and I were discussing whether or not to aspirate liquid off our protein pellet. Let's go for it, we decided. After all, using the aspirator for our other pellet went fine. We stick the aspirator into the tube, and a split second later.....there's no protein.
We looked down, and immediately my mind started going "CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP..." Lo and behold - our precious protein is inside the aspirator. I've messed up plenty of times in lab before, but never in a situation where the experiment couldn't be re-done. How could we have made such a silly mistake while doing such a simple thing? While trying to maintain a calm exterior, I was freaking out inside. How were we supposed to complete the rest of the module??
Thankfully, Noreen and Josephine came to the rescue! We were not going to be like the sad minion for the rest of Module 1 - there was a way to salvage our experiments through using our -IPTG pellet for some parts, and borrowing from other groups for others. We were not going to be left out to dry, and that was truly a relief. Everything would be okay.
To be honest, this primed us for anything else that could (and somewhat would) go wrong with our experiments. I was frustrated with not being able to re-do our experiments, and then again when our data came out. The math just wouldn't work, and for a while, I felt that Excel just hated me when it crashed every time I tried to do calculations. Eventually, after some troubleshooting, I had semi-reasonable data. These, however, were still insignificant. Some of our data was contradictory. What was I supposed to with insignificant negative data? How were my partner and I supposed to present all these negative and contradictory results? I was stumped.
Looking back, I was confused by all our negative data. But, negative data isn't necessarily insignificant in its value. It is perfectly okay, and normal, to get negative data.
We were able to observe trends, and were able to come to some (somewhat) conclusive statements. We had to really think about what happened, what we could change in the future, and what the meaning of our negative results meant. What went wrong? What did we do right? It doesn't mean that we were incompetent or that our ligands were complete failures. It just didn't work this time. It was a lesson in thinking positively. Negative results are real and valid results - and honestly, more important sometimes than positive results. If we published negative results, maybe we'd save scientists around the world thousands of hours trying protocols that we know will fail.
Writing our report was hard. Figuring out how to present our data was a challenge, and framing a story behind failed experiments wasn't easy. However, these are things that must be done in real life. We must be able to communicate both our failures and our successes to each other. Having to report negative data made me a stronger writer, and forced me to think outside the box. Everything wasn't black and white - like positive data can be. Communicating with each other was also important in truly understanding our data. I realized that there are hidden learning experiences everywhere that we should take advantages of.
Moving forward, we must learn from our negative results and the aftermath - after all, over 99% of results in science are negative. We should take what worked from our experiments and combine these with new approaches, and see what results we can get. Who knows - maybe the next experiment we do with these ligands will give us positive results we never expected! That's the true beauty of science, and our happy minion agrees :)
-Sharon
We looked down, and immediately my mind started going "CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP..." Lo and behold - our precious protein is inside the aspirator. I've messed up plenty of times in lab before, but never in a situation where the experiment couldn't be re-done. How could we have made such a silly mistake while doing such a simple thing? While trying to maintain a calm exterior, I was freaking out inside. How were we supposed to complete the rest of the module??
Thankfully, Noreen and Josephine came to the rescue! We were not going to be like the sad minion for the rest of Module 1 - there was a way to salvage our experiments through using our -IPTG pellet for some parts, and borrowing from other groups for others. We were not going to be left out to dry, and that was truly a relief. Everything would be okay.
To be honest, this primed us for anything else that could (and somewhat would) go wrong with our experiments. I was frustrated with not being able to re-do our experiments, and then again when our data came out. The math just wouldn't work, and for a while, I felt that Excel just hated me when it crashed every time I tried to do calculations. Eventually, after some troubleshooting, I had semi-reasonable data. These, however, were still insignificant. Some of our data was contradictory. What was I supposed to with insignificant negative data? How were my partner and I supposed to present all these negative and contradictory results? I was stumped.
Looking back, I was confused by all our negative data. But, negative data isn't necessarily insignificant in its value. It is perfectly okay, and normal, to get negative data.
We were able to observe trends, and were able to come to some (somewhat) conclusive statements. We had to really think about what happened, what we could change in the future, and what the meaning of our negative results meant. What went wrong? What did we do right? It doesn't mean that we were incompetent or that our ligands were complete failures. It just didn't work this time. It was a lesson in thinking positively. Negative results are real and valid results - and honestly, more important sometimes than positive results. If we published negative results, maybe we'd save scientists around the world thousands of hours trying protocols that we know will fail.
Writing our report was hard. Figuring out how to present our data was a challenge, and framing a story behind failed experiments wasn't easy. However, these are things that must be done in real life. We must be able to communicate both our failures and our successes to each other. Having to report negative data made me a stronger writer, and forced me to think outside the box. Everything wasn't black and white - like positive data can be. Communicating with each other was also important in truly understanding our data. I realized that there are hidden learning experiences everywhere that we should take advantages of.
Moving forward, we must learn from our negative results and the aftermath - after all, over 99% of results in science are negative. We should take what worked from our experiments and combine these with new approaches, and see what results we can get. Who knows - maybe the next experiment we do with these ligands will give us positive results we never expected! That's the true beauty of science, and our happy minion agrees :)
-Sharon
Comments
Post a Comment