You Don’t Always Get What You Want

As I looked through the DSF assay results,  “Oh. no.” were the words that ran through my mind. “These results suck. They really, really suck.”

I guess I had some unrealistic expectations about how the experiment would turn out when we started this module. I knew that scientific data sometimes yields beautiful data that is significant and can actually be used to draw conclusions, but that it is often difficult to interpret or insignificant. Still, for some reason, I just had a feeling that it was going to work out well. I felt like my ligands would bind to FKBP12 and I would get that beautiful data that I was hoping for. It was probably because I was doing the experiment as part of the class instead of for a UROP. Maybe it was because I’ve come to expect that people only write papers when they have significant results that provide useful information. I probably did expect that my experiment had to work out well and yield good data just because I was required to write about it.

I know now that I shouldn’t perform an experiment with set expectations of the outcome in mind. I should maintain realistic expectations for my results, and report my findings regardless of how good or bad my data seems. Even if most of the data isn’t statistically significant, there is still some value to be obtained from the results that are. Once I realized this, writing the implications of the experiment was much less difficult.  


I have to accept that bad data is something that researchers get stuck with all the time, and that it is likely to come up again during the remainder of this class and/or my research career. At least now I’ll be better prepared for it.

 ~ Divya Ravinder

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