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@miss-biophys
In research...
Some weeks are just experiment, experiment, discussion, experiment, experiment.
Other weeks are writing, writing, analysis, analysis, writing.
This week is submission, submission, submission.
I have 3 manuscripts ready to submit to academic journals. Feeling strong and hopeful about it!! 💪🤞
Yet another rejection
My latest article was rejected from 5 journals so far. We aim for the high impacted journals so this was to some extent expected. The editors say it's a solid work, but too niche to be interesting to their broad audiences. It stinks to be rejected so many times, but I do not lose my cool. I know it's a solid piece of work, which will get published somewhere eventually.
I do not particularly like the game of publishing in high impacted journals. However, if I want to be a respected academic, I need to publish in Nature, Nature Communications, Science Advances, etc. The other researchers know how hard it is to get your stuff in there and they respect you and your research more. Also, these journals are more often read, so you indeed get more citations and more follow-up use of your work.
Update:
6th desk rejection today.
I keep going and try yet another journal. I so much want to share my newest work with you, guys! But first, I need secure the journal publication. Let's hope the next one will be the golden one!
Update, 3 months later...
7th rejection.
This time the manuscript went out to reviews, but the reviewers comments were so harsh that the editor decided to reject it.
We are now working on extra experiments to improve based on the reviewers' feedback and will send it somewhere else again.
I really like this work so it's frustrating and exhausting how hard it is to actually make it public. 🫤
Update, 9 months later...
Submitting to a new journal after 9 months of additional experiments, analysis, and rewriting.
Now it's been exactly 1 year since the first submission. The manuscript got much bigger, with deeper analysis, and significantly more control tests confirming that our methods are valid and our conclusions supported by robust data. The conclusions stay the same as they were in the first manuscript, but it looks more robust and well though-through. Let's hope for the acceptance now.
The scientific review should provide constructive criticism...
Reviewer 4 on my latest submission: The manuscript was submitted as a review article but it's too short. Reject.
Reviewer of the research paper: The review section of the manuscript is too consize. It needs to be widened.
My collaborator: What if we just decrease the page margins, so it appears wider?!
Today's plans...
For many things we have microscopes with camera and automatized capturing. For counting cells that survived in our cultures for cancer research, we look into the eye piece and cound the cells manually.
Counting cancer cells. Old school. Using a clicker counter.
Today's plans...
What I like about doing my own research
Working on my own ideas
Designing new experiments
Thinking, speculating, hypothesizing
Getting first results from a new experiment
Talking about my stuff to people who are interested
Outreach videos, blogging
Mentoring
Preparing visuals, pictures, graphics, making it look cool and approachable
Writing articles, because that's when it all comes together and anyone can use it
Good coleagues, on which I can rely
Spending time with talented students, leading their lab projects
What I do not enjoy in academia
Class teaching
Repeating the same experiment multiple time to get the statistically significant triplicate
Constant rejections from grants, positions, and journals
Overwhelming competition in the grants and positions
Some people can be smart but still be selfish assholes, or some people are just not emotionally capable of any empathy... academia is not an exemption from this rule
Sloppy students, who do not listen to well-meant advice
hi! would love to know your thoughts on using ai for research. not chatgpt (although i wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts on this too) but tools such as anara which have been circulating recently.
Hi!
I got this question already multiple times from my students (BSc., MSc. and also PhD students) that do research projects with me in the lab.
My answer is... Do not use it much. For sure, not to write an article or to do direct literature research.
If you want to learn something about the new topic in research, you need to do your literature research yourself. Maybe the ai-tool can help searching for relevant papers, but you need to read them yourself. It happens often (I tried) that the ai-tool gives you a summary, but omits important details. Or by trying to simplify and summarize it misinterprets the data in the paper. You as a researcher are the most skilled person to read and critically judge all the information provided in a paper. No tool can do this for you.
Once someone asked me if they can use it to make a review paper. If an ai-tool can make a review paper of a topic, it would be just a put together repetition of already published works. A point of a good scientific review is to put different studies together with a fresh perspective, find links that are not that obvious, make new theories and hypotheses. Language-based ai tool cannot do that.
You can use it for text refinement. Beware of misinterpretation and wrong statements.
Some people are insecutre about their writing skills in English. I get it. English is also not my native language. So one can write a first draft of their paper/abstract/grant/assignement and then use the ai-tools to simplify/clarify/shorten/rewrite the original text. That is fine I think. However, read it word by word after the ai. Again, when shortening a text, it can make misleading or wrong statements. This happened to me when I tried to shorten my replies to reviewers' comments. It had to be under some word limit, so I asked an ai-tool to shorten it. When I read it afterwards, the phrasing was cool and the text had a nice flow, but it was no longer true. Beware of this!
Another bad example from my experience (with chatgpt like tool)... I asked once an ai-tool to tell me if something was proven in scientific literature. It told me yes, it was proven. I asked it to give me references and it made up references that literally did not exist. So in order to keep up the conversation with me, it just made up stuff that was not true.
But it is true, that an ai tool can make text shortening, grammar correction, and better text flow very fast and efficient. Just be aware of its limitations and errors.
You get better with practice
My students tell me that they cannot read scientific papers efficiently, or that they are not confident in their writing skills. So that's why they use these ai tools to help them. But if you never practise these skills, you can never get better. So I suggest just try doing it yourself the hard way. And you will see that the flow of your English writing will get better (even if it's not your first language) and that you will understand how to get the most relevant info from a paper just in a few minutes.
Scientist's mind knows best what is relevant
You, the scientist, are the one, who knows what is the most relevant. You are the one, who discovered something new and wants to write about this innovation. No ai tool knows these things so they will not search for or write about such intricate details that you have in mind. For that, your own human brain is the best.
Keep using your brain. That's my answer.
The secret of successful women in science...
...their husbands meet each other at the supermarket.
True story. Just today, we're visiting our friends for dinner. My husband just texted me the guys met at the supermarket buying food for tonight. At the meantime, we ladies are in the lab not having to worry about anything back at home.
Love them! Thanks for all the support! <3
Spring is in the air... and the cells in the lab feel it.
Today, 15 April 2026, I got the most beautiful data from my cancer cells in the whole 2 years that I work with them. They are healthy, happy, fluorescent diamonds in them are bright and gladly report the stress levels in the cells. They feel the beautiful weather outside. I do not have any other explanation.
Could we in future treat resistant infections with a simle penicillin again?
My work over the last few years just got the recognition in the shape of the Kluyver Award—given on average once every 3 years to a single promising researcher in the Netherlands, who made substantial contribution to microbiology within 8 years after getting the PhD.
In a short video, I try to explain my ideas and results on how to fight the resistant bacteria infections.
Seems like a perfect Saturday afternoon...
Empty labs at 7 am on Easter Monday.
I hate crowds, if someone is peeking over my shoulder, or when I need to hurry to free the spot in the lab for the next person.
I focus the best when I am in the lab alone.
Could we in future treat resistant infections with a simle penicillin again?
My work over the last few years just got the recognition in the shape of the Kluyver Award—given on average once every 3 years to a single promising researcher in the Netherlands, who made substantial contribution to microbiology within 8 years after getting the PhD.
In a short video, I try to explain my ideas and results on how to fight the resistant bacteria infections.
Greetings from the lab on this Saturday evening from me and my lovely bacteria companions.
I just received the best praise ever from my collaborator after he learned about my recent grant award.
A while back, I drew an illustration of Staphylococcus bacteria being destroyed by the new antibiotic mechanism that I discovered. The bacteria membrane loses the wavy structure needed for their communication and cell cycle. It was selected as a cover of the Nano Letter journal, where my article got published.
Super proud!
Paper here: