The stuff that dreams are made of...

Although lab work sometimes can be tedious and the payback may be questionable, although sometimes you feel like nothing is truly moving forward, the overall trajectory that your life follows when you commit to an academic career can be very satisfactory. Today, the first email I received was one from Rijeka, in Croatia (somewhere in Europe), informing me that the book I edited and for which we contributed one full chapter has finally been published. It is available online at

http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/43240/InTech-Influenza_a_virus_multiplication_and_the_cellular_sumoylation_system.pdf

It is stuff like this that makes you feel that your efforts are worth it. It is almost as good as the satisfaction I feel when my students let me know that they "are getting it" and that they "enjoy my classes." But nothing compares with the feeling you get when you get emails like this one that I received yesterday:

"Hello Dr. Rosas-Acosta, I just recieved a letter from Boston for the EMSSP program and I thought it would interest you to know that I have been asked to go to Boston for an interview! I am very happy and would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this, without you this would have not been possible.

Thank you,"

Yep, an academic career can be pretty satisfactory. Doing research is second to nothing. And teaching young minds and opening doors to hundreds of brilliant students is also second to nothing. 

How many is too many?

When my lab got started, there were only two souls in the lab. Me and my technician who was my loyal companion during my first two years as an independent scientist. Nowadays I have 3 PhD students, 3 Master students, and 16 undergraduate students in my lab. Yesterday, while talking to one of my Master students, she indicated how she longed for the old times when she had plenty of room to call her own. That simple statement brought up this question: have we passed the limit? Are we too many for our own good? Life in a research lab is a fine balance...you need the hands, you need the brains, there are always too many interesting questions claiming to be answered. But how many brains and how many hands are too many? Also, not everyone contributes two hands and one brain, some times you get the hands but not the brain and sometimes you get the brain but not the hands. What do you do in those cases? Is it best to keep only the ones that come as a complete set? Or is it OK to accept the parts and try to make the best out of them? As of now, it seems like we are moving forward and there is some momentum. Perhaps the number issue is not too much of an issue, at least for now. One thing is for sure, though: not too many of them are willing to spill out their feelings in this blog. So far, it is only me (and I only get to do it when I want to take a break from my other many tasks).

Waiting....

The process of writing a paper...long nights in front of the computer.
If only the reviewers could be a bit faster on their decision...

47 days after submitting the reviewed version of our latest paper, after having fixed pretty much everything that was criticized by the reviewers, we are still waiting for their response. The long waiting period involved in all the processes that require peer review is the one thing I truly dislike about the way we do science nowadays. I wonder if this frustration is shared by everyone or if the group of people who are not that happy with the way peer review works is relatively small. I was involved in reviewing a couple of papers recently. It seemed like the journals wanted to have the reviews back in less than a week. I held them a few extra days (yep, guilty as charged!), but I'm sure it didn't take me more than week and a half. If that's the standard that seems to be the followed by most of the journals, why can't it be that way with the journals I pick for our papers?
Overall mood: Frustration.
Forecast: When the reviews comeback they may still want something else...
What to do next: Forget about it and start working at full strength on the new paper for which we have already most of the figures ready.