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FORUMBread and Circus
According to my colleague Keith Yamamoto, scientists would rather wear each other's underwear than use each other's nomenclature." Even if Kaposi's sarcoma and herpesvirus are not your area of expertise, Don Ganem's lectures are well worth the trip to the lecture hall. The virologist from UCSF usually serves a mix of interesting science and hilarious remarks. With the academic year under way, the largely empty bulletin boards will soon be covered with dozens of lecture announcements. In my view, one of the unique characteristics of Boston, in general, and the Longwood Medical Area, in particular, is that you could easily spend your entire day just attending one talk after another. Beyond the BreadEvery once in a while when time permits, I attend lectures that are not even remotely connected to my field. In most cases the experience is pretty sobering, since I suddenly become aware of how rarely I find the time to monitor the literature in other fields. Occasionally, however, I get introduced to studies that immediately capture my attention.Although it must have been about five years back, I still remember vividly an Australian parasitologist who was trying to find the reason for several cases of highly inflamed colon. In the course of the investigation, it turned out that a canine hookworm was likely to be the culprit. In order to prove this hypothesis, the parasitologist had to show that these hookworms could survive inside the human body. So he administered the hookworms to himself. It turned out that they were quite capable of adjusting to this unusual host and thus proved his case. Not every story can feature an extraordinary discovery, but unfortunately quite a few presenters sell their excellent data short. Some try to cram as much data as possible into their session and rush through busy slides with breathtaking speed. As a result, people who are not fully familiar with the field get left behind and leave the lecture slightly disappointed. Others present slides without headlines and summaries, making it difficult for the audience to understand the primary data on display. Furthermore, modern technology occasionally adds problems instead of solving them. Some speakers like to make full use of their presentation software and use as many fonts as possible while others employ color combinations that make their texts more difficult to decipher than the bottom of an eye exam chart. Lightening UpSome speakers are not exactly shy about sales pitches. In a biotechnology lecture about efficient drug delivery, the guest speaker showed footage of ABC's World News Tonight featuring his inventions. Having Peter Jennings report on your research is definitely impressive, but some members of the audience wondered how the news tape contributed to proving the scientific concept.During an immunological research seminar, the audience was confronted with the photograph of a smiling boy who had been successfully treated with a novel form of therapy. While everybody in the room was more than happy to learn about the patient's improved situation, after the lecture a few people raised concerns about whether a scientific lecture is the right place to show photos like this. When I recently had to present my results at group meeting, I had a difficult time assembling the primary data. In particular, the fairly large amount of data from collaborators took more time to become familiar with than I had anticipated. On top of this I realized that it would be a struggle to finish in time all the reviews and articles piled up on my desk. As a result of staying up too late for several nights and primarily focusing on offering thorough explanations for most experiments, I neglected to pay attention to the bigger perspective. Instead of concentrating on the most important examples of my work, I went into too many details during the meeting. It wasn't long before I noticed that parts of my audience were much more interested in poking holes into their foam plates than studying my overhead transparencies. To make things worse, I was totally unprepared to lighten things up. A few years back when several groups had just claimed significant breakthroughs in cancer research, Timothy Ley from Washington University started his lecture at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute with the following introduction: I am a little bit embarrassed to give a lecture to an esteemed audience like this and not be able to present a cure for cancer.... Ley's wit and remarkable results assured him the full attention of the audience for the entire lecture. --Jan Schmollinger, an HMS research associate in medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute |
