#IamScience: My journey as a researcher, medical writer, and grant writer
I have been a researcher, a medical writer, and I am now a grant writer. I have been on a transitional, full-circle journey during which I addressed my abilities and what really matters to me. #IamScience. This is my story.
As a child, I was awed by science. This was seeded by the way my parents opened our (me and my sister’s) eyes to the fascinating world around us and was fueled by a childhood filled with excited trips to science museums and hours playing with chemistry sets and microscopes. However, despite loving science – well, biology mostly – it didn’t come naturally to me. Perhaps I should have heeded the earliest warning signs: being placed, while in middle school, in the lowest-ranked science class in our year and spectacularly failing my mock A-level biology exams (the UK high school state exams).
Then, during the last phase of my A-level preparations, a wonderful thing happened. A-levels at that time meant, for most students, taking only 3 subjects. I took the rather unusual combination of biology, chemistry, a half A-level in maths…..and art. Unlike science, art did come naturally – it always had. I was good at it and I felt totally myself when doing it. The intense A-levels regimen meant that my days were spent in double lessons of chemistry and/or biology followed by up to 8 hours in the art room. It was here that, despite being seemingly on the opposite ends of the spectrum, my art and science fused. For the first time ever, I had a tangible mechanism to express and explore my fascination with science. On an intellectual level, I discovered artists such as Carl Andre, in whose work mathematics and equilibrium take the center stage, and Leonardo da Vinci, who is renowned for his genius in anatomy and technological invention. I fell in love with Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia”, which is steeped in philosophy about mathematics and chaos, and I was mesmerized by William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” and its ideas about the impossibility of capturing nature within the laws of the Newtonian Universe. In my own art, it was not long before science started seeping in. In a project that started off examining the transition from chaos to order, newly-learnt concepts from chemistry and biology began appearing, and always in the context of my utter fascination with them: rate limiting steps, gastrulation, organogenesis, and crystallography. An excerpt from my art notebook from back then states, “I find it unbelievable how single cells know what to do and what to become. They must be in some kind of communication with other cells and together they make up the all important whole”. Looking back, this was the time when my fascination with science was at its highest. In the years since, I have come to realize that that it was probably because I saw science with a level of naivety, that I was able to see the bigger picture, and see science, to some extent, through the eyes of an artist.
After A-levels (I did equally well in both the sciences and art), I was at a crossroads: do I take the art route – one that I know I can do well at, that comes naturally – or do I go to the sciences, where my enchantment lies and where there are more stable job prospects? I took the latter path and ended up at Imperial College pursuing a degree in biochemistry. While the education that I received at Imperial was outstanding, in retrospect, it may have been the downfall for someone like me i.e., a bigger picture-inclined, somewhat ditsy, hippy happy kind of gal. Imperial College is a science, technology, and medicine university, with no humanities or arts programs, and I thus found myself, without my “comfort blanket” of art. Moreover, the course, as you might imagine for a biochemistry course, was focused on individual molecular pathways, but lacked an exploration of the bigger picture. I remember someone in my class noting that while we could explain most biochemical pathways until they came out of our ears, we couldn’t easily tell you what a kidney did. I adored learning about all the biochemical pathways and the physics of structural biology techniques, I studied hard, and used recall rather than natural comprehension, to get through the course. The course also gave us a 3-month “taster” of lab research.
At the end of my degree, many of my peers were eagerly pursuing PhDs and my appetite had been whetted for bench work from the 3-month lab experience. I acknowledged the niggling doubt in my mind about my desire and/or ability – or lack thereof – of my own career in research. I therefore decided to hold off finding a PhD for the time being and stayed on at Imperial to complete a Masters degree in biochemical research. During the one-year course, we rotated through three different labs, which gave me a taste for a wide range of techniques and disciplines. I loved it. From the projects, which were obviously designed to be short term but high output, I got my first taste of the thrill of getting an experiment to work – that moment that all scientists live for. I even managed to get an authorship on a paper. My mind was set: I would find a PhD.
I moved to Glasgow, Scotland, to a Molecular Parasitology Center, for a PhD project working on the rather unparasitic nematode, C. elegans. Like all PhDs, there were great lows – recurring panic attacks questioning my competencies and whether this was what I really wanted to do – but there were more highs. As with most scientists, with the highs came the amnesia that obliterated all memories of the struggles that it took to get there. By the end of my PhD, my confidence was at its highest; writing the thesis had given me the opportunity to see the significance in my work, and I loved the tangibility of a bound volume that was testament of three years of my blood, sweat and tears.
Without question, I transitioned to a postdoc, this time across the pond in California (UC Davis). Postdoc life was tough. Perhaps it was the project, perhaps it was the fact that my luck had run out, perhaps it was the reality that, unlike a PhD, there was no natural endpoint to the research. I was in a spiral downwards where a lack of results led to a devastating loss of confidence, which led to apathy and indifference, which led to a lack of results…etc, etc. Being in a situation like that, with serial experimental failures, meant my focus was on the methodology, the logistics, the small things. There was no space (or energy) to find the significance, the bigger picture, or the wonder. My fascination with science had been replaced with frustration and resentment, and that bitterness infiltrated both my work and social life. I needed out.
Making the break from research was difficult and riddled with the most pertinent question for me: “am I throwing away the past eight years of my life?” The answer was ‘no’. After leaving research, I first worked as a medical writer for a communications company in the Pharma industry. While no experience in medical writing was necessary, a PhD was a must. It also required writing skills, which luckily, I had. Medical writing requires an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms of drug action, and an analytical mind. It was a breath of fresh air for me to see science from the clinical perspective for the first time, especially seeing evidence of science improving patient survival, improving quality of life. My passion was reignited and the weight of the postdoc failures was lifted. I felt like someone had cut an invisible string and I suddenly had the potential to soar again. Leaving research totally changed the way I worked…for the better. As a researcher, with your own project, there is little accountability. If you fail, it is yourself you hurt the most. As a researcher, I was guilty of serially marking my eppis/computer files/lab book with non-identifiable labels, knowing that “I would remember what that meant in the morning”. Outside of research, I had to kick those habits, fast. Being more accountable was good for me; while harming myself was okay, being a detriment to someone else was shameful in my eyes. I became more organized, more conscientious, more focused, more passionate, more productive…and infinitely happier. A great part of the satisfaction I got from a writing job was that goals were much more identifiable and short-term. In addition, I regained control over my work: my input more or less equaled the output, which, as all researchers know, is not a given in the lab setting.
After two years working in the Pharma industry, I moved to my current job, working as a grant writer for the UC Davis Cancer Center. The Cancer Center is the meeting point for cutting edge clinical and basic research. Working there, I rely heavily on my knowledge of basic science in order to edit and write the “approach” sections of grants and to understand the central concepts. However, my job is to ensure that the clinical relevance and the significance, innovation, and impact (the key scoring criteria for most grants), are exalted. In the year that I have worked there, I have seen that a grant writer with my research experience is a valuable asset, confirming that those 8+ years of research were not wasted: I use that knowledge every day.
Another concern that I had when leaving research was that I thought I would miss that deep specialization of a research project; being entrenched into something with your heart and soul and knowing it inside and out. I was worried that writing jobs would allow me to develop only trivial, transient knowledge about a project, and for me, I knew that this would be unsatisfactory. However, I have found a seemingly perfect place at the Cancer Center; firstly, because it gives me an overarching focus on cancer and more so, because I tend to work with a limited number of teams whose work I have become somewhat specialized in. The PI-grant writer relationship is a surprisingly strong one, which means that on most grants I work on, I find I am fully invested and care about the proposals as if they were my own. I am entrenched, at least until the next grant. And as for the bigger picture question, which has always been important to me: “how am I contributing to science?”, I now realize that I am infinitely more valuable being a good grant writer, getting valuable funding for outstanding scientists, than spending a lifetime being a mediocre researcher (which I was).
So, where am I now? I have found a place where I can be a scientist. No, I am not on the frontline of research, and no, my work won’t find the cure for cancer. But, using my experience and knowledge, I will hopefully be essential in helping someone else to do that. Working with amazing scientists who have that potential and who have the most amazing vision has reinvigorated my passion for science. I see the big picture, I see the small picture, I see the beauty; I have rediscovered that child-like awe from all those years ago. I am a scientist and I have come full circle.
