How in the world. . . ?
Oct. 7th, 2003 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bronwynrhSo, we have this collaborator, see? She's sent us all these strains, see. . . they're all supposed to be Agrobacterium tumefaciens of various and sundry sorts.
I've spent lots of time working with them, running experiments, scratching my head, wondering why they didn't yield the expected results. I ran supplemental experiments to figure out why they didn't grow properly, I questioned methods at which I am expert, I tried new approaches - did I mention I spent lots of time? Oh yes, we also spent thousands of dollars over the years working with all these strains. We're talking almost a dozen of them.
So, we hear rumblings in the "community" about these strains. . . they're not right. . . they may not be Agro. Uh oh, this sounds familiar, what's going on? Why hasn't she checked? Didn't she check? Shit, we'd better just bite the bullet, spend some more time and money and check them out for ourselves - do what should have been done in the first place.
Yeah. Every single goddamn strain she ever sent to us. . .
Escherichia coli
That may mean something to only a few of you, but it should be pretty clear that this is BAD NEWS. I just found out today that the last strain, the one we held out some hope for because it had been generated in a different manner than the others (and we'd been assured that it was ok) . . . yeah. It's E. coli, too. There go another set of experimental results down the crapper.
All of that work, all of that time, all of that money, and we know nothing from it. I still have plenty of my own, the problem is that I gained nothing from my investment in THIS stuff. THIS was wasted, and THIS was a significant investment.
She knows about the rest of the strains, but not about the latest one. We haven't heard back from her yet, nor have we heard back from her since we received our manuscript reviews. We don't know what she's thinking or what she's planning to do. I want her name off my manuscript, but I don't know if I can do it, or if she'll want off anyway.
What a mess.
I've spent lots of time working with them, running experiments, scratching my head, wondering why they didn't yield the expected results. I ran supplemental experiments to figure out why they didn't grow properly, I questioned methods at which I am expert, I tried new approaches - did I mention I spent lots of time? Oh yes, we also spent thousands of dollars over the years working with all these strains. We're talking almost a dozen of them.
So, we hear rumblings in the "community" about these strains. . . they're not right. . . they may not be Agro. Uh oh, this sounds familiar, what's going on? Why hasn't she checked? Didn't she check? Shit, we'd better just bite the bullet, spend some more time and money and check them out for ourselves - do what should have been done in the first place.
Yeah. Every single goddamn strain she ever sent to us. . .
Escherichia coli
That may mean something to only a few of you, but it should be pretty clear that this is BAD NEWS. I just found out today that the last strain, the one we held out some hope for because it had been generated in a different manner than the others (and we'd been assured that it was ok) . . . yeah. It's E. coli, too. There go another set of experimental results down the crapper.
All of that work, all of that time, all of that money, and we know nothing from it. I still have plenty of my own, the problem is that I gained nothing from my investment in THIS stuff. THIS was wasted, and THIS was a significant investment.
She knows about the rest of the strains, but not about the latest one. We haven't heard back from her yet, nor have we heard back from her since we received our manuscript reviews. We don't know what she's thinking or what she's planning to do. I want her name off my manuscript, but I don't know if I can do it, or if she'll want off anyway.
What a mess.
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(no subject)
Date: October 7th, 2003 10:10 am (UTC)so I gather it might be a good idea to avoid pissing off Clay today???
(no subject)
Date: October 7th, 2003 11:25 am (UTC)His 40th birthday is on Friday, by the way. Don't forget!
(no subject)
Date: October 7th, 2003 10:28 am (UTC)I spent a semester as an undergrad trying to probe for the SAR-11 critters in environmental samples. Near the end, when my results weren't making sense, my advisor said to me, "Oh, were you using probes that X made? You should never trust your results with them."
At least with me it was only an undergraduate project wasted.
(no subject)
Date: October 7th, 2003 11:26 am (UTC)S....H....E..........I...T
Date: October 7th, 2003 11:26 am (UTC)Re: S....H....E..........I...T
Date: October 7th, 2003 11:45 am (UTC):-/ I basically don't trust the results because I haven't been able to repeat them, and I don't want the association.
Meh. We'll see.