Swim against the current. Bet on effective headings. Listen for advice.
Eight young scientists who have recently been awarded their initial grants by the Swedish Cancer Society and the Swedish Research Council spoke about how they gained a hearing for their applications. Here are their top suggestions of what to do to win an award.
The eight research scholars shared their experiences with the audience at the well-attended Young Scientists’ Day on Tuesday, May 21.
Malin Levin chose San Francisco and Gladstone Institutes for her postdoctoral work. Today she is back at the Wallenberg Laboratory where she researches strategies for the heart to secure energy supplies in the event of a heart infarction.
She emphasized the support she has received from senior research scientists over the years – support that has been invaluable.
– Consider from the start whether you really wish to undertake an academic career. Listen to advice. Ask lots of questions – all the time. Evaluate the answers. Let others read and comment on your applications for research grants. Work hard, advised Malin Levin.
Impacts the environment
Joakim Larsson conducts his cross-disciplinary research into the way pharmaceuticals affect the environment. Many of the genes that make germs resistant originate from harmless germs in our environment. This is not a new quality but germs have been carrying them for millions of years.
Three factors can, individually, get resistant genes to make the ill-fated jump into the human bacterial flora:
– A large accumulation of germs, close contact and highly selective pressures, stated Joakim Larsson, Professor in the Department of Biomedicine.
He gave some firm advice to research scientists who wish to become successful and gain a hearing for their grant applications.
– Be open-minded, pick your co-workers from different backgrounds. Combine creativity with critical thinking. Select only a few ideas for further development. And swim against the current, advices Joakim Larsson.
Powerful
Erik Larsson works in Bioinformatics and possesses “Docent competence” in the Department of Biomedicine. He uses powerful computers to analyze large
amounts of sequential data from tumors—to understand how human cells are working.
He did his postdoctoral work at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Previously, in an E-News interview, he described Sloan-Kettering as an extremely inspiring place to conduct his research.
–In the future, my research may lead to new diagnoses or alternatively, new remedies, said Erik Larsson who has been honored with the Ingvar Carlsson Award for homecoming Swedish postdocs.
Potential
Huamei Forsman started by showing a thrilling film sequence of a germ that is finally caught by a leucocyte. In her research, she focuses on molecules with an exciting anti-inflammatory potential, so-called formylpeptid receptors.
Mucus
Malin Larsson researches the mucus membrane of the intestines. She emphasized the importance of international cooperation, being passionate about one’s work and abruptly summarized her advice to grant applicants: only answer two questions:
– ”Why is this research important? Why am I the right scientist to do it?”
Heading important
Stefano Romeo had the opportunity to conduct his research in Italy, United States and Great Britain before he arrived at the Wallenberg Laboratory in Gothenburg. His key research question is about why certain obese individuals are still metabolically healthy. He was serious about emphasizing the importance of the heading of a project in order to gain acceptance for a grant application:
– My project bore the title ”The Genetic Protection against Insuline Resistance”. The heading must be brief and attract attention. Spend a great deal of effort to think it over, Stefano Romeo mentioned.
Even the text – both content and spelling – are worth a fair amount of effort, in addition to letting others read it, he pointed out.
Depicting the brain
Justin Schneiderman is physicist and engineer – and actively engaged in MedTechWest at Chalmers and the University of Gothenburg. In his research, he is developing a new instrument for depicting brains. Justin Schneiderman mentioned that he learned the most from his unsuccessful applications. His inability to explain the difference between his own research and the direction of the other members of his research group was a bad mistake.
– Start early to work on your application. Begin by making sure that you understand the rules that apply. Put in some additional effort on the first page. Feature a lot of pictures and illustrations, Justin
Schneiderman advised.
Seized by panic
Ingrid Wernstedt Asterholm related how she was seized by panic when she realized that she would soon no longer be counted among young scientific scholars.
– At the last minute, I understood that the date when I was defending my thesis was also my birthday as a research scientist and that from this date on, I would only get increasingly older. I started feeling the clock ticking and desperately began to look for my great discovery—the finding that would shape the remainder of my research career, Ingrid Wernstedt Asterholm stated.
She never made her great discovery but realized that her strength and what she had accomplished so far was good enough.
– Build a research program around your strenghts, be persistent without being obstinate and expect many rejections before you finally meet with success in applying for a research grant, according to Ingrid Wernstedt Asterholm.
The program during the Young Scientists Day:
Malin Levin: Everybody’s got a hungry heart
Joakim Larsson: Our drugs in their water
Erik Larsson: Role of non-coding RNAs in cancer – novel insights from large-scale data
Huamei Forsman: Formyl peptide receptors – molecules with an exciting anti-inflammatory potential
Malin Johansson: Intestinal border control relies on a slimy security guard
Stefano Romeo: Human genetics – reading the future in the crystal ball
Justin Schneiderman: 4D Brain Imaging from the Ground Up – The road from ”That sounds interesting, but…” to VR support
Ingrid Wernstedt Asterholm: Fat Gut Feeling & Survival of the Persistent – Field-observations of a somewhat “old-fashioned” junior physiologist