• Question: what was your most difficult /upsetting moment during science ?

    Asked by Ami_awesome to Chris, Hayley, Jimi, Maddison, Omur on 15 Mar 2016. This question was also asked by 492gaget23.
    • Photo: Jimi Wills

      Jimi Wills answered on 15 Mar 2016:

      The worst feelings are when:

      1) the freezer breaks down (or other equpment breaks down) and you lose all your samples
      2) the computer breaks and you lose your work (I always back up on the cloud)
      3) an experiment doesn’t work at all and you’ve no idea why
      4) you write an article about the work you did, but the journal you write to doesn’t want to publish
      5) stage fright at a conference
      6) you run out of time/money and didn’t finish what you wanted to do

    • Photo: Hayley Moulding

      Hayley Moulding answered on 15 Mar 2016:

      My most upsetting moment during my science is knowing that there isn’t much I can do to help a family or children with genetic syndromes. Sometimes despite all we try to do, the child is really struggling and there isn’t much we can do. I do all that I can and we try and make the understanding of the syndrome easier, but there are too many things for us to help sometimes. This just means I can’t do anything to make their lives easier, and there is still some struggle.

    • Photo: Omur Tastan

      Omur Tastan answered on 16 Mar 2016:

      The third year of my Phd, I had a project I was in love with. I was examining different chromatin marks in stem cells and trying to find a pattern of active and silenced genes. It wasn’t as we thought it was but I had a lot of pretty data and I had to let all that go and start a new project. I started working on my flies and just cried sliently. My boss, Dennis McKearin, he was like a father, God bless him, he patted me on the shoulder and said “It’s OK”.

      I guess this was one of most upsetting ones 🙂

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