IN FEBRUARY 1998, a member of Robert Kirshner鈥檚 astronomy team at Harvard University announced a startling finding about the expansion of the universe. Rather than slowing down as everyone expected, it appeared to be accelerating. Seven months later they published their findings and caused a major rethink of astrophysics.
Far from feeling deliriously happy, however, their overwhelming emotion was fear, says Kirshner. 鈥淲e were terrified that it was wrong,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 had this nagging fear that we鈥檇 forgotten to divide by the square root of pi.鈥�
Anxious as they were, they understood the importance of getting the work to press. If you鈥檙e interested in being credited for the discoveries you make, make sure that you are published first, says Kirshner. 鈥淩efereed publications in real journals have some role in documenting and being the scientific record.鈥� He also warns younger scientists to learn how to spot when research is solid enough to go to print. 鈥淕ood enough is good enough. Perfect might be too slow.鈥�
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聯Keep your eye out for unexpected results. It鈥檚 almost more exciting than getting the findings you predicted.聰
Fred Gage at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, who made the discovery that adult human brains can sprout new neurons, says he still grapples with that issue. His group published its findings on the strength of evidence of new neurons in just five human brains 鈥� after two and a half years of work. 鈥淚鈥檒l tell you, it was not a slam dunk,鈥� Gage says.
Like Kirshner, he agrees that the fight for discovery is never easily won. 鈥淥nce you make a discovery it鈥檚 an uphill battle,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou have to defend your work over and over.鈥�
Carol Greider was only 23 years old when she made the biggest discovery of her career. Working at the University of California, Berkeley, Greider discovered telomerase, an enzyme that adds DNA sequence repeats to the ends of chromosomes to make them longer. But unlike an accelerating universe and adult neurogenesis, its importance was at first unclear. 鈥淎t the time, it wasn鈥檛 obvious that it had any relevance. It was still just an enzyme,鈥� she says.
Telomerase has now become central to questions surrounding ageing, cancer and heart disease. 鈥淚 feel like I鈥檓 surfing on a wave and it just keeps going,鈥� says Greider, who now heads her own lab at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
All three researchers say good communication with colleagues is key to the discovery process. Gage鈥檚 group had been using a chemical label called BrdU to detect the division of cells in mouse brains, but it was only through chatting with Salk cancer biologists that they learned that the tracer was also used in people with cancer to gauge the proliferation of their tumours. It occurred to them that if these patients were growing new brain cells, BrdU would be labelling them too. 鈥淲e were just sitting around at a lab meeting,鈥� says Gage. 鈥淭here was lots of excitement.鈥� The interchange sparked their pivotal decision to look for evidence of new neurons in the brains of deceased cancer patients who had been injected with BrdU.
Equally important is a creative environment, says Greider. 鈥淚 had the freedom to follow the hunches I had,鈥� she says.
And all three underscore how vital it is to love what you do. Kirshner speaks of 鈥渁dventure鈥� and Greider of 鈥渢he fun of solving the puzzle鈥�. As for Gage, he still can鈥檛 believe his luck. 鈥淢y job is to discover new stuff!鈥�
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