Space: Digest

Ten steps to master the art of peer review From Nature

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 18:55:37 GMT

http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2006/061019/full/nj7113-880b.html

Ten steps to master the art of peer review.

The peer-review process provides an opportunity for clinicians and scientists to train their fellows and postgraduate students as part of a one-on-one journal-club exercise. Supervisors can assess students' critical thinking and writing skills early in their careers. Consider these ten steps to teach the art of reviewing.

1) Explain how to proceed with a peer review, stressing the importance of respecting confidentiality and the rules of the journal or grant body.

2) Establish a submission deadline. The review process should take up to three hours. Set a time for final discussion before the deadline, allowing both student and supervisor time to read and review the work.

3) Adopt the right mindset. Don't accept the manuscript 'as is', and don't be hypercritical. The student might imagine that it's their own manuscript about to be rejected, and that they have the opportunity to improve it.

4) Read the manuscript once, taking rudimentary notes.

5) Follow the journal-specific author and reviewer instructions. Note those pertaining to the category of the manuscript, the word length, abstract structure and the format for references, figures and tables.

6) Verify each citation with PubMed or similar — which also gives you a chance to read generally on the topic. Highlighting minor citation errors shows that the paper has been read thoroughly. Ask the following: does the submitted work complement or duplicate the authors' and others' previous work?

7) Re-read the manuscript armed with the specific author instructions and good background knowledge.

8) Write the review envisaging that the editor is too busy to read the manuscript in-depth. Summarize the key features in a paragraph, stating the topic of the paper, what was performed, the key conclusions drawn, why this is important, and why this is a novel contribution. Strengths or problems with the manuscript or methodology should then be detailed.

9) Write all comments as if they will be seen by the authors. Although most reviewers are anonymous, caution students that a disgruntled author could recognize one's spelling variances, grammar or clichés.

10) Submit the review, telling the editor the review was written with a student and that you agree with their assessment. Show the student the submitted review as well as the editor's and other reviewers' comments.

Silent running: the race to the clinic

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 14:15:41 GMT

Silent running: the race to the clinic

A technique for turning genes off has sparked a flurry of biotech investment. Erika Check investigates.

Nature 442, 614-615(10 August 2006) | doi:10.1038/442614a; Published online 9 August 2006

Silence is golden — at least, that's what two US biotechnology companies are hoping. They aim to reap the rewards of bringing a method for silencing genes into the clinic, where they claim it could lead to treatments for everything from viral diseases to cancer.

The technique, known as RNA interference or RNAi, could offer a safe and effective way of turning off a gene. And, although it is early days, many see it as a likely moneyspinner for the biotechnology industry.

"It is a while away from being an impactful sector," says Sapna Srivastava, an analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York. "But it has the potential to be really big."

Two well-funded companies are leading the way for now: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Sirna Therapeutics of Boulder, Colorado. These two firms are jousting over intellectual-property rights, and each has been forging corporate alliances in a bid to capitalize on RNAi's potential.

What makes a good PhD student?

Thu, 11 May 2006 21:48:52 GMT

This is an article published in Nature Nature 441, 252 (May 2006) advising on PhD study which I thought is very helpful and posted below.

What makes a good PhD student?

Georgia Chenevix-Trench, principal research fellow at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Royal Brisbane Hospital, Herston, Australia.

Doing a PhD should be fun and rewarding, because you can spend all your working time discovering things and pursuing ideas — and getting paid for it, without any administrative responsibilities. Those who stick with a career in science do so because, despite the relatively poor pay, long hours and lack of security, it is all we want to do.

Unfortunately most new PhD students are ill-prepared, and as a consequence very few will fulfil their aspirations to be independent scientists. The main reasons for this are the 'grade creep' inherent at most universities, making it difficult to identify the really talented first-class graduates from the rest, and the pressure on universities to graduate as many PhD students as possible. The consequence is that we enrol far too many of them without telling them clearly what doing a doctorate should entail. We therefore set ourselves, and the students, on a path of frustration and disappointment.

So what should we be telling prospective PhD students?

Choose a supervisor whose work you admire and who is well supported by grants and departmental infrastructure.
Take responsibility for your project.
Work hard — long days all week and part of most weekends. If research is your passion this should be easy, and if it isn't, you are probably in the wrong field. Note who goes home with a full briefcase to work on at the end of the day. This is a cause of success, not a consequence.
Take some weekends off, and decent holidays, so you don't burn out.
Read the literature in your immediate area, both current and past, and around it. You can't possibly make an original contribution to the literature unless you know what is already there.
Plan your days and weeks carefully to dovetail experiments so that you have a minimum amount of downtime.
Keep a good lab book and write it up every day.
Be creative. Think about what you are doing and why, and look for better ways to go. Don't see your PhD as just a road map laid out by your supervisor.
Develop good writing skills: they will make your scientific career immeasurably easier.
To be successful you must be at least four of the following: smart, motivated, creative, hard-working, skilful and lucky. You can't depend on luck, so you had better focus on the others!