Nature Nanotechnology - Asia Pacific and Beyond forum: topic
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The road to a Nature Nano paper...
Ai Lin Chun
Thursday, 27 March 2008 15:26 UTC
Happy spring wishes everyone! The cherry blossom trees in Tokyo are nearly in full bloom now…
I’ve been missing recently because of conferences and travels. Now back in the office.
During my recent trip, I had the opportunity to meet and speak with the first author of our March cover story, Dr. Ennio Tasciotti, a native Italian.
It was very enjoyable hearing his road to the success of this paper – from the planning of the experiments all the way to the writing. I’ve invited him to post his experience here and he has kindly agreed to share them with us. So, if you have any questions, please feel free to pose them to him on the forum.
Now, over to Ennio…
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I am so desperately waiting for this post…. Hopefully it is going to be a great help to me and others in this forum..
Nice of you to think about this….
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Hi Imtiaz,
Thanks for your post and interest on this topic!
I’ve contacted Ennio again and he has promised to post his thoughts soon.
Please do check back!
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Hi Ai Lin:
Thanks for the reply.Indeed the post by Ennio is going to be of great help to researchers like me. I am hoping that he will post his thinkings soon.
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Dear Ai Lin and dear Imtiaz,
sorry for being so elusive lately and for having failed to participate to this discussion for so long. I’m very happy to share with you my experience.
The idea to publish a paper in Nature was of course very “scary” for me. Nevertheless it was such an amazing learning experience that I warmly recommend every scientist to go for it. Nature journals are pervaded with the idea of being “impregnable fortresses” but this is not true. There is no such thing! There were reasons why I was reluctant to write my paper for such an important journal but then I realized that some of them should have not been taken in consideration. The first of these was the challenge to write the “perfect article” in a language that’s not yours!
I’m Italian so English is not my native language but the beauty of science is that an interesting project, well planned experiments, good data and significant results speak a language of their own. When you have a good combination of them you don’t have anything to be scared about! That’s basically what convinced me that I wanted my paper in Nature. I realized I had something innovative, potentially of high impact for a whole field of biomedical research (that is drug delivery) and very well characterized and described. It was a winning combination that I had never observed before. In any of my previous studies.
The idea of the paper came into being thanks to several “skull sessions” and brainstormings and dialogues I had with my boss, Prof. Mauro Ferrari, and thanks to his enlightened guidance.
He first convinced me to quit my job in Italy and to follow him in his new scientific adventure. At the time I was working as a project manager for a biotech company for which I developed and managed a core facility for in vivo molecular imaging. Prof. Ferrari was the director of the scientific advisory board and he was moving his lab from Ohio State to Houston Texas. I had a job I liked, a good salary and great expectations for my future but Dr. Ferrari made me change my mind in 1 hour. We started to talk about the technology he had developed in his lab and about their possible applications in the biomedical field. It was love at first sight. I still remember that meeting as one of the turning points of my life. I clearly realized that that was what I wanted to do. Since then I like to describe Dr. Ferrari as the only person I’ve ever met who’s able to talk to you for 10 minutes and plan your life for the next 10 years!
Anyhow, the transition from Italy to the States was not easy. The lab was an empty space, we were 5 people, Houston was light years away from the way I was used to leave and the expectations from the group were skyrocketing. Now we have a lab fully equipped with everything a scientist may dream about, Houston became home, and we’re so many (30 people and growing) that we’re always friendly fighting for space, computers, benches, instruments time etc. etc.. Looking back, the first months at the Medical Centre in Houston were probably the hardest of my entire life. But it was so much worth it! Now I also know why research is so productive in the States compared to anywhere else in the world. It’s not only about money (even if that doesn’t harm!). It’s more about the distribution of responsibilities and the commitment to success. That’s probably the biggest difference between an Italian lab and an American lab. Here in the States you have a lot of opportunities to prove yourself. And if you do your job well and achieve some goal you always get the proper recognition for it. That is what makes you strive. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about Italy. The greatest thing about working in the Nanomedicine Centre in Houston is to have the feeling that whatever you do, you will get the credit for it! That’s what happened in these last 2 years. Dr. Ferrari provided me with all the resources and means and tools to develop the idea but also, and more importantly, he left me the freedom to try something very risky and somehow revolutionary. Having a “not conservative” boss with a creative mind is the most fortunate event and it explains how the idea of the paper came into being. The way I made it happen is a much less interesting story. Probably very similar to the one every scientist can tell about any of their papers. It’s a story made of passion for your work, dedication to your experiments and faith in your intuitions. It took a lot of time and a lot of work to develop a solid mass of data to confirm our ideas and theories. It was a great experience to validate each of our assumptions and to demonstrate that what we proposed worked the way we proposed it! It was great to feel that what I had only imagined in my mind was actually happening in an eppendorf tube or in a tissue culture dish. Someone said:“Science is months of frustration for a 5 minute dance in the hallway” and I think that’s so true!
But even having all the data that fit your theory doesn’t make you a successful scientist.
You still have to publish them.
And it is very important to learn how to tell your story. When I started to write my paper I was obviously in love with my project, my ideas and my experiments. I just could not part from any of them. I wanted to use them all. The result was terrible. A paper that was 3 times longer than what it was allowed by Nature. A paper in which I used all the data, explained all the possible ways to read and interpret them and in which I made hypothesis on all the linked implications those data might have had. Even the more remote ones!
In few words, the wrong way to tell my story. It was impossible to read, too difficult to understand, and incredibly boring.
The secret was: SIMPLICITY.
That’s what an editor wants when he or she receives your paper, that’s what a reviewer wants when he or she comments your paper, that’s what another scientist wants when he or she reads your paper!
When I first wrote my paper (and believe me or not I rewrote it at least 10 times) I basically wrote it thinking in Italian. Very flowery… too flowery. While truth is, you don’t need to use too many words. And generally speaking, the simpler you keep your sentence the better. If I think about how many files I had gathered to generate a publication of only 8 pages…it’s something that still affects me! But those 8 pages tell everything that was important to say.
At the end of the day scientific English is a very simple language. You don’t have to use too many words. You don’t have to specify to many information in a single sentence. You don’t have to say everything you have in your mind. Keep it simple!
And that’s my last tip: read a lot of papers. Especially papers from the journal you want to publish in. I think I’ve read almost all the Nature Nanotechnology papers with a biomedical subject.
I know it’s not too much of an advice but it helped me. I hope it will make the difference to you too! So at the end of this long reply…the least you can do dear Imtiaz is to let me know when your first Nature paper is out…I’m already working at my next one! -
Dear Ennio: Thanks a lot for the post. I have been waiting for this one for so long. Like you said the key is ‘reading a lot of papers’ I am doing it right now. I have got some positive reply from the editor at one of the Nature journal and hopefully I will be able to draft the ‘perfect article’ if not in 10 drafts at least in 15 of them. Believe me your post will definitely help in coming up with some ideas to maintain ‘SIMPLICITY’ with my article.
I wish I can get some more ideas from you in near future.Dear Ai Lin: Thanks for reminding Ennio to post his experiences. It is going to be of great help…..
You both take care and regards…..
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Dear Ennio,
Thanks very much for the very detailed post from your heart. I hope to direct others here to read your experience and to post theirs.
Dear Imtiaz,
I am very glad to hear that you found these useful. If you have other ideas or topics that are of interest, please let me know.
Warmest and friendliest greetings from Tokyo,
-Ai Lin. -
Thank you, Ennio, for this excellent account, which I enjoyed reading very much!
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Fantastic to hear how it happens behind the scenes and that Every(wo)man Scientist can imagine themself in your shoes. And thanks to Maxine for pointing me here.
I think recognition and encouragement, rather than apathy if not jealousy, is an unrecognized job perk that is up there with salary, tenure, health insurance and the like. You are probably now engaged on a positive feedback loop – live it up!
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Hey, thanks a lot to you all for the warm comments and the nice words of appreciation for my contribution! I was very concerned about the way I should have described my experience. And I have to acknowledge that, once again, Ai Lin provided a fantastic guidance. She suggested me to follow my heart and, I quote, “let your feelings flow freely”.
That’s exactly what I did and I’m stoked you found it interesting!
Until later, I wish you all a great weekend!
Ennio -
Hi Ennio – thanks for a terrific post. As an editor, it’s useful for me to see what goes on in the mind of an author. I think your advice is very good. First – a great story is a great story, in any language. Second – scientific English is very simple. There is no need to make things more complicated than they need.
This reminds me of advice I got from my mother about cookery. My mother is an expert cook, so what she says about cooking is always worth listening to. Her advice is that you should buy the finest ingredients you can afford, and then do as little as possible with them. Good ingredients speak for themselves.
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