Well, it’s not quite the same as getting something published in Nature, but I got my study cited in a news article on Nature.com

This was one of those chance findings that cropped up whilst I was giving a talk to a patient support group, and whilst nowhere near as robust as say, an epidemiological study, is probably more succesful as a news story because it is interesting.

Just as a bit of media training BTW, we knew straight from the outset that we had to be very careful to “manage the message”, and we were not entirely pleased when the piece on page 6 of The Sun was along the lines of “Boffins say football causes MND”, which of course we didn’t.

Fortunately my co-authors and I believe that raising public awareness of a disease is as important as doing oodles and oodles of pure research (which we do as well!), but just bear in mind that you have to let go of complexity when relating to the mass media.

If anyone’s got an interesting or even slightly controversial research findings I would strongly suggest you make the case to your university / employer that you need to be sent on media training. If nothing else it gives you confidence and a few tricks to let the journos know you are “a player”.