It is midnight and I am hunched over the laptop in the living room. The rest of the family has gone to bed, leaving me at work. I think I have packed everything into the appropriate file so there is time for a Blog before bed.
Although I am on sabbatical I have found that I have spent most of my newly free time getting rid of the backlog of papers and grant intentions that have accumulated over the recent past. This week has seen one paper submitted and three more returned to post-docs for them to submit. We have also got three others ready for conference proceedings.
Today has been spent preparing a grant application for the BBSRC “Tools and Resources” call. I managed to get something out of this call last year so am I feeling lucky? I am trying to continue funding my inkjet printing projects where we are trying to fabricate “tissue analogue structures” from living cells. The work sounds sexy to the general public but has a whiff of snake oil to some scientists. When I first tried to get funding from the Wellcome Trust for this it was rejected as impossible by one referee and trivial by the other. Still we have persevered and with the EPSRC funding our equipment we are making progress. I have one bid being processed by the MRC and a friendly clinician to work with. We have also just got a studentship from a charity but it has to be filled by January. I have another proposal that should be submitted in this area but the idea needs more work before I feel confident enough to write the proposal.
Meanwhile, I have a completely different area of work where yet another proposal is being prepared. As well as this life science interface/bioengineering work, I have interests in mechanical properties of materials and we have been doing some very interesting work on the mechanics of nanowires. I have a paper under review that is battling with a referee/editor and I hope it will get sorted out soon. We have some really interesting results that use an obvious approach that no-one else has reported. I am worried that we will get scooped. We will present the results at a meeting in 3 weeks time but I am still nervous as it seems really surprising that our ideas have not been thought out in parallel elsewhere.
Biran – I am still nervous as it seems really surprising that our ideas have not been thought out in parallel elsewhere.
Such are the demons that appear at midnight! I am well impressed (and shamed) by your productivity!
Sorry – of course I meant to write Brian! The sad thing is that I had previewed my last comment before submission…
@Stephen
Its better than being labeled Brain – a much more common misspelling. I was once down as Biryani mind you.
@Brian – I was once down as Biryani mind you.
And just what is so terrible about being named after Indian food…? ;-)
My dad was sometimes referred to as “Adrain”, nuch to his mixed annoyance and mirth.
Brian, let’s hope that the journal concerned, when they’ve sorted it all out, has an advance online publication system.
Nuch? And I thought I was being so careful to preview, it is obviously past my bedtime – not quite the midnight hour but everyone else has gone to bed/sleep so I must do the same..