Black Box: In The Background of Scientific Discoveries
Who are you and what are you researching? Why did you decide for this research area?
Hi, Jona.
Hello.
It's nice to see you again. We know
each other from before,
but perhaps
you should introduce yourself to
others, who may not know you yet.
And tell us what you research. I'd like to know that too.
Actually, I'm not really sure, what you're working on,
what you're researching,
so I'm interested in that.
Yeah, the last we spoke
was before you moved to London,
so it's been a while ago.
Yeah, quite some time has passed since.
So, my name is Jona,
I have a PhD in chemistry,
and my main research area is
organic chemistry.
I am a synthesis chemist.
I recenty started working in a new job.
I was employed at the Faculty of chemistry and chemical technology in Ljubljana,
where I was working on my doctoral thesis as a junior researcher,
but now I've been working
in our pharmaceutical company
Krka in Novo Mesto for three months.
This is a generics company,
which produces generic drugs.
I work on substances research and development,
so I'm actually synthesizing and preparing substances.
That's a very short summary.
How about you, Nace? What are you doing?
I am trained as a molecule biologist,
and I am working for a company Genialis.
This is a bioinformatics company,
which deals with, well,
tools, with which biologists can analyse data.
So this means that
we are trying to develop a user-friendly online platform,
which enables an analysis of biological data.
Right now I am in London as a part of a European project,
where we are also developing one type of these visualisations.
Specifically for metabolyic engineering and synthetic biology.
Woah, that sounds very complicated.
It is not so complicated.
So, how did you say, Nace? You are a molecular biologist?
Molecule functional biologist, yes,
but I would simply label myself as a biologist.
I see.
I'm interested in how you get from these ...
So if I understand this correctly, your work has a lot to do with programming as well?
But as a biologist you also do your work by
programming and by doing statistics, if I remember correctly?
You also do statistics, right?
Yes, there is also some statistics.
Well, now in my current job
I actually work in bioinformatics.
So it has to do with analysing biological data.
But I also work on web development,
so the actual software development.
So it is actually a
very nice combination of computer science
and biology, which
also has to be present.
What is your motivation? What drives your research?
So what motivates you to do that? What drives your work?
It is a
very pleasant experience,
when from some very very large database
we manage to get some biological findings.
Even if I am not actually working on this. I am
not actually looking for discoveries
or answering some biological questions from these large databeses.
What we do at Genialis is
that we actually develop tools,
which help other researchers in biology
to use the tools to answer their biological questions.
So yes,
that's kind of it.
And when you see that you can
contribute in answering these
biological scientific questions,
it is, at least for me very nice and interesting.
Very interesting.
Because we probably have
so much information lately, and how does one get something out of it, some conclusions?
Exactly.
Well, very interesting.
May I ask you why you decided for a research career
when you finished your studies?
What drove you
to decide first for
your area, and second
that you embarked on a research career?
I'm not sure, but chemistry has always interested me.
I think it was this wish to understand it.
I think some saying,
which I heard at the introduction to prospective students, sums it up very well.
So, "Look, there's chemistry all around us.
Everywhere, in food,
look around, the things you have,
and last but not the least, there's always chemistry between two people in love, right?"
Doesn't this sum it up very well?
This really motivated me,
so I said to myself, well, you cannot understand everything,
but I would like to know as much as possible.
This was actually my motto.
And that … I actually
also see a deeper mission, because I can also contribute to society this way.
So this was also
one of the reasons, why I wanted to stay at the university,
because I wanted to experience academic research.
So the research where you're not so limited,
where you have more freedom to try some things out, to think,
look at things and see what happens.
In a way, that I did some very basic research, which will probably only be useful in, say,
a hundred years or so before it may be applicable.
But now I'm working in industry. This, to me,
is an incredible experience, because you know what every experiment should achieve,
and that in the end there wll be some drug, some substance, which you
developed in a lab and it will benefit many people at the end.
This is a really good feeling. A good feeling,
which I may have missed a bit at the university,
because the connection between my research and the recipients was not as direct, not as quick.
I mean quick, we speak of some ten years,
before your work benefits actual people.
But this really, really drives me in chemistry.
Was that also the reason why you decided to leave academia and go into industry?
Because of a better applicability of the stuff you work on,
or was there some other reason?
So I figured that I would like to know what industry is like,
because I think it is much different to academia.
There's this applicability, I think that's a much greater external motivation,
because I feel that my research may be
actually useful much faster.
Besides this,
I also wanted to see how work in industry is done,
because funding is much different here,
because everybody needs to contribute something. It is very goal-oriented.
On the other hand, at the university, in academia, there's much more freedom.
At least I had more freedom when I was researching for my doctoral thesis.
What differences do you notice between research in academia and industry?
And you, Nace, do you also have some experiences,
so that you could compare research in academia and in industry
for the projects you're working on?
I haven't yet participated in academic research.
The research has been more like,
"OK, so we have some biological problem,
well not we, but rather the biologists have it,
and how will we now,
how could we develop some solution for this problem."
So to me the biggest difference between academic and our research is,
that, as you mention,
in academia you often convey some very basic research,
not so applicable,
while the nature of research, if this could even be called research,
in the industry is much more applicable.
So what you are doing has to have
some bigger effect.
For example, that it addresses some very specific problems.
But I think it is very important to have this cooperation
between the industry and academia.
The exchange of knowledge from one side to the other,
or both-sided exchange,
is necessary. Well, "necessary", I think that
many very nice things may come out if this connection very strong.
I think I have also
noticed this since I started working on this project,
because we are an European consortium of
multiple academic institutions,
so multiple universities, but also many companies,
so that this collaboration of the two
spheres is very fruitful.
Oh, great. I also think that
these connections are starting to get more common.
I think it's getting better.
For example, when I was an undergrad student, I would have loved more such opportunities
to get accustomed with both academia and industry when you are still a student.
But I think this collaboration is developing.
I think, that this is definitely the right direction
for us researches.
If I may ask, how did you as a researcher,
who started working at the university
and later moved into industry,
what do you think the nature of this research is?
How do you see it? What are the differences like or what do you think is the biggest difference?
Yes, I think that, as you mentioned,
that in academia one might have
especially more available time. So you have more time
to look deeper into some particular thing,
to stop at one particular thing,
which seems perhaps a little bit more interesting and you then look more into it.
And also if it doesn't turn out to be successful, which is very common in chemistry,
you may still try to go in another direction and pick up something interesting there.
In industry, on the other hand, it's a fact that
time is money and
that we are very goal-orienteed,
so we don't look deeper into things,
we usually do not go deeper into details,
because we are only interested in results,
and that's our main goal. To achieve what you want.
So we are not interested in the process as such and what goes on.
This, I think, is a major difference.
What do you think about promoting science? Do you think it is important, perhaps necessary eveil?
Do you think it is important
that, for example,
people know about us? Do you think it is important to promote
what we are doing?
Or how much do you think people in general should understand our work?
How much of an opinion do you have on this?
I think this is very important.
It's very important if not even necessary, because
I think science is often, even in media, somewhat overlooked,
because it demands extra attention,
at least from a journalist point of view it takes longer to research these topic,
so that they can be summed up correctly.
I think it's as you said, time is money also holds
in other spheres, I think, so science
is somewhat dismissed, sidetracked.
But I think that recently
the promotion of science has greatly improved.
I think there have been some great things like
Metin podcast, Znanost na cesti [Science on the streets] and Frekvenca X at Val 202 are great series,
which focus on popular science, but stay accurate in
bringing science to a broader audience.
I think there should be more of this and I think that everybody could,
I believe that, just like everybody may find something interesting in sports
or something interesting in culture,
I am 100% sure that everybody could also find something interested in science.
Perhaps we need more time to get to the common ground,
and a bit more of explaining,
but I think that this common ground may be worth even more
in science.
I think, at least I'm noticing this,
that we need to find some balance in how specialised we are
and how to explain in a simple way
what you are doing.
I think this also comes out in collaboration with
journalists, who perhaps are not familiar with these topics, and with a lot of discussions.
I think that some great things may come out of this in the end. All the things you mentioned are
very, very good.
I think it is also very important, as you mentioned,
that you missed it as an undergraduate student,
that you missed this connection to industry.
So I think that more should also be done here.
For example, I thiink that already in high school or elementary school,
science should be more promoted. So that also
children and youth would be exposed to it,
that they would have a better insight into what scientists do.
I think this also comes into promotion of science.
If youth is educated
in this spirit, then
even if they do not decide to go into science,
I think that
they are later much more
open to science.
Yes, and I also think it was very interesting because one of the projects I worked on
when I was a doctoral candidate
was that I participated in writing a new elementary school chemistry textbook.
Because I think it would be very beneficial
if we allowed for more freedom
in the sciences and in
research oriented classes. I think that this is one such step,
and I believe even more steps will be made in this direction,
and that it will enable
this genuine curiosity in children,
what something means. I think that there may be
a very large potential to bring
natural sciences and science in general to a broader audience.
I think that if we light up this curiousity in children,
that a lot will already be done.
Because I think that what follows from this, you as a researcher
probably noticed this,
that once the curiosity has been switched on, it is probably very hard to stop you.
I think this is
a real beauty of the whole scientific work. After all,
it answers questions and looks for the unknown.
You learn so much when you are put in the position of not yet knowing.
Also how you approach things, how you collaborate with people around you to get to the answers
you are looking for. So I think that
our science has so much broadness,
that it is really incredible.
I agree.
But how do you see promotion of science as such?
We discussed this a bit, but how would that be
from a financial perspective?
Do you think that funding on this more academic level
limits us sometimes?
Because I think it has already started that even in academia
you have to ever more frequently boldly promote
things you are working on,
so that you can even work on them.
Because I think it's getting more related to funding.
I know that it used to be more lax in the past.
Do you have any opinion on that?
I haven't yet been exposed to academic research,
so I cannot say, how more could be done in this area.
But I think that obviously ...
Well, with some general knowledge about science and some general awareness
we could achieve more, after all also regarding funding.
It's a feedback loop, or a circle, right?
Do you think it's hard to get
say, as an early career researcher
who wants to research and has
internal drive,
do you think being in this position is highly restricted because of the funding issues?
I didn't feel this myself because I was a junior researcher
and this meant my funding was stable,
but I have noticed this when I went to some conferences and similar events, well, it was interesting to me that
some research groups with an established renomee
that have already found some results, published, I don't know,
highly cited papers, that they much more funding, so they can afford to hire more people,
which research in some direction. But if, for example,
you want to get into some specific area, which really interests you,
but no group works on this,
or if you do not get into a strong research group,
then I think that you may have a bit of a problem.
So you might come to, say, okay,
now I seriously have to discover something, do something,
achieve something, so that I will have some good paper
and our research group will get better funding opportunities
and then I can research something that really really interests me and keeps me up at night.
But as I said, that's more second-hand experience
from my colleagues from other groups, so that sometimes,
you cannot really go into some direction because there's no funding to do so.
Chemistry is particularly special in this aspect. We have a saying:
"Don't worry, because in 95% of experiments, you will not get what you want."
But then you get a cherry on the top, these 5%, when chemistry opens up to you.
But sometimes it's financially hard to get over the 95, which are necessary to get some conclussions.
What differences do you notice in doing research in Slovenia and abroad?
I think the difference is especially in that,
what I also asked Jona about. For example,
that you have some idea at the beginning of your scientific carrer and you want to research it,
but here, abroad, the universities are much bigger,
and because they also get more funding,
I think that you also get a bigger selection of laboratories, for example,
or topics, where you can contribute.
Also the labs; even if they are just
a little bit broader, you may still manage to come in with your question.
That's at least my experience here at Imperial [Imperial College London],
I think that because of all the available funds
they are more likely to, say,
accommodate your question, your research project.
That's why I asked.
But do you … What's your opinion about
going abroad to get experience,
which you could not get here in Slovenia?
As a matter of fact, as you said, there are so many research directions, and it's easier
to get into them abroad.
So that then you bring that knowledge you gained abroad back to Slovenia,
because we do not have it here yet,
and you start something new? What do you think about that?
Yes, I completely agree with what you said.
I think it is always worth it and good to return back to your local environment,
because you after all received a lot from it.
Be it to return to the place, where you went to elementary school, or the country, where you studied.
I think it often happens,
at least I have many colleagues, who went to study abroad and then they also did their PhD there,
and then they just stay there and they
get positions there and never come back.
But I think it's nice that you respect what you received from your local environment
and that you then also return back to it.
Did you ever have a wish to
get more knowledge abroad, or what's keeping you home?
I think so, yes, I always have this wish to research.
But I think that in my specific area, which highly interests me,
my home environment gave me many opportunities and challenges, which
grabbed my attention and I wanted to get more into details with.
But I believe that I will
find some results, where I will have to go look for extra knowledge abroad.
I agree with you, this has become very valuable to me,
because I gained so much from this incredible land.
I have so many options,
and that's why I would like to bring this back home.
I think that I can already, although I'm still young
and I can still learn a lot, but I can already also give a lot
and that's why I am happy to have the option to do this
here in Slovenia.
I think this is a good thing here in our country, perhaps
it's even easier here than abroad. I don't have any experience with other countries,
but I think it was really great, that I had the possibility
to participate in writing an elementary school textbook. That I could
give my ideas, because I remember my experiences with chemistry back then,
and I know what I missed to light my spark back then even more.
It was lit, but perhaps the flame could be even bigger.
I have no experience how that would be in other countries,
but I think that is very very good here.
We can do a lot if only we are open to environment and the activities around us.
How do you get new research ideas? What role does creativity play in your research?
How do you find ideas?
I think,
as I have already mentioned,
that I do not do typical research,
but perhaps
it is exactly because of this intermediary position,
where I develop software, which helps biologists,
so I look at this process from a biologist's viewpoint
and I also see it as an actual developer,
so I think that's quite important.
I think that
most ideas are born in this process, so, how to perhaps
provide a better user experience or how to
make
things more intuitive for, say, biologists.
So that would be my answer,
I'm doing this instead of biologists.
But I think that once the wheels start to roll,
I think that then the process
runs smoothly, and we get to some point where it opens up again,
say, now our analysis brought us
to this step, and now we want
to get biologists to answer their question. And how may we,
in what way can we help in getting these answers?
Then we have this interesting mixture
of various profiles.
Interesting. Because my experience was,
well, when I finished my undergraduate studies,
I thought that chemistry happens they way it's written in books.
And then I started researching for my disertation,
and I figured that in most cases it does not follow the books.
So how to come to new ideas ...
Well, experience you gained on the way helps a lot.
So that you have many,
I will now mostly speak about chemistry, because, well ...
For example, for my disertation I had to produce some completely new molecules.
We first put our ideas on the paper, but you then have to test if it works in the lab.
And you often see that it doesn't.
Then you turn to literature and read a lot. You're trying to find some similar parts in the structure.
So, a-ha, perhaps this will work in my case too,
and you go and try.
Then sometimes it happens that
an idea emerges from your hindbrain,
so an idea you're not even sure where it came from,
"I've tried this and this already and nothing works. There's nothing to lose, so let's try this as well.
It sounds a bit strange, but, oh well, I don't know, let's just try it out."
And in chemistry the situation's often so that
we only know few things in advance.
We have all the literature,
and then we say, "Hey, this might be how it works," but then we're all smart in hinderance.
And then we analyse everything and we're like, "See, that's how we believe this thing goes," and then we try it
on something else and it also works there, "So this probably holds!"
But things also often happen by luck.
But that's luck is not a case of
pulling a Homer.
It's luck that comes from all the experience, all the papers you've read,
and studying some purely theoretical reactions, which you've never dealt with in lab, only on paper.
So we get an interesting combination.
Actually, just a couple days ago,
I was in contact with some pedagogue,
who deals a lot with our school system,
and it was very interesting to me, because she said that when it comes to creativity,
arts are in the first place, so music ed,
art and other similar school classes, but
right after that, chemistry falls in the second place.
It enables a lot of creativity, exactly because
things may surprises you.
So I think that's exactly, as we discussed earlier, this curiosity, what will happen,
this extra layer, because not everything has been nor will never be known.
Things will never be so predictable, that we wouldn't need to test them in labs.
Nature always takes care that what you expect does not turn out exactly as you expected.
Then you have to get into details and find a solution how to know it next time.
I think that's a beauty of it all.
So I think the ideas emerge from here, from
all the experience, and somewhat also from the enthusiasm
and this curiosity, "What happens if I do this and that?"
Ahem, I can't answer this yet, but
I will check, try to analyse and then reconstruct the steps and try to figure out why this happened.
I think that's how these things go, at least for me.
So you think that creativity is very important for science?
Do you think we need to
draw a line somewhere between creativity and,
well, how to draw a line between the creativity and natural laws?
Because you're saying
that we cannot define them precisely yet, or they may turn out to be a little bit different than what we expected.
But at the same time we shouldn't cross the line back and forth too much.
Yes, I think that
there are many helpful things to be found in books,
but I think we soon hit this, well,
this may sound a bit strange, but
if we just turn to quantum mechanics a bit,
and if we just want to have some equations for the hydrogen atom, there's already so much to calculate,
that our computers are not even capable of doing more complex things yet.
I think this sums it up pretty well.
So despite the molecule being such a small thing,
there's a very large world inside this molecule,
which we don't yet know how to describe with computer systems,
because our computers are not yet capable of this.
But about setting the line as such,
I think that
in academia the line may probably be allowed to be set up a little bit higher.
You have more time, more
of this, as I said before, being able to looking a bit into this and that, and then you look into one more thing.
But nevertheless,
I think that at least some of this creativity has to be nurtured
even intentionally and even in industry. Because I think that
some things come out of it, so you may do
something more efficiently, which is important for us,
so we can do something in quantitative transformation,
so we don't only get 10% of what we wanted.
So that we can get around using, for example,
some ecologically less suitable chemicals.
This is,
well, creativity is very welcome in all of these things.
So I would like to intentionally work more on this creativity.
So that we could be a bit more relaxed here,
that we would dare
to really come up with all the ideas.
Even if we don't know where they came from at first,
and that we could then research them.
This has always been beneficial for me.
I would like to encourage this
in all scientific areas.
Does this answer your question?
It does, thanks.
Nace, it was very nice talking to you.
Yes, Jona, it was great hearing you again. Thanks a lot for this pleasant chat to you too.
Greetings to London.
Greetings back home!
Recorded and hosted by Borut Trpin, Ljubljana, December 2016
For more infomation >> Trump: Berlin rampage an 'attack on humanity' - Duration: 0:50. 
For more infomation >> YouTube Star Adam Saleh Says He Was Removed From Flight for Speaking Arabic - Duration: 0:56. 
For more infomation >> An Unprecedented Competition with Unlimited Potential - Duration: 1:46. 
For more infomation >> leave me alone... | channel Update - Duration: 0:28. 
For more infomation >> Top Funny Anime Moments #3 - Duration: 3:20. 
For more infomation >> When did the First Settlers Arrive in Scandinavia? Bedtime Viking Stories👑 - Duration: 3:15. 
For more infomation >> Compare Loom & Leaf
For more infomation >> HSN | KORRES Beauty / Silk'n Beauty 12.21.2016 - 12 PM - Duration: 1:00:01. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét