Reviewer

I am fortunate to be given opportunity to learn a new aspect of scientific critical review and writing, which could be added value for my life science career. Having said that I have been submitting manuscripts to a few journals, been rejected and accepted by some of them. Things I didn't expect to see were I was invited to review other submitted manuscripts by two of these journals. Circulation genetics is one of the top cardiology journals with a 3 years impact factor of 6, was the big shock for me when they invited me to be reviewer. I remember it was 2 years ago, and I seriously thought that was their mistake because of my paper rejection and my own qualification. Till then, I have helped to review two manuscripts of total 4 requests for them. Seriously I am glad of this kind of opportunity,  because I learnt a new study idea and realized how strong the overseas research team. It could help me to improve the research culture if I still in the basic science field.  I thought it would it would end my reviewing career after I quit and canceled my ex-institutions working email. Till last month, the invitation to review two new manuscripts by second journal really sparked up my passion in scientic writing. I decided to draft my sixth manuscript before I officially say goodbye to my "ex" team. This manuscript is not for my hunt to gain more publication title (seriously, I don't need to be first author) but to feed my interest to write. Unbelievable,  how all these have got me in love with scientific writing more and more.

Works

From January till now, i have been working on 1 grant proposal, 6 abstracts, 1 poster, 3 interviews; and due, 1 presentation, 5 sets of statistical analysis,  3 manuscripts and 1 review. Coming soon will be the lecture notes for research management and practical biochem, if they take me up as part time lecturer. I haven't got time to plan for my Indonesia trip, which due in 2 months time!

Mission Failed

Since last year November, i went into a new phase of my research life, to take part into grant application together with our collaborators from other universities. We worked on two projects, two proposals and applied for three grants, ranged from RM20K to RM 250K. We got the first one with not much obstacles and is able to fund a Master student for her project. However, our next attempt to get a larger grant was turned down recently. We will revise and aim for another new grant to apply. It doesn't affect much of our motivation, although it was quite discouraging when we first heard the news. I still have one more grant yet to be approved, hopefully there is some good news from there. In the meantime, we shall look forward for another external body to send in our application. To get a research done, or in other word, to make those science graduates like me to be employed, we desperately need financial support. Plan B is needed.

Post for 11.11.11

Good day! I feel like want to make a footprint by writing a post on this very special day dated 11.11.11. Life is still as usual, except that i just sent up an abstract to one international conference which going to be held in Hong Kong again! We have some promising data from this project and maybe is worth to try for a publication. Anyway, now i can focus again to revise my manuscript. Now i know revision ain't easy, hope it won't happen in my thesis. Will go for an awesome dinner tonight with my husband to celebrate my joyous of finishing one part of the work. =)

Sharing: Money—Is cancer beating cardiovascular disease?

Source: theheart.org

New York, NY - There are three reasons why the best and brightest minds in biomedical science might choose to devote their careers to one disease over another, according to Dr James Eberwine, codirector of the prestigious Penn Genome Frontiers Institute. The first is what he calls the "Pied Piper" effect: a faculty mentor whose enthusiasm is infectious and inspiring. The second reason, he says, is having an emotional history with a particular disease, prompting "the motivation to try to help."

And there's a third driving force, Eberwine continues, "which I don't like as much, but which is there, and that's the available funding. There are certain diseases that have captured the attention of the public and the [US] National Institutes of Health [NIH] beyond the attention of other things, and those tend to have money associated with them," he explains. "So the opportunity to do the research in a particular field might be a driving force as well."

Whether the amount of available research funding can explain the surge in new cancer therapies approved or awaiting approval is uncertain. What's clear, however, is that the NIH, the "largest source of funding for medical research in the world," allots significantly more funds to its National Cancer Institute (NCI) than it does the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). From its 2010 budget of $30.9 billion, plus the NIH injection of $1.56 billion in funds from the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA), just 7.8% of overall funding was earmarked for cardiovascular disease research; 20.3% was granted to cancer.

It's a disparity that rankles with the American Heart Association (AHA), which points out that heart disease remains the number-one killer of Americans, while cancer occupies the number-two position. And incoming president Dr Donna Arnett (University of Alabama at Birmingham) sees that discrepancy as a key reason that new research into cancer therapeutics may be pulling ahead of cardiovascular disease.

Passionate mentors and emotional motivators play a role, she says, "But I honestly think that when you get to the level of a PhD student or an MD/PhD student, that [the choice is] really driven by where you get money to train. And because the NCI budget is higher than the NHLBI's, there is much more opportunity for training."

Leaving aside the ARRA numbers, the actual NIH dollar amounts shake out as follows. In the 2010 fiscal year, the NHLBI was granted an operating budget of $3.093 billion, of which $1.320 billion went toward research project grants in the cardiovascular sciences and an additional $450 million toward specialized cardiac centers, other research, contracts, and training programs (the remainder was spent in similar ways for blood and lung disorders) [1]. By contrast, the NCI received $5.098 billion from the NIH pot, of which 42.5%, or $2.168 billion, was spent funding research grants, and the remainder toward specialized centers, research, contracts, intramural research, and other support [2].

Research funding, in billions, for the NHLBI and NCI: 2010

As NHLBI acting director Dr Susan Shurin points out, it is the US Senate's Appropriations Committee that determines how the NIH budget is divvied up between institutes, based largely on prior year's budgets and emerging needs. And she balks at the idea that funding for the diseases should be decided by medical need—the fact that heart disease is the nation's number-one killer does not mean the NHBLI deserves the lion's share of NIH funding.

For one thing, she notes, stroke research is largely funded out of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, while projects within both cancer and cardiovascular disease might actually be funded out of the National Human Genome Research Institute or the institutes covering aging, diabetes, or environmental health. "We don't consider ourselves in competition with cancer," says Shurin. "Many of the things that cause people to get cancer also cause people to get heart disease." Besides, she says, some of the most important scientific advances come from the study of rare diseases. If government spending were determined solely based on the size of the population in need, funding might be better spent on public health over research or research targeting lower-income Americans and minority groups. 

"I'm not saying we wouldn't like more money [for the NHLBI]," Shurin told heartwire. "I'm just saying that I worry when people talk about the idea that allocation ought to be on the number of people who are affected. It's the scientific opportunities that you want to pursue, and you're not always going to know where those are going to be."

Who is asking for what?

But if researchers, perhaps even subconsciously, were drawn toward a bigger pot of research dollars, that might show up in the number of new grant applications reviewed by the respective institutes each year. And indeed, in 2010, 7338 research project grants were submitted and reviewed by the NCI—62% more than were submitted and reviewed by the NHLBI, at 4528. In total, 903 of those sent to the NHLBI were ultimately funded, yielding a success rate of almost 20%, as compared with 1253 funded by the NCI, a success rate of 17%. 

Dr Clyde Yancy (Northwestern University, Chicago, IL), who spoke out about what he saw as inadequate NHLBI funding when he was AHA president, told heartwire he worries that young scientists may be dissuaded, in part, from pursuing a career in cardiovascular sciences precisely because the heart-disease arena has already seen some blockbuster therapies in recent decades, coupled with a corresponding improvement in disease survival. 

"There is a sense that the CV space is overpopulated," he admits, but stresses that funding also plays a powerful role: "I think that expression of 'going where the money is' matters in this circumstance," he says.

"Depending on what kind of thought process, what kind of philosophy, what kind of political persuasion underpins the statements that are generated to the public with regard to requests for funding proposals (RFPs), this will generate the kinds of responses," he explains. "So part of the reason there may be so many more grants submitted to the cancer institute is because people see opportunities and gravitate toward oncology, but there also could be a certain sense that the NCI has the flexibility to introduce more RFPs."

All research areas feel the pinch

Shurin points out that while the overall NIH budget has increased over time, the actual "buying power" of the NIH funding granted this year is at the same level as it was back in 2000 and 2001.

"The NHLBI is funding 8% fewer grants than we did last year, and the NCI is funding 15% fewer than it did last year," she said. "Believe me, I'm not telling you we don't need more money [for the NHLBI]: we really need more money. But the question is: what are the therapeutic opportunities that are not being pursued in heart disease? And I think there are fewer than there used to be, because some of this reflects that we have had some level of success."

But both Yancy and Shurin are adamant that the solution doesn't lie in sharing NIH funds more equitably between cancer and heart disease."Underfunding affects every area, and I would hate to be in a position in which we were cannibalizing one area of research in order to support another. I would not advocate reallocating funds that go toward cancer; I would strongly advocate funding research better," says Shurin. "And you can't throw money at a problem and expect to solve it, and you can see that in cancer. We've thrown a lot of money at cancer; we haven't solved a lot of the problems." Yancy, likewise, insisted that the coffers for cardiovascular disease research can't be expanded "by shifting funds away from other very compelling diseases that have even larger unmet needs than we do." Instead, a greater commitment to biomedical research is needed, he says. "Too many people get into this space and it becomes a tug of war, and it shouldn't be a tug of war; it should be a complementary discussion."

Nonprofit groups also raise money for research

Of course, the NIH is only one source of funding for heart and cancer research: dedicated societies for both diseases also fundraise aggressively for their organizations and allocate a portion of that money for research via grant submission and peer-review processes. 

Here again, the numbers are at odds, although the gap is much smaller. In the 2010 fiscal year, the AHA spent $114.8 million on research (19.4% of its total budget) while the American Cancer Society spent $148.6 million (16% of its budget). Of note, research funding by both groups was actually more similar in 2009: $142.7 million for the AHA and $149.8 million for the ACS. The American College of Cardiology spent half a million dollars on CVD research grants in 2010.

Research funding, in millions, from the AHA and ACS: 2010

Arnett thinks heart-disease research needs a breakthrough discovery, in a new area, a stint on the marquee, to reinvigorate the field and points to some of the excitement bubbling in the areas of tissue engineering, embryonic or pluripotent stem cells, pharmacogenetics, nanotechnology, and bioengineering. "There are so many cool things going on in cardiovascular disease right now," she says. "It's hard to believe that people think everything's been done." Both the NIH numbers, determined by politicians, and the funds raised by nonprofit groups suggest that there are some even more fundamental, less tangible forces at play that push cancer ahead of cardiovascular disease.

Nobel numbers According to the American Cancer Society, a full 44 Nobel Prize laureates were former American Cancer Society grantees. By contrast, according to the AHA, seven scientists have won Nobel Prizes for research funded at least in part by the AHA, and one additional recipient was funded by the AHA prior to receiving his Nobel Prize, for unrelated work. -SW

Writing mode on again

Since March this year, i have been focusing on writings, from my thesis to manuscript to drafting new proposals, abstracts and preparing presentation slides, all involves a lot of brain training of my writing skills and innovation. I am glad to say that i am blessed to work in a relatively quite "free n easy" situation, with not much pressure from my boss i have plenty of time to do "brain thinking" work. Because i sit in front PC most of the time, i believe there are some people still claiming that i do less work than them, i think that's quite unfair for many of us who're into same situation as i. We write for the sake of publication and putting effort to have higher chances to win new projects. Unlike administrative work solely service for another person, we're writing because that's to be responsible for our own work. In postgraduate study, we're trained to write to express our findings, regardless positive or negative data. So why against to write when there is chance for our works to be read, commented or cited by others? It might be boring to write for the same topic all the time. (I have been writing and thinking a lot just for this single project in the past three years). But you might find it interesting when you figure out the joys of express your writings in different styles or from different aspects. =)

Random thought

Before i log into my email this morning, i had the feeling that i will receive an email about my paper submission. Finally, the results were so saddening.. it showed "Rapid Rejected" and decision was made in a week of time after the complete submission. Very prompt reply. At first thought they might give some comments, but that's very cruel of their way of action. I know what we lack of, so this kind of decision is expected. While not everyone get so lucky to be accepted in their first tried journal, i should look forward to submit for another journal. And i already told my both bosses, see what their comments.

Ion Torrent and the issue of licensing deal

Now the trend of genomic research is all about next gene sequencing and the personalized medicine. Life Technologies just launched a new technology called Ion Torrent PGM. It is robust and said to be reliable, which relies on hydrogen ion detection uses for DNA sequencing. Beijing Genomic Institute (BGI) just recently used this tool to sequence the new deathly mutant strain of E.coli, they are now coming out a PCR diagnostic kit to detect this strain.

 

Ion torrent launched by Life Technologies last year.

 

This technology was invented by two Standford scientists: Ron Davis and Nader Pourmand. With the increasing market interest on this Ion Torrent, more businesses also indicate more conflict in financial interest. Having said that, these two scientists proclaimed what they invented does not return some profits for them, in monetary nor scientific credit. They blamed the Stanford Office of Technology Licensing of their university to undervalue their technology deal in Ion Torrent. In other words, they think the university does not fight for their benefit when negotiating the licensing and patent issue with Life Technologies.

"In a typical deal, Pourmand said, Stanford asks for 1 percent or 2 percent equity in the licensing company, of which a third will go to the inventor, a third to the inventor's department, and a third to the inventor's school. Since Life Technologies acquired Ion Torrent for up to $725 million in cash and additional considerations last year, he said the university and the inventors could have gained several million dollars collectively if the tech transfer office had negotiated terms that were in line with previous agreements."

 

Ronald Davis

Nader Pourmand

While now it is the negotiation and war between the researchers and the university itself. The university OTL has a clear law not involving the inventors in licensing negotiation because "conflicts that may arise from an inventor's multiple potential roles and relationships — university researcher, royalty recipient, company consultant, company board member — make such participation unwise." The very reason why not involving inventor is because they are often "not a good judge of the street value of his/her invention. The market is the best indicator."

It is very clear that having a patent of product or technology to be market, it is difficult to justify whether the product is "over or undervalued". The risk of involving too many stakeholder may lead to lower evaluation, or in other words it is better to undervalue the product because there is always a risk the product does not getting used or earn for anything if it is overvalued. " the purpose to license the technology should opt for the benefit of the university, the inventors, and the public as a whole. The goal is to get the technology used to improve lives," (Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation).

As for this, from the view of an inventor, they wish to get more attentions from this licensing issue as to protect their inventions, not to be own by third parties. This is serious and sounds a little bit unfair, when one's invent the ideas and able to apply the technique to community demands, instead of protected and appreciated, much profits actually gone to the parties whom support only in terms of financial part.

This story revealed the truth that scientists wish to get more attention in the profit and patent part, they realize they're not solely exist just to invent the knowledge that turn out to be profit-earning by other parties.

For more information: Scientists Claim Stanford Undervalued Their Technology in Ion Torrent Licensing Deal
 (if you've problem to read this, notify me, i can email the full copy to you)

upgrade ourselves

as always, students tend to be passive in thinking and works after they completed a series of experiments and on the mode of "waiting theses to be returned and approved" before they graduate. That's quite dangerous because unless you choose a career path that doesn't require more thinking to drive the interest, after all Science is all about the innovative, hypothesis, problem solver thus more thinking and thinking. If that's the case, you should take initiative to expose yourself with others' researches and fast-track technology, that makes you more competitive. We should be improve ourselves to make us unique and competitive just like our friends in overseas. I always think that science and technology shouldn't be a barrier boarder across the region and any of us, because whoever do science actually have same goal to make our community and life better. To initiate a research project has been relatively hard these years, especially for students like us who have limited grant and qualification but that doesn't mean we should be passive about our ambitious and desires. If there is no channel for us to attend the overseas conference nor if our university is credible enough to invite great scientist speakers, we should upgrade ourselves through reading and attend webinars (all these can be found on line according to your interest).

I found this quite relevant to most of us, http://www.biotechniques.com/symposium/
It is a virtual conference organized by biotechniques. Please feel free to check this out.

An end of a project

My project has finally come to an end, some facts about this project:
1. It took me 2 and half years to complete it, patients enrolment: 2 years, data collection: 2 years, thesis writing: 1 month, thesis amendment: i reserve for 6 months. So total time for me to graduate: 4 years (==”)
2. Failure rate: 80% for microarray, 20% success because of expensive learning. Others data collection: 75%, it would be perfect to have all my samples real time PCR done, microarray done and larger sample size.
3. Success rate in terms of publication or public exposure: 60%, this project alone had presented in National Heart Association Meeting for Young Investigator Award (2nd place) in 2010; oral presentation in Asian pacific congress of cardiology, APCC (2011); Posters in APCC (2011), CUHK Hong Kong Meeting (2011), World Congress of Cardiology (2010), NCCR (2009); extension abstract submitted to UNIMAS FRST proceedings for postgraduate (2010); coming oral presentation in Genetic Congress (Kuching, 2011). Way to go for 100% success rate if i manage to publish in a reasonably good impact factor of international ranked journal, although quite tough considering some poor data.
4. Impact to community: 10% because no unique significant finding to other similar projects
5. Limitation: Microarray data is not available
6. Strength: Still a pilot project for research in Cardiovascular disease in ministry of health Malaysia as we’re among very few institutions have incorporated basic research work with epidemiology and clinical samples.
7. Opportunities: Blood biomarkers are actually an area worth to explored, but extensive research on how to secure the samples quality need to be done first.
8. Impact to my personal career: 65%, this project brought a chance for me to work in both side – hospital and university, get to know more people, chances to socialize with patients and nurses, doctors etc, as a stepping stone to move forward and travel during conferences
9. Impact to my personal life: 65%, i lose weight after i started this project, getting weaker and weaker, but handle stress well, wiser, mature, dare to take risk instead of being passive, learnt some leadership skills, quite clear of what i want to achieve in the next 5-10 years.
10. Others: ??% you name it. =p

Overall, i am quite happy with finally this project has come to an end, as it not only give me a degree of Masters, but i did learn a lot while doing this project.

Start writing thesis, and i found out..

Yah, am i start writing thesis and before that, got to read through the data i have so far. You know what i found out! Poor quality data for my gene expression parts. Out of 50 samples, only 14 samples, and is 8 controls vs 6 diseased sampels that i can use to discuss my main research problem why i did this project at first place. This is a very very small sample size, literally. Even the statistical analysis also hard to analyze for me with such small sample size, only 6! I think i want to bang my head onto the wall. Again, the general discussion will be hard to put into words with such little sample size, as well as other poor quality data. Please save me!!!!! SIGH..

very rude short talk

i spoiled my last kit of ELISA, this time was just want re-dilute samples and re-accessed their actual protein levels, but i made a terribly mistake, i diluted the samples with diluent concentrate. i hate myself! i hate myself! i got no more kit to run liao.. k fullstop and unpleasant memory to end my ELISA works in this project. what i can see from my thesis is whole bunch of stupid, silly, lousy data with poor technique. grrrgh…..

I want to finish it!

5 months to go.

I still stucked at my qPCR experiments

One more round for microarray

6 more patients yet to be recruited

One more ELISA to be done

I have to finish them all in 5 months!

Can I?????

MSc in Cardiology

It might sounds crazy if one has double-master degrees instead to further to PhD level. My boss introduced this program to me, at first i also thought there is impossible for me to take another Master degree while i still struggling hard to complete my current project in UNIMAS. But surprisingly, after i read the course program, i actually quite interested to take this course. It can be done in part time in two years time, and solely coursework based program. I always have the chance to collect patient’s medical information from their medical reports and somehow i find it’s quite interesting to see how Doctor diagnosed the patient using non-invasive cardiac procedures such as MRI, angiogram, Echography, stress test and electrocardiogram. Most of the case reports published are based on interesting findings from these diagnostic tools. And if you realize, any interesting research hypothesis are actually drawn from these case reports first. This make me wanted to understand the diseases thoroughly from views of basic science (what i do now) as well as from clinical side. I believe this can give me more strong background in clinical cardiology though i’m not from medicine field.

To be frank, the research cultures in “Boleh-land” isn’t strong and always caught less attention than other high demanding fields (this is very sad, but is true), i got a silly thought that if i have this clinical background, maybe next time can become cardiology technician as plan B. LOL. Whatever, just a wild idea, it still have to be considered seriously if really want to take second Master degree, money and time measures the most. Can i get some comments from you all? Please! Thanks.

Some facts

1. I can work non-stop actually
2. I can be quite patient
3. I can be very childish thought everything could turn well, even it is not
4. I believe there is miracle
5. I got nice boss but he made me feel like i will owe him alot alot
6. I got many supporters around me, that make me feel better after sadness, thanks all!
7. If i can think of anyone that can help me, when i ask, they definitely help out.. so glad i have them in my life
8. Although it is a fail experiment, i believe this is what God wanted for me
9. It is fail in results, but a success in learning experience
10. I feel relieved that i still survive, i feel like i upgraded one more rank: Stronger in technique, emotion and physical ability.. yea!

Accepted by NHAM 2010

More good news. My sole project was accepted by National Heart Association Meeting 2010 for Young Investigator Paper Presentation. It is the main presentation of the meeting, where judges are chairmans of Heart Association from South East Asia countries - Indonesia, Thailand, Philipines etc, as well as visiting judges from ACC and ESC. Hope my boss can do the presentation well to bring more good news again. From now on, got to think what slides to pass to him. =)

The Top 60 Journals February 2010

p/s: Adapted from my email. Ignore all the highlighted links, it will link to my email server.

(n): free after n months

Rank		FMJ Impact + Journal
1.		61,665		New England Journal of Medicine (6)
2.		31,615		JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association (6)
3.		22,359		BMJ (British Medical Journal) (36)
4.		14,673		Pediatrics (12)
5.		13,030		Circulation (12)
6.		12,895		Journal of Infectious Diseases (12)
7.		10,965		Brain: a Journal of Neurology (12)
8.		10,147		CA: a Cancer Journal for Clinicians Free
9.		9,849		Clinical Infectious Diseases (12)
10.		9,559		Journal of the American College of Cardiology (12)
11.		9,166		Science (12)
12.		8,945		Annals of Internal Medicine (6)
13.		8,377		Diabetes (12)
14.		7,441		Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (12)
15.		7,077		Blood (12)
16.		6,995		Emerging Infectious Diseases Free
17.		6,901		Journal of Clinical Oncology (12)
18.		6,357		Canadian Medical Association Journal : Journal de l'Association Medicale Canadienne Free
19.		6,353		BMC Infectious Diseases Free
20.		6,165		Archives of Internal Medicine (12)
21.		4,330		Anesthesiology (6)
22.		4,211		Radiology (12)
23.		4,072		Clinical Cardiology Free
24.		3,953		Critical Care Free
25.		3,884		Diabetes Care (12)
26.		3,675		Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Free
27.		3,639		Endocrine Reviews (12)
28.		3,610		Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry (36)
29.		3,455		RadioGraphics (12)
30.		3,406		American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (12)
31.		3,385		Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (American volume) (not applicable)
32.		3,361		American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (12)
33.		3,340		Chest (12)
34.		3,303		European Heart Journal (12)
35.		3,226		Oncologist, The Free
36.		3,168		Heart (36)
37.		3,136		Archives of Dermatology (12)
38.		3,107		Anesthesia and Analgesia (12)
39.		3,107		Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine Free
40.		3,083		Journal of Neuroscience (6)
41.		3,074		Clinical Microbiology Reviews (12)
42.		2,976		Endocrine Journal Free
43.		2,948		Archives of Surgery (12)
44.		2,940		British Journal of Anaesthesia (12)
45.		2,899		Archives of Neurology (12)
46.		2,813		American Journal of Psychiatry (12)
47.		2,760		Mayo Clinic Proceedings (6)
48.		2,760		Cardiovascular Research (12)
49.		2,645		Journal of Clinical Microbiology (6)
50.		2,580		Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience Free
51.		2,563		Clinical Microbiology and Infection (24)
52.		2,555		BMC Gastroenterology Free
53.		2,518		Infection and Immunity (6)
54.		2,518		PLoS Medicine Free
55.		2,482		International Heart Journal Free
56.		2,388		Physiology (12)
57.		2,375		Australian Journal of Physiotherapy (12)
58.		2,355		Cancer Research (12)
59.		2,253		Hypertension (12)
60.		1,979		American Journal of Human Genetics (6)