With the global pandemic still raging through the United States in addition to massive socio-economic and political strife, I’ve been really asking myself a couple of questions:
A) What is the role of a professional biomedical scientist in our current society?
B) What skills are most vital to fulfill the responsibilities that are required to be functional in this role?
C) If the responsibilities that I currently have do not align with the ones necessary to contribute to helping to reduce human suffering which stems from biomedical issues, what skills should I focus on building?
I haven’t really come up with solid answers for these questions yet, but I am bouncing around different ideas in my head and trying out new methods//learning new skills and slowly implementing them to see if they work to align my efforts/time to work towards fulfilling the role of the scientist necessary for this period of time, and hopefully have a bit of fun doing so.
Sci Comm is revealing itself to be invaluable for both lay people and scientific experts. For the lay person, it provides a way to learn about scientific concepts and methodology without having to spend excruciating amounts of time learning jargon or paying exorbitant fees to read papers past the pay wall. Science should be inclusive and I find it deeply concerning that even between biomedical fields jargon, concepts and historical interpersonal competition has resulted in scientists really being disconnected from working with each other. This is also a canary in the coalmine basically shrieking at the top of it’s lungs that if trained biomedical scientists cannot grasp each others work, the significance of it’s impact will be tarnished by the fact that very few people will be able to a) understanding the actual meaning. b) come to incorrect conclusions about the implication c) lose trust if those findings(as interpreted by the person reading it) turn out to be incorrect in their material lives.
I have been completely blown away by some recent science art I have seen in attempts to engage with other scientists and the public about science finding and concepts and I think they are one of the best ways to fulfill parts of the role of a professional scientist. I have been experimenting with different ways of presenting data and trying many different mediums, but currently stop motion has been a blast. Here is a recent stop motion that I created for the Kaun Lab journal club on Li et al. 2020 “ The connectome of the adult Drosophila mushroom body: implications for function” for Figures 19 and 20 (plus supplements.) The video can definitely be cleaned up more in the future, but I quite enjoyed making it, and I think it might be helpful to visual learners or those who tend to maybe zone out during slides like myself. I hope you enjoy!