I just come back from a very pleasant trip to South-Korea where I visited the Kyungpook National University (KNU) in Daegu. A very nice and inspiring trip overall. I met great individuals both at the university and off-campus with whom I had very very interesting chats. I definitively need to spend more time in Korea. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen much of it because of a too short of a trip.

A cool picture of the hexameric enzyme Quinolinate Phosphoribosyl Transferase (QAPRTase) of S. cerevisiae showing its electrostatics intimacy. Blue are +, red and – and the field-lines are displayed. The very interesting thing here is that the field-lines are rooted from each active site outside area (6 of them). I used ABPS for the electrostatic calculations and VMD 1.8.7-alpha to visualize. The substrates Quinolinate and PRPP are basically sucked-in into the active sites following the electrostatic field-lines. It is an obvious result, but those kind of analysis are cool don’t you think ? So…what about the release of the product synthesized ?

Well I have been very busy lately. I went to France for a couple of tenured-track faculty interviews at the CNRS national labs. Overall, it was an interesting experience. I had a pleasant time with the committee 16 “Chemistry for living organisms and medicinal chemistry. Design and properties of compounds of biological interest”. However, my research proposal was a little bit out of scope for this particular committee unfortunately. But overall, it was good talking with this committee.

A week after I was interviewed by the committee 21 “Molecular and structural features underlying biological functions” and the fun began. I found what I hate the most among tenured-track faculties in France: very narrow-minded person, rude for no reasons, not listening to me at all…well pathetic people for most of them. The icing on the cake was when I was explaining my current project in the US about the molecular modelling of protein (funded by the NIH). I am a crystallographer but I am currently doing protein-modeling stuffs. The committee was obviously a group of hardcore old-school experimentalists and they violently told me that it is bullshit..meaning protein modeling is bullshit…. should I laugh now and tell them they are wrong, narrow-minded and stupid or should I save that for latter…My current research in protein modelling is all about models-validation with an experimentalist (X-ray crystallography) point of view!! The committee 16 was pleased with that, so why did you guys from the 21 didn’t get that?? Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. That’s must be the reason (sarcasm). 

Some of my friends who went through this hassle before me in different committee experienced the same fun. Awesome ! In my case, I guess it was just a bad experience on that one. But, don’t get me wrong. Working in France at a CNRS or INSERM lab is cool. You don’t get much salary compared to the US, but you do get plenty of vacations, a stress-free working environment (please don’t tell me you are under stress right ?) and if you move your ass a little, you can get some grant money to do good research. But you might end-up working with some people with this typical French narrow-minded mentality where they expect you to fall into a specific old-fashion category. If you are a little bit too atypical you are over.

This being said, it leads me to think: What the heck am I applying for positions at the CNRS or INSERM anyway? right ? Do I want to work with this kind of people? I feel so much better working in the US in every possible ways. Then now, ask yourself why so many of us leave France after graduating with a PhD and never come back in the French academia system ?

I’ve always wondering what is the ratio of peer-reviewed scientific publications that just bring nothing really new to the field. Also, what could be the ratio of fake data being published every year? 

Those questions have been bugging me for the last couple of weeks. Ok, I don’t pretend that my papers are among the greatest ever published, however, the data I present are genuine and I always try to have a thorough analysis of a given question.

I’m writing this, because lately I came across a lot of papers that just garbage inaccurate to me. In no specific order, it can be: recycling old data into new one, controls experiments are missing or inaccurate, data too perfect to be true, writing a whole paper with experiments that just bring nothing new to the field, among others….

There is so many journals out there that it is somewhat easy to get a paper publish. If it failed to one journal, we just have to send it to another journal with a slightly lower impact factor. Even if in general, a correlation exists between impact factor and quality however, high impact factor journals are not immune of bad papers.

Nowadays, it is so tough to get funded that it had raised the bar very high in term of publications. A PI and a lab have to produce a lot of papers. Unfortunately it tends to seriously impact the quality, enhance the tendency of over-interpreting the data or fake them. I think the whole thing is definitively not moving in the right direction and that’s made me sad/angry.

By Helene - Have you ever tried to take a look at the composition of your food, moisturizers, shampoos, toothpaste, cleansing gels, etc? I know, lots of barbaric and alien words. But I really encourage you to do so!!! Let me illustrate this for you. Grab one of your everyday lotions or soaps. Do you see ‘parabens’ listed on it? If you don’t see it, you can consider yourself very lucky! Unfortunately, I have the regret to tell you that pretty much all the products you buy for everyday use contain some form of PARABENS.  Now, you may wonder what on earth are parabens. Well, parabens are a group of low cost and very effective chemicals widely used as preservatives.  Historically considered safe for daily use, they are becoming increasingly controversial. Recent studies have shown that parabens could be associated with breast cancer, infertility, DNA damage, etc. For some of you scientific aficionados, you can easily find all these studies listed in the scientific search engine website pubmed (entry: parabens).  I don’t really want to scare you, but keep in mind that parabens are just one example among many other unsafe chemicals used in daily products. So, be sure to pay close attention to what you are eating and putting on your skin!

This one will be a great addition to my sleek 96′ minivan. A Back To The Future Flux Capacitor Replica - Unlimited Edition for only $220.00. Isn’it awesome ? I will mount it between the train horn and the hawaii belly dancer….oh ! hold on a sec’…Doc Brown’s Flux Capacitor needs the Delorean to reach 88 miles per hour to make the time jump…noooo…my mini-van barely makes 65 MPH downhill…I’m screwed dammit !