Illustration Stijn Schreven
A botched experiment, a rejected paper: such things are soon labelled as failures in academia. As for talking about it not done! But that is just what WUR scientists do in this column. Because failure has its uses. This time, it’s assistant professor of Nematology Ruud Wilbers.
‘As a PhD candidate, I supervised six groups of students in a practical course. They were allowed to come up with their own project, set up the experiments and carry them out. One group wanted to use tobacco plants to make an anti-inflammatory medicine that they would test on human cells. If the medicine worked, the cells would produce a protein that you can detect using an existing method. You “stick” antibodies onto a plate and let them catch the protein. Then you add a second antibody that contains a pigment. The more the plate stains blue, the more of the protein there is.’
The students had worked hard and meticulously, and all for nothing due to my carelessness
‘During the practical, one of the students asked for the first antibody. I quickly walked to the fridge and grabbed the test tube. At the end of the experiment, I looked over the student’s shoulder to see how it was going. The colouring is supposed to be a gradual process, but within seconds everything — including the controls — turned bright blue. Shit, I thought: I’d given them the wrong test tube at the start, the one with the antibody with the stain for the final step. I wished the ground would swallow me up. The students had worked hard and meticulously for three days, and all for nothing due to my carelessness. It was the last day of practicals so repeating the experiment wasn’t an option. I felt so guilty that I redid the experiment in my own lab. I worked through the weekend to give the students their results on the Monday morning: the anti-inflammatory agent worked.
‘These days we have more supervisors for this practical course, so we aren’t so rushed and have more of an overview. I wouldn’t be in such a hurry that I’d pick the wrong tube. But someone could still easily make a similar error, we supervisors are only human after all. Incidentally, nowadays I wouldn’t repeat an experiment myself for the students. Students are allowed to make mistakes but so am I.’
