Important additional context on this… TLDR is that the post is only a “feel-good” post and misrepresented reality; real life is a lot more nuanced and fucked up
Mary E Brunkow solely worked in industry (a.k.a. the scientific slang for working in something like a pharmaceuticals cpmpany) after her PhD, instead of in academia like most Nobel Prize laureates. Industry researchers rarely publish. And 34 published papers may seem low by Nobel standards but is a lot. I don’t think I personally know any industry researchers that are this prolific; some full professors even don’t have this many papers
The bigger takeaway from this story is not “anyone can make it” if they have a good idea… Brunkow was extremely prolific as a researcher. A better takeaway may be instead of focusing on an individual solution, systematically why academia has such an excessive focus on publication metrics; people are trying to move away from it which is good. Another thing: her old company (Celltech) went defunct in 2004 and Brunkow was allegedly laid off (and no one at the time realized the importance of her discovery) which is probably a better take home message
Her Wikipedia page as reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_E._Brunkow.
Also some discussion about this on r/labrats if anyone wants to go over to the forbidden site: https://reddit.com/r/labrats/comments/1o1pgo1/mary_e_brunkow_one_of_this_years_nobel_prize
Also some discussion about this on r/labrats if anyone wants to go over to the forbidden site:
I went. It was a mistake. Most comments were about how this post was written by ChatGPT followby how they’d love to have 34 publications. There were a couple taking about what you wrote, but I think your comment captures the best of it.
Hah wow. Thanks for putting that into context.
No one was mentioning what Mary Elizabeth Brunkow did. Mary Elizabeth Brunkow (born 1961) is an American molecular biologist and immunologist. She is known for co-identifying the gene later named FOXP3 as the cause of the scurfy mouse phenotype, a finding that became foundational for modern regulatory T cell biology.
Thanks for posting the comment I was looking for
*But also do it in your free time after your real job and do it for free
It really is amazing any non-corporate research ever gets this far.
I have a high school friend who owns a paper mill. He was a rich kid who never did the work, and always took credit for others work.
He has an h-index of 90 and 200,000 citations. He is not a professor.
I am not following…how does he have so many papers with a high number of citations if he is not a professor? Just an extremely prolific postdoc/person on soft money?
He owns a paper mill, he games the system
The three pathways for most academics
Option 1 - shit out a large pile of bad (either misleading, over-sensationalised, or just clearly partial work) papers, but get funding to do the same for another year.
Option 2 - work hard to create a quality paper, run out of time, no more funding, off you go to industry.
Option 3 - take a teaching intensive role and never have any time for research, oh and also get paid less than in industry.
Quality over quantity.
I can win a Nobel prize too is what i gain from this?
I think I heard about this. Good for her! What’d she get a prize for?
I will be forever grateful that my PI for my doctorate focused on technical and scientific hands-on skills rather than sitting at a desk and writing papers. It helped me much more in my current industry, especially in the field of small-scale bioreactor work.
AI slop
This is definitely written by an ai, and it’s pure laziness when people don’t fix the styling, which makes it so obvious.
What’s an H-index
It basically measures how old a scientist is.
filthy casual
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Not all heros wear capes (in fact most of them don’t)
Some wear lab coats and blue nitrile gloves!
