Navigating the demands of a PhD program is a monumental task, but understanding how to carve out a good life outside of the lab can often feel even more elusive. When I was reflecting on this to write an article, I almost felt I wouldn’t be able to do justice to the piece. My own PhD journey was filled with substantial personal challenges, from a broken ankle to sleeping on a friend’s couch for two months, to a parent’s serious health setbacks in my final year. In my case, I was constantly striving to make up for lost time in the lab, leaving me with little to no bandwidth for much else. In short, the PhD consumed me!!! In good conscience, I could not offer advice that I hadn’t put into practice.

But Christos Efthymiou, PhD, of Biovectoral, offered to provide you practical tips that would resonate with your experiences. I connected with Christos on Substack, and beyond our shared background in science, I learnt he is also a fellow Johns Hopkins alumnus and we did the same Master’s program graduating in different years though!!! Small world indeed. He describes himself as a scientist, writer, and builder exploring ambition, careers, and reinvention, making him the perfect candidate to shed light on this subject.

In this article (my first collab!), Christos will share his unique perspective on finding balance, achieving a fulfilling life while pursuing a PhD, and succeeding in your academic pursuits. So, without further ado, I’ll allow Christos to take over from now on The Binding Site.

During my PhD, I learned how to fly on a trapeze. Literally.

I climbed up a ladder, stood on a tiny platform far higher than I normally would want to be, held onto a bar as tightly as my hands would allow, and jumped.

The first time that I did it, I was beyond terrified, and I was also terrible. I had no idea what I was supposed to do or how to control my body moving through the air like that, and there was something very uncomfortable about forcing myself to just jump.

But that also was the point. For a few hours, I was not a PhD student trying to keep up with a project, impress my supervisor, or rerun an experiment. Instead, I was a circus performer with nothing on my mind but the task immediately before me.

I know when you’re doing a PhD, sometimes the last thing you want to do is think about having a life outside of your work. You come home exhausted, and all you want to do is plop down on the couch and scroll through Instagram while having Netflix on in the background.

And I don’t think you need to avoid that. Believe me, I had plenty of days like that during my PhD.

But investing the time to actually develop your personal life alongside your professional life will help you in more ways than you can imagine. So I’m not saying to add spending your weekends in Lisbon or going to concerts every Thursday night to your task list.

But I also think it’s so important to remind yourself who you are outside of work. During my PhD, I had endless side adventures that I remember far more than another long day in the lab.

I had my friends over for Thanksgiving, even though my apartment wasn’t perfect and the food took longer than expected. I went to game nights where everyone argued over the rules no one actually took the time to read properly. I bowled a 221 during my PhD that I still think about with an amount of pride that’s definitely unreasonable.

All of those things had nothing to do with my PhD, but I loved it. I loved that there was no academic value, it didn’t make my CV stronger, and no one was going to cite it, review it, or fund it ever. It was just mine, and I wouldn’t have traded that for anything.

I think one of the dangers of doing a PhD is that it starts becoming your entire identity. Your week is organized around your work, and your self-esteem becomes attached to progress. Your confidence rises and falls with results, supervisor comments, reviewer feedback, and failed experiments.

And if you’re not careful, it starts to consume your entire life. You don’t see your friends for months at a time because you’re just too busy. Your hobbies become things that you used to do. Your health, both mental and physical, become something that you’ll worry about after the next deadline.

But there’s always going to be a reason to delay your life. In your first year, you’re just trying to keep up. Everything feels new and everyone seems smarter than you, so you can’t think about anything other than doing your work. Then you have your upgrade or qualifying exam to worry about. Then your first paper that needs to be submitted. Then revisions. Then a conference. And before you know it, your thesis deadline is coming up and you need to prepare for your defense while also applying for jobs.

So if you spend the whole time telling yourself that life can properly start once things calm down, you’re going to miss years of your life because the reality is that things will never calm down. Even after you graduate, you’ll have a whole new list of reasons to delay your life.

I completely understand why people fall into this trap, especially in academia. In a PhD, you’re constantly reminded that there’s someone else working late, someone publishing more, and someone who seems more focused, intense, and willing to sacrifice everything without complaints.

But I don’t think you become a better scientist by foregoing your personal life. In fact, I think the opposite is true. When your entire life is built around your PhD, every setback hits so much harder.

A failed experiment isn’t just a failed experiment, but a reflection of your intelligence. A slow month isn’t normal, but proof that you’re falling behind and not cut out for this path.

But when you have a life outside of your degree, the PhD is still important but it’s not the only thing holding you together. You can have a bad day in the lab and still look forward to going to trivia night with your friends, or get bad comments back from your supervisor and get your mind off of it with a long walk in the park.

So I want you to remember that your real life doesn’t begin after you reach a certain milestone or goal. Your real life is right now. It’s your day to day, how you feel, and how you spend your time.

Now I know that if you asked most PhD students, they don’t actually want to not do anything besides sit on their couch after work. They know that their friendships matter, that exercise really does help, and that spending their evenings glued to their phone isn’t the healthiest. But it can be hard to break out of that cycle.

So here’s what I recommend.

1. Stop relying on motivation.

If the only way you see your friends, exercise, cook, or do anything you actually want to is by waiting until you feel relaxed and fully caught up, then it’s never going to happen.

There’s always going to be something unfinished or a reason to stay a little later, like to answer one more email, and you’ll convince yourself that next week you’ll make the time.

So you should make some parts of your life so simple and practical you can’t avoid them. Have a standing dinner with your friends once a month. Or a walk every Sunday morning. Or join a class, club, or sport that has a weekly meeting or game that you just can’t miss because it’s scheduled at a specific time.

You don’t need to overfill your calendar to the point that your life becomes another project to manage, but if you give yourself a few anchors that you don’t even have to think about you’ll automatically start living more.

2. Fit your life to your actual schedule

The second thing is to choose things that actually fit what your life looks like. If you have a long commute, don’t plan your social life around activities that require you go home first and leave again. Find something near campus, close to the lab, or on your way home. And if you’re too exhausted to do anything in the evening, then do things during the day!

Meet a friend for lunch. Go for a walk before work or go see a movie on a Saturday morning. And don’t for one second believe you need to spend lots of money to have a life.

You can go to university events, free museums, campus societies, public lectures, walking groups, library talks, potlucks, boardgame clubs, or volunteer, take community classes, cook a meal with your friends, or just ask someone if they want to get a coffee and walk around the city.

3. Be the one who suggests something

And finally, don’t be afraid of being the person who suggests something. Many people are tired, wrapped up in their work, and yet are just as lonely as you. I guarantee people will say yes to any plan you suggest far more often than they’ll say no.

I’m grateful for my PhD and for what it taught me, the people it brought into my life, and the version of myself I became through it. But I am also grateful that I didn’t let it be the only story I was living.

I was a PhD student. But I was also a friend, a host, a beginner, a person making dessert in his kitchen, a person bowling the best game of his life for no reason at all, and a person standing at the top of a trapeze platform trying to convince himself to jump.

Indeed insightful. Those final lines beautifully capture the multi-faceted experience of being a human while pursuing a high-level degree. If you loved this article and the depth Christos brings to his work, please visit his publication, Biovectoral, and show your gratitude and love by subscribing to his page. Thank you, Christos, for dropping by on The Binding Site.

biovectoral

A deeper look at science and biotech careers, academia’s unspoken problems, and how to build a career that actually fits your skills, values, and ambitions.

By Christos Efthymiou, PhD

This site is free and I intend to keep it that way for as long as I can because good science communication should be accessible, especially for students. If you enjoy what you read and feel like buying me a coffee along the way, I won't say no. ☕ And if you're not a student, consider paying it forward to one who is.

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I didn’t realize it until it was time to publish this article, but this is my 10th article! 🎉🥳 It’s been a fabulous journey writing these 10 articles for all of you, and I’m incredibly grateful for all the kind comments, shout-outs, encouragement, and support along the way. Keeping with the theme of the number 10, this article comes with 1️⃣0️⃣ tips for you!

Weekly lab meetings were a staple of my PhD. At each of these meetings, one student would give a long presentation for 30-45 minutes and the rest of us would give short 5-10 minute updates.

Every Tuesday evening, I would pore over my data, trying to make sense of the experiments I had ran the previous week, and putting together slide decks that looked impressive (while knowing deep down that the pretty slide decks didn’t matter, it was always about the data). Regardless of whether I gave the long or short presentation, I always dreaded lab meetings primarily because my inner introvert self would rather talk to you about science over coffee (or here on Substack!)

Year 1 of my PhD was the worst. Coming from a clinical background into a basic biology lab, I was lost most of the time. I didn’t understand why someone would get excited about seeing a teeny-tiny band on an SDS-PAGE gel. I didn’t understand the nuances of electrochemistry and had no clue how to read those graphs. So, for 3 hours every week, I would sit in a corner and feel completely clueless what people were talking about. By year 4, I loved lab meetings!!! It had nothing to do with my data because a lot of what I proposed to do in my research, didn’t work. What I really loved was the collegiate atmosphere and opportunity to learn from one another.

(I add this disclaimer here that I understand many PhD labs can be quite toxic. Mine wasn’t. it was quite chilled out. My supervisor treated us like adults - she didn’t berate us if we hadn’t done any experiments or missed a day in the lab. All she introduced was a cake fine if we entered the lab meeting after 9 am.)

Here are my top 10 tips for navigating lab meetings:

1. Lab Meetings Aren’t Only About Sharing Good Data

Yes, lab meetings are about giving updates to your supervisor and peers. But, updates ≠ good data. Contrary to popular perception, good data are rare. It requires months of experimentation, layered with failures, tons of repeats before you know you can trust the data, and months of tears. It’s okay to show terrible data in lab meetings.

2. Everyone has Imposter Syndrome

The assumption is always that the other smart people around me can’t have imposter syndrome. But, everyone feels that way. During one of our lab meetings, my supervisor found out she was going to receive a very prestigious award. Her first response was that she didn’t think she deserved it. One of our lab mates quickly asked if even at her calibre, she felt like an imposter, and she responded with a yes! The reason all of us feel this way is because we are constantly raising the bar. Self-improvement is good, but along the way, let’s not forget how far we have come and pat ourselves on our back.

3. Come with Specific Asks and Close the Loop

If you are presenting, ensure that you are clear with your lab mates what sort of support you want from them. Sometimes, it can be just asking them to check your logic and deduction, sometimes you realllllly need help because you’ve run out of ideas. Being upfront about it helps a lot. Also, if anyone provides suggestions, make sure to come back the next week and close the loop on it - did you try it out, did it work, did it not work, why, etc. Peer support is underrated in a lab group. Showing you value their words of wisdom goes a long way in building a collegiate space.

4. Make Good Slides and Manage Your Time

In this world of Claude (AI), making PowerPoint slides might seem inefficient on your part. But, I am not just talking about the quality of the slides. Make sure your slides have data that is well-presented. That 80% of the time equates to making sure you mark your x- and y-axes of the graph. Presenting data in a good fashion each week goes a long way when it’s time for your thesis writing. When you put together your research story, you already have a story arc with well-prepared figures. Also, everyone sitting in the meeting is thinking about their next timepoint to harvest their cells - so wrap up your presentation within the allotted time without drowning them in unnecessary data. If you ran an experiment without any controls, you might as well skip showing it. Prioritize data to be presented.

PS: If you have something personal to share, add a slide about it. It makes you human. Lab meetings are after all informal.

5. Show your Thought Process

When you think back about the presentations you loved, it’s always those who took you along the ride. They presented the raw messiness - why did they choose to do X experiment, what answers were they hoping for, how did they design the experiment, what did the data reveal, and how did it support or refute their initial premise and claims. We all know that research is NOT a linear path. I wish we normalized it more. It’s hard to teach someone how to do research, but you can show them the best way by taking them along while presenting your work.

6. It’s Okay to Say “I Don’t Know”

When we present, there is this anxiety - “what if they ask a question and I don’t know how to answer it.” It is very normal not to have all the answers. If you haven’t understood the question, ask clarifying questions. If you have understood the question but have no answer, it is totally acceptable to say “I did think about it and haven’t followed up on that thought” or “I haven’t thought about it that way” or “let me reflect on it and circle back”. There is no point pretending that we are superhuman. We’re good old regular humans trying to do this cool thing called science. When you are honest that you don’t know, you also create that space for others to feel okay to say they don’t know.

7. Add in some Self-Deprecating Humor

Okay, the psychologists might come after me for saying it’s okay to hide true feelings behind humor. But, that’s not what I am saying. During one of my long lab presentations, I had one of those months where nothing worked. Almost like the opposite of the Midas touch. My title slide had a picture of ducks not in a row, and I remarked that my ducks are as confused about my data as me. To this day, I have lab mates who tell me they loved that duck presentation. Adding a little self-deprecating humor either at the start or the end of your presentation normalizes the idea that it’s okay to come up front and stand there to talk about data that you haven’t made heads or tails of. Also, humor comes in handy when you need to pivot through awkward situations.

8. It’s Okay to Ask Questions

You know that one lab mate who hogs the entire lab meeting asking all sorts of banal questions? Yeah, don’t be them! Be the one who asks questions genuinely either to understand more or help the presenter finish their line of thinking. When you are doing research, there are 1000 things to think about and maybe the person presenting their data hasn’t had the quiet space (or time) to think through everything. Instead of saying, “Why haven’t you tried X or Y?”, phrase the question to ask, “I was just curious if you have had a chance to try X or Y?” Being in a diverse research space means everyone has been trained culturally in a different way and rewiring our words can genuinely help someone out.

9. Give Meaningful Feedback

Remember that lab mate from point #8, probably the same one who keeps giving a lot of advice and pointers from just their point-of-view but totally unrelated to your research problem. Yeah, don’t be that person! Giving genuinely meaningful feedback is one of the hardest things ever, in my opinion. Everyone wants to help out, but finding exactly what help the other person needs is the hardest and much needed. Don’t just call someone’s SDS-PAGE gel crappy, offer to help them learn how to prepare a better one. Sometimes when too much is happening at lab meetings, the person may also not be receptive enough to process all the feedback coming in. After the lab meeting, offer to meet them for coffee and follow up then.

As the person receiving feedback as well, realize that no one (other than science) benefits from helping you. If someone offers to help, take it! I used to keep a running list of all suggestions people gave me. Even if in that instance it didn’t help, it probably helped at a later time for a completely different but related problem. Also, just adding here - there are some issues that are more complex. If you aren’t ready to bring them up in lab meetings, that’s okay. Think it over and bring it up next week. Or speak to your supervisor privately, get more clarity and then bring it up. It’s okay to go one week without any data.

10. Realize That Making it a Safe Space Begins with You

Last but not least, be the change you wish to see around you.

If you want a supportive lab space, be that supportive person.
If you want a fun lab space, bring some humor and fun.
If you want to feel safe, provide the environment for others to feel safe.
It all starts with you!

[Bonus Tip] Bring Some Treats to your Lab Meeting

It doesn’t have to be extravagant. But once in a while, offer to bring some treats to the lab meeting. It could be some chocolates or croissants or even coffee! If you’re socially awkward, it helps to break the ice with others in the lab, apart from talking about the weather.

This site is free and I intend to keep it that way for as long as I can because good science communication should be accessible, especially for students. If you enjoy what you read and feel like buying me a coffee along the way, I won't say no. ☕ And if you're not a student, consider paying it forward to one who is.

Buy me a coffee ☕️

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I started my PhD in October 2019 at the University of Cambridge, UK. I wasn't fresh out of my undergrad or masters. I had worked in a research environment for six years and had a solid working knowledge of what research entailed. However, my background was in a pre-clinical and clinical setting focused on developing and testing methods for antiretroviral (HIV) drugs in different clinical samples. I felt it would be best to do my PhD in a basic biology lab to gain deeper skills in the workings of a cell, the tiniest unit of life, yet the one that controls everything. I believed a basic research lab would offer more value for me as an independent thinker than a translational clinical environment. In other words, I was stepping into uncharted territory, even with some experience under my belt.

Two Things Before You Even Join The Lab:

These points relate more to your PhD applications than to finding your research focus once you're in the lab. But, they're too important to leave out from this post. I'll do a deeper dive into PhD applications in a future post.

1. Join a lab whose research theme interests you: It's important to have at least a basic interest in the field. I joined my lab because I was drawn to its application-oriented work which involved developing low-cost diagnostics for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). After spending years in a clinical lab where a single 96-well plate cost USD 350, I was genuinely curious about how we could do frugal science. That is how I got hooked to ‘point-of-care diagnostics’.

2. Join a lab whose techniques interest you: Even if the specific subject doesn't excite you, if the methods do, go for it. You might not be remotely interested in fruit fly research, but if the lab uses genomics to study fruit flies or bacterial pathogens, the core skills you'd gain which are reading large genomic datasets and programming are transferable across fields. Core skills in molecular biology or bioinformatics will open doors well beyond the lab you train in. I knew I was lacking in basic molecular biology (I didn't even know how to run a PCR at that point). So I deliberately chose a lab where I could build those molecular biology and protein science skills. It also helps enormously when troubleshooting, because your labmates will have wrestled with the same techniques.

Now That You’re In The Lab

1. Spend time with your labmates:

   Use your first month to have one-on-one conversations with each person. Find out what they're working on, what techniques they use, and what problem they're trying to solve. You might stumble upon something that genuinely excites you. One of my labmates was studying several cellulose-binding proteins for use in paper-based diagnostics and her work involved deep exploration of said proteins. Her work piqued my interest, but since she was already on it, I thought, why not take one of those proteins and apply it to solve a tangible diagnostic problem? That small conversation shaped the direction of my entire PhD.

2. Do a lot of reading:

   I spent the first three to four months reading voraciously. I shadowed labmates to learn new techniques, but I also realized I needed to understand certain concepts more deeply before I could make any real judgement calls. My lab had two streams: electrochemistry and molecular biology for use in diagnostic tests. The early reading helped me figure out that I belonged more in the molecular biology arm. A tip here: make sure you read review articles and pay close attention to the ‘future directions’ sections of research papers. They hold vital clues for where the field is headed and what questions remain unanswered. Did I also mention the nerdy me took a lot of notes while reading? Looking back, I can trace a clear pattern in those early pages that points straight to my eventual research topic.

3. Realize you are not solving all of humanity’s problems:

   When you're starting out, it's easy to think you're going to change the world. And while that energy is wonderful, a PhD isn't the vehicle for it. A PhD is fundamentally about becoming an independent thinker. You are looking for a small orifice of a knowledge gap not a big pit. Keep the scope tight.

4. Figure out what you don’t want:

   We all have preferences, and from early on I knew two things: I didn’t want to do animal work, and I wanted my research to have a translational impact. A lot of PhD work goes unnoticed. Results can be negative (more on that later), original aims can shift, and sometimes the project morphs into something unrecognizable from where it started. But this will be your baby for the next four to five years. Make sure you’re working on something you can live and breathe, on good days and bad. I knew quite early on that animal work is simply not my cup of tea, and I had strong feelings against it. So I didn’t venture into any line of research that needed it. I knew I needed something translational to keep me going every day. And so I chose to focus on solving a problem faced by premature neonates in the ICU.

5. Speak to your supervisor: Regularly! This isn’t just advice for the early stages but throughout your PhD. Consistent, open communication with your supervisor is one of the things that will set you up for success. Be clear about what interests you and what doesn’t. I kept pushing for a project with immediate, visible clinical impact, not something ten years down the line. And my supervisor responded by connecting me with experts across different clinical units. Many PhD acknowledgements thank a supervisor out of obligation. I truly meant every word of mine.

6. Talk to the Experts:

   My supervisor arranged meetings for me at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge. I spoke to clinicians and researchers working on prostate cancer, sepsis, glucose monitoring, neonatal biomarkers, and more. I spent a week reading about the male reproductive system and prostate cancer biomarkers, and then didn't end up working on any of it. But that didn't matter. Those conversations made me realise how many unanswered questions exist in healthcare. I no longer felt like my PhD topic hunt was a black hole. Eventually, I landed on neonatal biomarkers specifically, a renal biomarker to assess kidney development in premature newborns. I wouldn't have known this problem existed if I hadn't had those conversations. Although the senior neonatal consultant was more focused on glucose monitoring, this was something she mentioned in passing. Eventually, it piqued my interest and hers, and today, my PhD project has gone ahead for a Phase I clinical trial. More on that biomarker once my papers are published!

7. Play Around and Do Some Experiments:

   I cannot emphasize this enough! I only wish I'd had more time for it. Before the pandemic lockdown, I managed only one experiment. The results were pretty (beautiful teal-colored wells), but they told us clearly this particular direction was a dead end. If you have the opportunity and resources, try things out early. That’s why we called them ‘experiments’ in the lab. Most supervisors are fine with it as long as there's some logic to the madness and well, as long as you don't burn down the lab. Not every experiment will make it into your thesis, but every one of them will teach you something.

8. Allow the story to unfold itself:

   You will never be able to see every single step of your PhD from the beginning. And that’s okay. About nine months in (accounting for the pandemic, realistically six months for most), my research had a clear-ish aim: I was going to develop a paper-based point-of-care diagnostic test to assess kidney function in neonates. Did I know at that point that I’d be engineering scFv antibodies for this purpose? Not at all! I didn’t even know what single chain variable fragment antibodies (scFvs) were. My supervisor had an idea in her mind based on a collaborator she was talking to. But it was still too early in the game to get into the nitty gritty. An overall focus with some elements figured out was enough to get me started.

And it did. From a blank slate, to a research direction I could be genuinely excited about, to a 68,000-word thesis titled ‘Engineering scFv Antibodies for Point-of-Care Diagnostics’, the story unfolded. One step at a time.

PS: It’s only fitting that I wrote this today. Two years ago, on April 24, 2024, I submitted my PhD thesis. Here’s to the blank slates, the dead ends, the teal-coloured wells, and everything in between that makes a PhD uniquely yours. 🥳

Do you have any tips for PhD students in choosing their research focus?

Leave a comment

You could call me the queen of that.

As a kid, I was quite the introvert. Think of someone who had only two close friends through high school (and yes, those are the same two I’m still in touch with). But that’s beside the point for this article. I would physically be unable to speak up or ask a question if it involved another human in the room.

I often did have a question or two in class, but I’d stay silent and look it up later in textbooks or those Encarta Encyclopedia CD-ROMs (anyone else know what I’m talking about?). That took time and effort. If I had just raised my hand, I would’ve had the answer in two minutes. Instead, it took me an hour or two at home, hunting for answers. Sometimes I forgot to follow up, and that piece of knowledge I was curious about was lost forever. Sometimes I didn’t find an answer at all and life just moved on.

Does this all sound relatable?

But something in me flipped when I started working after my Masters’ degree.

I was one of those “lucky” ones who landed an amazing first job. I started as a Research Assistant at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and that first job lasted six years.

The lab focused on studying the pharmacokinetics of antiretroviral drugs. In simple terms, we wanted to understand: once an anti-HIV drug enters the body, whether as a tablet or a gel, how much of it reaches the bloodstream, how fast it gets there, what peak concentration it achieves, and how quickly it is cleared from the system.

Understanding this helps answer practical questions: Should the dosage be increased? Should we give two doses instead of one? Should the drug concentration be higher?

You know the instructions you read behind a medication strip? That’s all based on real science, y’all. A single squiggly graph like this could tell us so much.

It was all so fascinating for me! Such cool science behind a day of pipetting. But, it was also hard!!!

Your first job teaches you that there’s a big difference between studying hard and earning a degree, and actually working in a real lab. I had questions. So many questions. And at first, not many answers.

Initially, I kept quiet and just did my job: followed protocols to the T, made sure not to mix up clinical samples, and, well… tried not to start a fire in the lab. Over time, I got good at that. But the questions didn’t go away. Unlike school, you can’t always just “look things up” especially when your questions are deeply tied to the specifics of your research. You need clarity even to know what to search for.

So what changed?

An amazing team and an even more amazing boss.

I found myself in a space that felt so positive and safe that even the introvert in me started asking questions. First, the “safe” ones. You know, the good, relevant questions.

And then something surprising happened.

No one laughed. Wait… what?! No one laughed. No one judged. My face would flush after asking a question, but instead of ridicule, I got thoughtful, earnest answers. It completely shattered this long-held belief I had about what would happen if I asked a “dumb” question.

Slowly, “good questions” turned into any questions, even the so-called dumb ones. By the end of those six years, I had no hesitation in asking questions. And honestly, that shift paid off massively during my PhD.

All this long-winded storytelling is really just to tell you this:

If you’re a young graduate student, never be afraid to ask questions. Curiosity drives research. Every great scientific discovery began with someone asking a question, whether it sounded “smart” or not.

And contrary to what we fear, there are good humans out there, people who genuinely want to help. You’ll recognize them the moment you ask your first question. Keep them close. Hang out with them often.

As for those who try to put you down or show off their knowledge? Use it to your advantage. Let them “show off” and you get your answers anyway. If you think about it, knowledge is vast. What any one person knows is just a droplet in an ocean. Makes the whole “showing off” thing a meaningless pursuit.

I remember when I joined a lab as a research technician during my Master’s. During the interview, I had zero practical skills. I hadn’t even used a micropipette before, just good old mouth pipetting! I still remember telling the lab supervisor, “I know absolutely nothing, but I’m willing to learn.” By then, I was exhausted of trying to sound smart, when reality was that, life had never given me an opportunity to work in a real research lab before. She took a chance on me. And I’ll always be grateful to her, for being the one among the few who actually responded among the 200 emails I sent out, desperately looking for a lab position at Hopkins…to learn!

The truth is, none of us knows everything. If you think about it, in fact, it’s a little naive to think we do. We don’t even fully understand our present time and space, let alone the millions of years that came before us.

So if you want to be a good researcher: be bold and ask questions. Dumb or smart—it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you walk away with better understanding. It’s a skill that will serve you incredibly well in grad school and beyond to become a good scientist.

More importantly, when you ask questions confidently, you create space for others to do the same. And that’s exactly what research needs: a safe environment where questions of the known and the unknown are always welcome.

‘The Binding Site’ isn’t just about science but it’s about the humans behind the science as well. Scientists are a wonderfully quirky bunch, and we should embrace ourselves, flaws and all. So I hope this space becomes one where we talk not just about research, but about the stories that shape us as researchers.

Leaving you with a quote by Confucius who basically summed up my 1000-word rant in one line:

“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask remains a fool forever.” - Confucius

#BeCurious #BeEnlightened