Case 1. Joe Smith and Bigmac

Case Studies, Session on Problems and Solutions in Scientific Management, 2005 BWF-HHMI Course in Scientific Management

Case 1. Joe Smith and BigMac

Topic(s): Collaborations

Summary: Two independent labs, one headed by Dr. Fries and the other by Dr. Hamburger, collaborate on a research project. A graduate student from Dr. Hamburger’s lab has clearly made a less important contribution to the resulting manuscript than a student in Dr. Fries lab, but his supervisor is demanding that the two students share first authorship.

Joe Smith is a fourth-year Ph.D. student working on the maintenance of stem cell pluripotency. The field is hot. It has just been shown that the key step in the pluripotency/differentiation pathway is the activation of an unknown protease with an unusual target site specificity. Cleavage of a particular cellular protein substrate, known as BigMac, is mediated by this uncharacterized protein activity. Thus, many groups are racing to identify the protease.

By putting together diverse observations in the literature and scanning the genome for predicted proteases, Smith has identified what he thinks is the likely protease. Now he has to see if his candidate protease can cleave BigMac. To do this, he needs an antibody that can distinguish the cleaved and uncleaved forms of BigMac. A group working in a completely different field had made an excellent monoclonal antibody against BigMac several years ago and published it in a relatively obscure journal.

Smith and his mentor, Dr. Fries, contact this group, which is led by Dr. Hamburger. Dr. Hamburger agrees to help, but in a “collaborative” setting, even though they note that the antibody has been published and its use should not require a collaborative relationship. Dr. Fries and Smith agree to collaborate since another group is hot on their trail.

Dr. Hamburger insists that one of his students run the Western blots for them if Smith sends the protein extracts to be analyzed. Smith and Dr. Fries would have rather that he sent an aliquot of the antibody to them so that they could do the experiments, but they agree to this arrangement because they are worried that if they start arguing they will get scooped.

Smith sends the extracts and Dr. Hamburger’s student runs the blots. Everyone is excited to see that they have indeed identified the key protease that controls stem cell pluripotency. Dr. Fries and Smith prepare a manuscript to send to the journal HighImpact and send a copy to Dr. Hamburger to review. Dr. Hamburger immediately insists that his student and Smith share first authorship, saying that his student has contributed the key figures in the paper. Dr. Fries argues that Smith has done most of the work in identifying, expressing, and purifying the protease and performing the proper controlled experiments for subsequent analyses.

It is clear to Dr. Fries that Dr. Hamburger’s request is not fair, but he is worried that a disagreement over authorship could compromise the publication of a high-profile paper that is critical to getting his grant renewed, as well as to Smith’s future career.

Points to discuss:

• What should Dr. Fries do at this point?
• How could he have handled this collaboration from the beginning to avoid this conflict?

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Case 2. Susie Square and Interdisciplinary Science

Topic(s): Leadership Styles, Interdisciplinary Training, Mentoring

Case Summary: Susie Square, a postdoctoral fellow in her first year of an interdisciplinary training program, is not getting the recognition she deserves from her current mentor, Dr. Round. Part of the problem may be that she comes from a theoretical science background, while Dr. Round is an experimental scientist.

Dr. Susie Square is a third-year postdoctoral fellow. Her background and degrees are in a theoretical discipline. She is highly trained and eager to apply her expertise to research problems in the experimental sciences. As a result, she successfully applies to an interdisciplinary training program on campus and joins the laboratory of Dr. Jeff Round.

When Dr. Square first approached Dr. Round, he was enthusiastic and excited about working with her. From their discussions, Dr. Square had expected to work collaboratively with Dr. Round as near-equals, as she does with faculty members in her own discipline. But now that she is a postdoc in Dr. Round’s lab, she is treated as the lowest member in the lab hierarchy. Dr. Round has offered her only limited resources, which are inadequate for her research, and has explicitly asked her to do work that would be suitable for an advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate student.

Since her position is funded by the interdisciplinary training program and not by Dr. Round, Dr. Square is reluctant to ask him for better resources, especially since she is not willing to work on the analyses he has asked her to do (although she did offer to structure and supervise the work so that a student could do it). Dr. Square believes that Dr. Round is trying to be a good mentor, but that he doesn't understand her discipline well enough to know what the expectations and standards are. This is somewhat surprising since Dr. Round has had collaborations with faculty from the theoretical sciences.

Because of institutional politics, Dr. Square cannot find a substitute mentor to replace Dr. Round. Instead, she has developed a number of interesting research questions that relate to projects in Dr. Round’s lab and is working on them independently.

She has also found other ways to get the necessary resources and works at home or elsewhere on campus. Dr. Round is not happy with this arrangement. He occasionally comments that Dr. Square doesn't spend enough time in the lab, and he seems frustrated that she isn't working on what he wants her to do. Overall, their interactions seem to be going from bad to worse.

Points to discuss:

• Given that Dr. Square’s position is funded by the interdisciplinary training program, and not by Dr. Round, how should they treat each other?
• What steps need to be taken to improve the current situation?
• What actions could have been taken to avoid this situation?
• What do both sides need to learn from this experience?
• Compare and contrast (at least a couple aspects of) the culture, expectations, and standards between experimental disciplines, such as biology and chemistry, and theoretical disciplines, such as computer science and mathematics. For instance, Dr. Square is the sole author on all publications resulting from her dissertation research. Would that happen with a typical graduate student or postdoc in Dr. Round’s laboratory? Should Dr. Square be evaluated according to her discipline or his?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of interdisciplinary training and collaborations? What can be done to enhance the former and mitigate the later?

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Case 3. Postdocs and Pregnancy

Topic(s): Gender Issues, Mentoring

Case Summary: Sally Smart is just about to start a postdoctoral fellowship in a prestigious lab, and she finds out she is pregnant. She does not know when she should tell her supervisor.

Sally Smart finished her Ph.D. with first-author publications in top journals and secured a postdoctoral fellowship in a prestigious lab. Before starting her postdoc, she got married and purchased a home close to her new job. When she arrived at the new lab, she met with the PI to discuss potential projects, but the conversation also touched on Smart’s personal life. The PI congratulated Smart on her recent wedding and home ownership, and asked if she was planning to start a family soon. Smart was unsure what to answer since she had just found out that she was pregnant. She had not yet had the chance to inquire about the maternity leave policy at her new job. She was concerned that the news of her pregnancy would jeopardize her career options. Specifically, she was concerned that the high-profile project she was hoping to begin working on would be offered to one of the other postdocs in the lab, who happened to be all men.

Points to discuss:

• How should Smart answer?

• Is it appropriate for her to defer informing the PI until at least past the first trimester, making sure the pregnancy is progressing normally? If she does not inform the PI at this time, and starts working on the high-profile project, does Smart need to accept that she may need to turn the project over to someone else if she is unable to maintain consistent work hours?
• Is it fair for the PI to make such an inquiry (this is not an interview, but a friendly conversation after she accepted the position)?
• Does the PI have the right not to offer Smart the project they had previously discussed based on the new information?
• Is the PI obligated to Smart’s career, or to the progress of science?

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Case 4. Heathcliff and His Future

Topic(s): Negotiating a Faculty Position, Mentoring

Summary: A physician-scientist encounters difficulties while trying to negotiate a faculty position.

Heathcliff, M.D., Ph.D., trained as a neurologist at a medical center and served as chief resident in his final year of medical training. He then obtained a fellowship to pursue postdoctoral training in the laboratory of a structural biologist, Dr. Hughes, in the same medical center. At the same time, he continues to have a supervisory role in the department of neurology, where he is required to see patients with the residents in the general neurology community clinic one afternoon per week.

After spending two years in the laboratory, Heathcliff published his first paper concerning the structure of a protein involved in a hereditary spinocerebellar ataxia and submitted a K08 Career Award to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He faced a problem when he had to come up with a salary figure for the award.

The chair of the neurology department explained that he needed to submit a salary based on that of his peers but was otherwise unhelpful. In the end, Heathcliff submitted the grant with his proposed salary figure with 90% effort—meaning that the department would be responsible for 10% of the salary.

Based on the grant score, it was clear that the grant will be funded. Heathcliff thus decides to discuss his possible appointment as an assistant professor in the department of neurology with the chairman, who is quite pleased with the comments from the study section. But when Heathcliff brings up the issue of departmental support for 10% of his salary, the chairman starts talking about moonlighting activities. When Heathcliff inquires about future lab space, the chairman says that for the next five years, all of the lab space dedicated to neurology faculty will be occupied. Heathcliff meets again with the chairman and is eventually able to obtain commitment to 10% salary support. However, this time the chairman says the salary was too low and asks whether the grant can be revised upward for subsequent years.

Heathcliff also discusses his future plans with his laboratory mentor, Dr. Hughes. He suggests that Heathcliff should obtain a joint appointment with one of the stronger basic science departments, but that the clinical department should be the one providing the laboratory space, given that Heathcliff’s primary appointment would be in the clinical department. In the meantime, Dr. Hughes has offered to obtain a technician to support Heathcliff’s research in the lab, but no advertisement has gone out and no candidates have even been interviewed.

Points to discuss:

• Given that Heathcliff would like to stay at the medical center, what should he do to obtain tenure in the next seven years?
• Should Heathcliff view his current situation as a glorified postdoc and plan on going on the job trail next year? What kinds of jobs should he be looking for? Given his program in structural biology, should it be in a basic science department or should he contact other neurology departments at academic medical centers?
• What should Heathcliff have done differently in negotiating a position as assistant professor in his clinical department?

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Case 5. Ruby Tuesday and Her Referee

Topic(s): Collaboration, Publishing, Ethics

Summary: A junior faculty member reviews a manuscript by a scientist with whom she is starting to collaborate. The manuscript author asks the reviewer to help her address some of the referees’ comments, not knowing that one of the referees is her collaborator.

Postdoctoral fellow Ruby Tuesday recently accepted an assistant professor position at a university. After meeting at two international conferences over the past year, Tuesday and Lucy Diamonds, a junior faculty at another university, discovered that they shared some research interests and slowly attempted to work out a collaboration. The two scientists discussed integrating a mathematical model developed by Diamonds in a software program that Tuesday provides to researchers.

About two months ago, an editor of a prestigious journal in the bioinformatics field asked Diamonds to review a manuscript that has Tuesday as a single author. Since the manuscript does not involve the collaborative work, Diamonds agrees to review it. The manuscript was innovative, and after providing several critiques about the analysis techniques, Diamonds recommends its publication.

Tuesday then sends an e-mail to Diamonds saying that she has received three reviews on her manuscript, all of which raised some analysis technique issues that she could use some help answering. She asks Diamonds if she would be interested in providing that help in exchange for coauthorship on the manuscript.

Points to discuss:

• Even though Tuesday’s manuscript was unrelated to the work that Tuesdays and Diamonds were trying to start together, was it reasonable for Diamonds to agree to review the manuscript?
• Would it be right for Diamonds to help Tuesday respond to the referees’ critiques?
• Diamonds does not think she can refuse to help Tuesday without giving her a truthful explanation. Should Diamonds break the anonymity of the review process to save the collaboration?
• What role, if any, should the journal editor have in these decisions?

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Case 6. Steve Sizzle’s Problem with Plagiarism

Topic(s): Publishing, Ethics

Case Summary: Postdoc Steve Sizzle directly copies several sentences from a research proposal of another postdoc in a review that is then published in Nature. The second postdoc is not an author on the review.

Steve Sizzle and Dennis Doe are postdocs in the laboratory of Horatio Hornblower at Big Midwestern University. Sizzle has been in the lab for several years, since he was a graduate student, and enjoys an easy, informal camaraderie with Hornblower. Hornblower speaks in glowing terms of Sizzle’s accomplishments, which include a first-authored Science paper. Doe, on the other hand, joined the lab a few months ago, but had done stellar work as a graduate student. He wrote a detailed project proposal for his fellowship committee, including a comprehensive literature review. Hornblower was impressed by the writing, and told Doe he would pass the proposal to Sizzle as a model of a good literature review. Several months later, a review paper was published in Nature, with Sizzle and Hornblower as coauthors. When Doe read the review, he realized that the first several sentences are almost identical to his project proposal. Doe was annoyed, and sent an e-mail to Sizzle (copying Hornblower) pointing out the similarities. In the e-mail he asked Sizzle to be more careful in the future. Sizzle did not reply, but the next day, Hornblower sent Doe an e-mail warning that he would lose his job if he continued to “make trouble” with allegations of plagiarism. In a face-to-face meeting several weeks later, Hornblower apologized to Doe and admitted that he hadn’t examined the text that Doe alleged was plagiarized. Hornblower explained that he was just trying to “nip the problem in the bud,” before it escalated into a lab feud.

Points to discuss:

• Did Sizzle do anything wrong by borrowing a few sentences from Doe’s proposal? (After all, he said he only copied summaries of the published literature and not research results, and the copying had been unintentional.)
• Should Doe have spoken to Hornblower about his concerns before sending an e-mail? In general, is it better to avoid e-mail for sensitive communications?
• Was it appropriate for Hornblower to share Doe’s proposal with other lab members without first obtaining permission?
• How should Hornblower have responded to Doe’s allegations of plagiarism? What was his responsibility as Sizzle’s mentor in this situation?

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Case 7. Teresa’s Depression and Lab Work

Topic(s): Mentoring, Firing

Case Summary: Teresa, a second year graduate student, experiences severe depression that leaves her unable to work in the lab for an extended period of time. Her supervisor is frustrated and wants Teresa to leave .

Teresa is in her second year of graduate school; she is the first graduate student of a young principal investigator, Buddy Bunsen. During her rotation in the Bunsen lab, Teresa was bright and enthusiastic and had good “lab hands.” Bunsen was happy when Teresa expressed an interest in doing a Ph.D. in his lab. Teresa told Bunsen that in the past she had experienced a bout of severe depression, triggered by family problems. However, by the time Teresa started graduate school, she and her doctors believed that the problems were resolved. After a year in the lab it became clear that the depression had returned. Teresa stopped coming to the lab in person and communicated mainly by e-mail, screening her phone calls to prevent a confrontation. She promised Bunsen to meet with him to discuss her situation, but she did not show up at the meetings. Her no-show was followed by “I’m sorry” e-mails, but the pattern continued. Bunsen is frustrated and wants to lay down some strict rules for Teresa to get her to come back to the lab. If not, he’s prepared to ask her to leave his lab.