All work and no play...

Despite having a whole load of editing to do on the paper, it is actually looking quite good. Everything is in there...it isn't a Lancet article yet, but the story is beginning to take shape. Everyone has been really good at getting back to me and giving constructive criticism. As strange as it may seem it is actually really difficult to get negative criticism from colleagues, mostly you get a nod and yes it is OK. In this situation finding our what is wrong before the editor sees it is essential. Too much can be demoralizing, but I had no illusions about the quality of the paper before I sent it out to everyone so have actually been pleased by the feedback.

The Last Days of Discussion

Finally, the paper is almost finished. In the next couple of days I will polish of the numbers and figures and then send it to the other authors for feedback. The plan is to send it off next Friday before I go on holiday - which will be brilliant (both the holiday and sending the paper). The idea is to send it to the Lancet. This may be over-ambitious, but if it makes it to review then any feedback we get will be useful and we can target it somewhere else. It definitely fits in the remit of the journal - discoveries with potential to alter treatment, but it is whether or not we can convince the editor and the reviewers of this. Wish me luck :-)

Button Up Warm...

Sorry for my lack of posts this week - I was busy and then had the EMN workshop in Rotterdam. The EMN workshop was a success, it was nice to see some of the "faces" of myeloma in Europe and I was able to put our work in the context of other groups in Europe and I think we came out well. It was a confidence booster and an opportunity to do a bit of networking.

Enjoy the snow - it was cold in Rotterdam, but is really cold now. Although I love the snow, so am really looking forward to getting wrapped up and having a nice long trudge to work tomorrow.

The Importance of Being with Earnings

This week was my appraisal - this being the most important event for me this January because I am in the last nine months of my contract and need to talk careers. We have a grant to submit, on which is a post for a bioinformatics person (me), which is good news, and that my boss wants me to stay. This is the peril of the "post-doc" lifestyle, fixed-term contracts - 3 year contracts (or 5 if you are lucky) and with the changes in the EU regulations mean that you can't be offered continues fixed-term contracts. This is good in one sense, but since most labs are grant funded they are often unwilling to offer you a permanent job after a couple of contracts and so you finish up having to move somewhere else. The solution, easy - get a job as a group leader...

Grants and Money

Not only is this the last year of my fixed-term contract, but the group is up for a funding review as well. The way it works is I work for and am paid by the Institute, but the group is funded by a programme grant from the Leukaemia Research Fund (LRF). This is a five-year grant with a review after three years. The site-visit will be in a few months - this is what it says on the tin, we submit a grant proposal with what we have achieved and what we are going to do with the time remaining and they come and visit us, we give more detailed presentations and answer any questions. This time we are effectively submitting a new five-year proposal, this is good for my job because a renewal of my post will be in it and I get a chance to have some input on the projects. I just have to work out what we are going to do with all the data that we have - and what experiments we need to do to understand myeloma, improve treatments, etc. It is fun, but hard work.