70% Failure

Pretend like I posted this on Friday:

Last night, I attended a presentation, dinner and movie for the end of the Transcard Program 2009-2010. The Transcard program is for graduate students who are doing their thesis in the cardiology field. It is a seminar series (at least for the first year) to expose the students to a wide variety of topics in the field. I have also been attending these seminars.

My PI gave the last talk for Transcard where he summarized the goals and visions of the program (he is a director of the program; it is new and in its first year). Then we had pizza while watching a documentary film about the life of Nobel prize-winning neurologist Eric Kandel (In Search of Memory). It is a great movie especially for a science crowd. In the movie, Kandel pointed out the struggles of his life and which events he remembers the most: playing with a blue toy car as the Nazis came knocking or saying goodbye to his parents as he and his brother first left for the United States. He also describes his career: science is 70% failure. This we talked about during lunch. I accidentally quoted it as 80% failure and my mentor joked that maybe when we all lower the failure rate to 70 then we'll be the ones with the Nobel prizes.

So there: I knew this already but it's good to be reminded, especially be a Nobel prize-winner, sometimes science is about persistence in the face of multiple failures.

LILY