Doing science: collaborative or competitive?

Competition is the catalyst but collaboration is what produces real change. 

In the study of history there is an old, and somewhat misleading term, known as the ‘the Great Man in History’. Suggesting that the course of history is determined by the actions of one ‘great’ person, this theory from the 19th century sparks much debate amongst academics.

Take for example, a criticism from one of the founders of the science of sociology, Herbert Spencer:

"You must admit that the genesis of a great man depends on the long series of complex influences ... Before he can remake his society, his society must make him."

Indeed sociology, science of knowledge, or Indigenous knowledge, lends weight to the idea that science is the product of many events leading up to a great moment.

And even the ‘great’ moment can be a simple change with profound consequences. .

The Great Person Theory can be moulded to describe a view of scientific discovery - that scientific progress and the success of scientific efforts can be attributed to the discoveries of a few, great scientific minds. Alexander Fleming with the discovery of penicillin, Isaac Newton with gravity or Einstein with his theory of general relativity. It's hard to imagine where we would be, if not for their efforts, and there's nothing quite like a hero story. 

But underpinning all this intelligence and grit and determination, lies centuries of foundations and hundreds of small steps that made these ground-breaking discoveries possible.

Sure, fame and acclaim are powerful motivators and one hell of a prize. But for every history-altering discovery made, there are many, many smaller, less noteworthy discoveries to get there. It begs the question, in this modern day and age, who are the real heroes of scientific discovery? 

And when all the glam of success is stripped away, how do we keep the spark of curiosity alive? The thrill of the chase? And without it, what is the cost? 

By mid-2022, we will all be familiar with at least one truly emblematic example – COVID-19. The power and strength of collaboration in science could not be better illustrated. Since the declaration of an outbreak in late 2019, hundreds and thousands of virologists, microbiologists and immunologists were handed a new project, often at the detriment to already existing projects. 

From its initial outbreak to the first vaccine approval in just over a year, it leaves the previous record for fastest vaccine development in the dust – 4 years for the mumps vaccine [1]. And that’s not even to mention the average timeframe for vaccines which is in the range of up to 10 years.

As truly amazing of a feat the COVID vaccine is, examples of scientific collaboration are littered throughout history. The Human Genome Project was one of the largest collaborative research projects in history, with over 3000 researchers involved in the consortium shared authorship, across 13 years all over the world [2]. Similarly, the mission to eradicate polio, establish the International Space Station and the International Rice Research Institute are all global scientific endeavours to generate real, tangible change. 

The world came together and recognised these issues as global concerns and were able to act without the financial or labour restraints that so often prevent other projects from having the impact that young bright-eyed scientists imagine. 

As uplifting as these projects are, they serve as a reminder of the rarity of these profound, life-changing scientific endeavours. It’s not just the sheer number of people and amount of time needed.  

The thousands of scientific minds all working with a single goal is a large part of the tremendousness of the outcomes, on an international scale. But obstacles to this process include the cost and lack of attention from mainstream media. Like two sides of a coin, the flip side is that under this paradigm, only "popular" or "relevant" issues get addressed to the extent that this appreciable change can be made. Or at least within a time frame that those currently suffering can reap the benefits.

Large part of this is due to the seeming perpetuity of the drug development process, in which drugs often take at least 10 years to journey from pre-clinical trials to the marketplace.

Then, with the involvement of investors, the profit motive becomes even more apparent. In a 2020 publication by SOMO, an independent centre researching the multinational corporations, found that despite payouts to stakeholders of some of the largest pharmaceutical companies, increasing from 88% to 123% in 20 years, there was still a disproportionate increase in drug prices.

Argentinian economist Cecilia Rikap recently compared scientific co-publication and patent co-ownership and identified ‘a subordination of the universities, public research organisations and start-ups that have a fundamental role in the former, but an almost negligible participation in the latter’. 

Science is messy. Science is complicated. Science is multidisciplinary. With personal agendas, profit motive pressures, lengthy testing and approval procedures, and diverse epidemiologies of countless diseases, there will unfortunately always be issues. But there will always be heroes. Unsung heroes, who work tirelessly behind the scenes, without whom this progress could never be achieved.

It makes me, an overly idealistic, naïve (and certainly self-aware) 20-something year old, wonder what scientific progress could be made in a world without the financial burden of research and stakeholders, the quest for esteem and with nothing more than a burning passion to better the world. Maybe there is no “right way” of doing science. The motivation that comes with the glory of making a ground-breaking discovery balanced against the strength that comes from being a part of a larger group.

Certainly, that is too much to ask of this world, and probably always will be. But I will never stop wondering.

References

[1] Cohen S. The fastest vaccine in history [Internet]. UCLA Health. 2020 [cited 27 May 2022]. Available from: https://connect.uclahealth.org/2020/12/10/the-fastest-vaccine-in-history/

[2] Chial H. DNA Sequencing Technologies Key to the Human Genome Project. Scitable by Nature Education [Internet]. 2008 [cited 27 May 2022];. Available from: https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/dna-sequencing-technologies-key-to-the-human-828/

[3] Fernandez, R. and Klinge, T. (2020). The financialisation of Big Pharma. [Internet] Stichting Onderzoek Multinationale Ondernemingen SOMO [cited 30 Jan. 2021] Available at: https://www.somo.nl/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Rapport-The-financialisation-of-Big-Pharma-def.pdf

And the Winner Is ...

STEM Public Speaking Grand Final 2022

Written by Georgie Aiuto

Edited by Yvette Marris

It is already November! Wow, the year has gone by so fast. 

A month ago, the Let’s Torque crew held the Grand Finals for their STEM Public Speaking competition. It had been a massive year with three workshops building our fellow undergraduate’s Science Communication comprehension, workshops for John Monash Secondary School, multiple blogs, podcasts and other online content. But all of our work had come to a head for our final event of the year. 

Held at Royal Society of Victoria (RSV) in Melbourne, five incredible Grand Finalists presented their speeches to a sold out audience that Monday night. Hosted by Clare Mullen, a Senior Climate Science at the Bureau of Meteorology and a professional science communicator, these finalists went head to head for the 2022 Championship.

The grand finalist presented their speeches: 

• Amelia Safai with “Therapeutic Cloning - Will a sheep save lives?”

• Bianca Mazzucheli with “Auditory Sensory Prevention Technology”

• Breana Galea with “Designing our Destiny’s presentation: How Protein Predictions can Change the World.”

• Reah Shetty with “Revolutionising Society with a Chip”

• Nicholas Tze Hoe Chan with “Teaching ML to Smell: making machine learning more versatile”

Getting to the Grand Finals was no easy feat. Participants not only had two rounds of elimination, but also submit a compelling proposal of their STEM idea and its applications economically, environmentally and socially. They were really pushed to think outside the box, and they did so terrifically. The semi-final, held at the University of Melbourne’s busy on-campus bar, challenged them to communicate their ideas to the general public in a noisy and crowded setting. Once again, competitors excelled. 

Finally making it to the Grand finals at RSV, the finalists were presented with a new challenge, to give their speech in a professional lecture style room in front of an audience of 50 people. Here, we were fortunate enough to have three extraordinary professional science communicators to be our judges.

Alanta Colley; a comedian, science communicator and storyteller. With a background in International public health, her shows have been; 'Parasites Lost', 'Days of our Hives', and a recent science comedy debate series 'Sci Fight'. 

Chris Thompson; the Director of Education at the Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University and publisher in the fields of spectroscopy and computational chemistry. More recently in the field of science education and is co-author of Australia's most popular foundation chemistry textbook. 

And Sara Webb; a researcher focused on observational transient astronomy and a passionate science communicator who has presented on various national/international TV news programs, ABC radio, Joy FM, TikTok, face-to-face, and online presentations.

Not only did we have the incredible Grand Finalists’ presentations, but we also hosted three guest speakers to discuss their career and how science communication has helped them with their journey. 

Phoebe de Wilt; a Meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology took us through her personal science journey and how she was offered a role in various science communication jobs due to her passions for sharing her work to those who it affects, and being weather - that is everyone! 

Daniel Langley, a senior scientist at Universal Biosensors presented about his journey through various disciplines of science. A lot of his work overlapped with quite a few of the grand finalists topics, such as proteins and cloning. 

And finally, Ruwangi Fernando, an IT specialist and co-founder of STEMSisters and iSTEM explained the importance of communicating sciences to diverse audiences and how she strives to support women of colour in all STEM fields. 

All these incredible presentations were followed by a networking session for everyone to expand their connections. We were also treated with light refreshments and canapés. Let’s Torque crew member Jess has this to say about the event:

“The grand finals was an excellent evening! It was fascinating to hear all the speeches, and I got to hear about a whole variety of topics that I didn’t know much about - plus all of the participants were excellent speakers. It was also so valuable to be able to hear from industry professionals, and what brought them into science communication - the food and networking opportunities were great fun.”

Now, for the moment you’ve probably been waiting for (you might have even scrolled all the way to the button just to read this part), the winners of the 2022 STEM Public Speaking Competition! 

People’s Choice: Breana Galea with “Designing our Destiny’s presentation: How Protein Predictions can Change the World.”

Runner Up: Reah Shetty with “Revolutionising Society with a Chip”

And the grand winner of 2022…

Amelia Safai with “Therapeutic Cloning - Will a sheep save lives?”

Winners in the various categories were awarded an array of prizes, from cash to book vouchers, and some coveted memberships to some of Melbourne's greatest science establishments.

All these incredible speeches are uploaded to our YouTube Channel. Check out the playlist right here.

Sad you missed out? Stay tuned for next year’s competition or look out this November to see how you can join Let’s Torque’s 2023 team. 

Let’s Torque Workshop Wrap Up

At our first workshop for 2022, Science Beyond the Lab, we had the fantastic A/Prof Chris Thompson share some of his Science Communication wisdom and ran some pretty fun activities. In case you couldn’t make it, here is a wrap up of what happened.

So, what did we learn?

Why does Science Communication matter?

Despite the fact that not everyone is as science-mad as the rest of us, there’s no denying that science plays an integral role in the way we live our lives - from the technology that permeates our everyday lives, the medicine we take, to the discoveries that are yet to be made that will revolutionize our way of living.

There is simply no avoiding it. And yet, for something so inescapable, accessibility and understanding is still a huge obstacle. At Let’s Torque, we believe that scientific knowledge shouldn’t just be limited to those who have already committed themselves to the field.

Science communication, as described by Sam Illingworth and Grant Allen, is an umbrella term that centers around four key pillars - Informing, Educating, Raising Awareness and Sense of Wonder. 

So, who are we doing this for?

So science has a universal presence but how do we harness it to produce real change? By targeting and aligning three main stakeholders: the general public, policymakers and business leaders and aspiring scientists. Without the support of all three, it would be impossible to get enough support - either in the form of public interest, or financial backing. We’ve seen this interrelation clearly in the last two years, with the COVID-19 outbreak. When the interest of the general public, aspiring scientists and policymakers all align, the advancements in science and technology are monumental.

The general public is the most important stakeholder, as what we do must help people and in turn pressure from the ground up drives influence and change - particularly when policymakers and businesses are looking for a financial motive to invest in an issue.

Finally, the future of society, health, technology and the environment are dependent on passionate and articulate scientists who can effectively communicate the importance of their work to the rest of the stakeholders.

Workshop Activities

With all this in mind, we shaped our workshop with the goal of exploring Science Beyond the Lab. 

The first activity was called the Abstract Prompt - where we gave participants a list of technical abstracts for articles, typified by jargon, and were asked to write a new title, to be captivating and engaging - without compromising the scientific integrity.

Huge shoutout to Joshua Nicholls - Head of Education 2022 and Winner of Let’s Torque 2021, for this example!

Participants did an incredible job with this activity. Using language tips and tricks, such as word play, alliteration and rhyming, the groups were able to flex their writing skills as well as their knowledge of science. The results: a series of very funny and engaging titles, from a range of frankly quite overwhelming abstracts.

The following activity was an activity about understanding the Audience and how that might shape how you pitch the information. Groups were assigned an audience and new article at random - and were asked to plan and present how they might communicate the information in the article.

Combinations of articles and audiences included an article about evidence against the proposal that vaccines caused autism to be explained to Karen, a middle aged, suburban mother of three. Or an article about the potential therapeutic benefits of Naltrexone to help with alcohol addiction, to be explained to a disgruntled bartender.

The resulting skits were, again, hilarious and engaging. It was fantastic to see participants really understanding the importance of knowing the audience in order to effectively communicate scientific concepts. 

“The event was in general really fun and an eye-opener for me into science communication” Sirui Fang, a second year Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science at Monash University told us, “and the activities we had, made the day more interactive and engaging”

Overall, it was a great evening and the team at Let’s Torque is so grateful for all those who showed up and got involved! The online resources are now live on our website and we encourage you all to follow us on social media and stay tuned for updates about the next workshop on May 30th.