Comments on: Staggering waste of talent: Douglas Prasher

By: Lihong Zhao

Lihong Zhao — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 03:26:19 +0000

I heard about Dr. Prasher’s story briefly elsewhere before, but reading it here today after almost two years later still shocks me. It is odd to see somebody with his kind of talent could not locate a scientific job, while a lot of funding goes to projects not worth much. As one professor I know said, “Sixty percent papers published today are worthless or misleading.” I think he underestimated the problem. The same professor also told me that none of the students or postdocs he know are happy with the current situation of biomed research field. A reform is truly overdue.

I wish Dr. Prasher would be able to find or has found a scientific job.

By: ed

ed — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:28:09 +0000

Prasher also cloned the gene for aequorin, which along with GFP, has made biotech companies like Clontech thousands of dollars if not millions. The irony is that these days, the GFP gene would have been patented by Prasher and he would have become rich. His bad luck is mostly due to funding cuts, which reflects how our society allows patent lawyers to get rich but leaves honest basic research scientist who do the actual intellectual work in the dust.

By: Nagraj

Nagraj — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:55:13 +0000

True slowly things are getting difucult in our field ……….be it for funds for projects ot getting good jobs………;;;same is the situation everywhere i suppose……….india ,US and also in France where i am studying currently……….unfortunately things doesnot look like improving also espeacially for fundamental research………..

Thanks for ur visit!!!!

By: Salim Jumma

Salim Jumma — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:10:37 +0000

Hello

I taught this only happens in third world countery where i came from (India).

But the way our Politicians (American’s) are behaving we would soon be a third world country with no funds.

Everything in “DEBT”

HOw will we have funding for Science

By: Nagraj

Nagraj — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:42:41 +0000

To be honest with u abhishek its justified that Douglas is not among the nobel this year for GFP work………..because is not involved with science for long………..agreed that he did great work in cloning gfp but couldn’t carry on and bad luck could be one factor ………..but in todays world of hard competition there is no room for any error if u want to be among top people in ur work field…………and douglas couldnot get enough funds to be in this field and lost the race ……..even though he lost Nobel but he deserves his job back in science rather than spending rest of the life as shuttle driver,because there lies huge talent we all know….

And there is also no need to be disappointed after reading such stories …….agreed science is not healthy state because of reasons u mentioned but still if u like science and have enough zeal to do good work u still get ample opportunities…………luck is the one which u can’t control .so think positive and work hard………… because very few people gets a chance to live a dream and we are lucky ones i suppose………good luck for ur P.hD and thanks for the visit………