Failure is an integral part of science. Research projects get scooped, protocols prove unsuccessful, or funding limitations restrict data collection, delaying progress and sending scientists back to the drawing board. These setbacks plague researchers of all career stages, but they can feel particularly acute for PhD candidates who are racing against time to earn their degrees. Nature talked to five scientists about the hurdles they faced in their PhD research, how they successfully switched projects midway through, and what advice they have for others in a similar situation.
FRANCINE RATS OMA:
Go with what actually works, Microbiology PhD student at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. I study the relationship between pine trees and their fungal pathogen, Futurism Cincinnatus. Pine is an economically important plant, but it’s susceptible to the fungus, which reduces timber yields by causing disease.
My first interest was in understanding which proteins or nucleic acids pine plants carry in their extracellular vesicles — nanoparticles that exchange components between cells — that make them susceptible or resistant to the fungus. But I had trouble isolating the vesicles from the roots and the hard pine needles. The available protocols used model plants with very soft leaves. Also, the plants I needed weren’t readily available. When pine seedlings I ordered arrived months later, they were sometimes already contaminated with the fungus.
Waiting for fresh plants and troubleshooting extraction protocols was taking a lot of time. My excitement and optimism about the project started to wane. In 2021, six months into my PhD, I realized I needed a plan B
I decided that I wouldn’t take my failures personally because, after all, hurdles happen in science. I meet with my supervisor nearly every week, so he could see that my project had stalled. He suggested that we focus on the fungus side of the interaction instead because the fungal strains were readily available, and I could isolate their vesicles in the lab.
It wasn’t easy to switch mentally because I had a lot of interest in the pine part of my work. But sometimes you have to sacrifice your interests and go with what actually works in a PhD. With just three years in which to finish my program, I had to look on the bright side of changing my approach. I’m learning new techniques and gaining skills.
It’s also important to check on your mental health: it can decline very quickly during a PhD, especially when your project isn’t going how you anticipated. My advice is to get adequate sleep, eat well, exercise if you have the time, talk to your colleagues and see your university mental-health-care provider as much as you need to get support.
YUAN DAILIN:
Advocate for the PhD experience you want Microbiology PhD student at Zhejiang University–University of Edinburgh Institute in Hailing, China.
When I started my PhD in September 2020 in a cell-biology lab, I had trouble handling cells, doing live cell imaging and collecting data. I’m not a particularly detail-oriented person, so doing delicate experiments was challenging for me. I talked to my supervisor several times, and after a month of failed experiments, she suggested I reconsider my choice of research field.
My supervisor knew that I wanted to pursue a career in industry. She said that if my main goal was to earn a PhD, then I could transfer to another lab in a field that would better suit my skills and career interests. At first, I was shocked. It sounded as if she wanted to get rid of me because I couldn’t get positive data. But after thinking it over and talking to other professors and graduate students, I realized that cell biology wasn’t the right fit for me.
So, I searched the university website to find faculty members who were doing interesting research, and I talked to their current graduate students about their experiences. Then, I met with those faculty members and let them know what skills I could bring to their lab. I also said that I wanted to pursue a career in industry, where I could have a well-paying job that suited my outgoing personality. Eventually I met with a new group leader, Sebastian Leptin, along with the graduate-program director and my original supervisor; we all agreed that it would be good for me to move to Sebastian’s lab in January 2022, one-and-a-half years into my PhD program.
There, I studied microbiology, specifically the genetics of a bacteriophage (or phage, for short) that infects Klebsiella pneumonia, a bacterium that can cause health problems in humans. Phages are viruses and have genomes that are usually highly compressed, but the one I am studying has a genome containing non-coding regions, which is something of an abnormality. Understanding the functions of these non-coding regions could help researchers to use phages to treat bacterial diseases.
It’s worth taking the time to evaluate whether your research is fulfilling and whether your personality fits the lab group’s culture. If you’re having doubts and think you might be happier and more productive in another lab, bring the issue up as soon as possible. Talk to your supervisor, administrators, deans and other graduate students who can help you to make the transition smoothly. Even if some supervisors aren’t thrilled about the prospect of a graduate student leaving, you can still stand up for yourself and the PhD experience you want.
OLUSOLA ASHIRU:
Spend time away from your research Marine geologist and lecturer at the Federal University of Technology, Azure in Nigeria.
When I applied to do a PhD with the person who would become my supervisor at the Institute of Deep-Sea Science and Engineering in San ya, China, I told him I wanted to study the AJE basin, a newly discovered undersea oilfield off the coast of Nigeria. I planned to use fossils to date sedimentary rocks in the basin and so infer both the basin’s potential for oil and gas generation and its palaeo environmental conditions.
Nigeria is my home country, so I thought I could get seismic data, detailed records and core samples from wells in the study area that are owned by oil companies. But after I started my PhD in November 2017, I found I couldn’t access the companies’ data for the AJE basin.
In January 2020, I visited Nigeria and was then unable to return to China because of the pandemic lockdown. I completed my PhD in November 2021 and in January I resumed a lecturer appointment with the Federal University of Technology, Azure in Nigeria.
When I felt discouraged during my PhD, I would walk along the coast of the South China Sea near my institute, do yoga or go out to dinner with friends and colleagues. I also took three weeks of vacation every year. Sometimes you need to give yourself a break, so you can come back to your work refreshed.
KATHLEEN BEE SON:
Don’t get ‘summit fever’Neuroscientist and research fellow at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
In my PhD work at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, I studied a molecule that is important for inducing the formation of synapses between neurons. I planned to test chimeras of the molecule in the laboratory to see how they function in mice. But in 2017, during my third year, it became apparent that the data I was collecting had too much variability. I couldn’t move forwards.
Besides my principal investigator, I had a senior mentor who planted a seed: that I should consider other ways to answer my research questions, even if it meant forsaking what I had already done in the three years of trying to get my approach to work. That was daunting.
I thought about the idea of summit fever, a mountaineering term that describes the obsessive drive to follow one path to complete a task, instead of taking a moment to reassess your approach. I decided to try my experiment once more. If it didn’t work, then I would switch my approach. It didn’t work.
Towards the end of my third year, I identified a fresh route that involved testing a different form of the molecule using a genetic-knockout mouse model. I was charting new territory in a region of the brain that was completely different from the one my lab specialized in.
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