I remember that when I was younger and used to view the world of science through a rosier lens, I was deeply moved by one particular scene from the movie A Beautiful Mind. It was that scene where the Nobel committee sends an investigator to verify whether John Nash is sane and ends up watching other professors ritualistically giving away their pens to Nash as a token of his achievement and joining Princeton as a faculty.
Much later, I found out it was just a dramatic add-on to the screenplay and no such tradition exists in Princeton. Nevertheless what was beautiful about it was the moment of recognition and the joy of being associated with a community & brotherhood who appreciates the sophistication and impact of your achievements. As a kid who wanted to step into science, it was a huge motivation.
As years went by, career choices were made, compromised with tiny weeny aspects of life to be where I am now, I realized in due course that science is always not so exciting. You toil, do your share of hard work and most of the time your work doesn’t get translated into something impactful. You don’t bring an overnight change in people’s lives. Also what you do doesn’t make sense to your next door neighbour or your friends and they stereotype to be someone of the order of ‘Sheldon Cooper’. But I also learnt to be appreciative of the fact that science is a team effort and it is an engine which we all drive together & somewhere all of it is connected.
Everyday as I enter Lineberger comprehensive Cancer Research centre at UNC where I work as a graduate student, I see a community of people working their ass-off to push the field forward. True that science is not philanthropy. Everything we do is not purely for the benefit of the community and often we have to orient our research to individualistic needs and under circumstances where pressure to publish and receiving grants guide research goals. But no career aspiration can make an individual spin the wheel for years unless he/she is truly emotional and passionate about what they do each day for the rest of their lives.
Just because Dr. Aziz Sancar and his colleagues made some breakthrough in understanding of DNA repair mechanism doesn’t mean that we are an inch closer to the cure for cancer. But today I rediscovered that cumulative passion and emotion as I saw the same community gathering together at UNC to recognize and celebrate the success of Dr. Sancar. Somewhere life came a full circle.
Manisit Das 