送交者: Godfather 于 2006-3-12, 13:33:43:
As many know, cell biology is an area of studying cellular function, signal transduction and regulations of cell activities. Currently, the major tools for such studies are Northern and Western blots, which requires gel separation, transfer (blot) and imaging. In the case of Northern blot, due main to the abundance of RNAses, the microenvironment of the experiments has to be RNAses free since message RNA is very liable to RNAses. On the other hand, Western blot is relatively easier to handle as long as one has an antibody with reasonable quality. However, some factors such as the amount of protein loading, amount of antibody used, blocking method and time and method of imaging, etc. still affect the results and their interpretation for Western blot. Therefore, the experimental skills and appropriate training are extremely important for these experiments.
If a laboratory discovered a new protein in a particular cell line, one would always wish to explore its cellular function and to establish a novel pathway for signal transduction. With such mindsets, one typically propose a pathway in which the new protein is involved in up or down regulation or the interaction with other proteins and to incorporate the new protein into existing pathway or to modify existing pathway for one’s own favor. Of course, nobody can criticize such strategy or design, the reality may not be as good as one had thought though.
For instance, if I were a graduate student or a postdoc working in a lab where the boss or boss’boss discovered a new protein and a new pathway has been proposed, to fulfill the wishful thinking, I would try all my best to obtain evidence supporting the pathway. If the results were negative, especially from Northern and Western blots, I might repeat the experiments or just simply mislabel the lanes or load different amounts in order to present in a “positive” way, intentionally. Then, everybody would be happy with quality publications and new grant applications. After that, I would apply for a faculty position somewhere to establish my own lab and join the club. That’s how it works in cell biology nowadays.
In some cases, even some “negative” results were obtained, one still could use them to modify the pathway showing the novelty and become an authority in a particular field. Since everybody can propose a new pathway, the publication in this area is always novel and nobody else would seem to care as long as you are able to connect the dots to present your pathway in the right form without being against the pathway(s) proposed by the big-shuts. As far as I know, a Spanish couple was able to produce 6-7 papers published at PNAS or JBC a year by just conducting some Northern and Western blots. That’s why I doubt most of the publications in the area of cell biology, even published at so-called “CNS”. I completely agree that knowledge is a process of accumulation, but I believe data fabrication is quite common in cell biology, and the situation is much worse than other areas.
Everybody has own opinions. It wouldn’t be surprising to see a lot of controversy on this issue.