Research Publications as Undergrad? HOW?

[mrbobian]

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Just curious how people are getting pubs. because I see people writing things like "2 publications as first author" when talking about their research experience. I'm confused as to how that is possible?! I've been working in a cell biology lab for 1.5 years, put in OVER 50 HOURS per week over the summer. I have a great hypothesis, story and data regarding the proteasomal regulation of a centrosome assembly protein. I am not really close to considering myself ready to publish but I feel I've been putting A LOT of great work into my science.

My question is, am I behind the curve on publication because of my field? My small school? or am I just stupid?

 

[gmcguitar4]

Do you think you will get a publication before you apply to med schools? If you are unsatisfied..look for another project to work on. Committing 1.5 years is pretty good as is. your name will prob go on the pub regardless of you staying or not considering the amount of time you put into it....That is unless this is your very own project that you solely work on. In that case, might be better to try to finish it up. That would also look awesome.

So if you want to pump out pubs..get into clinical medicine. Lab stuff you never know how long it will take. I worked in a hospital and there was just unlimited data to work with..so all I had to do was come up with some ideas. Asked the PI I worked for to help me a little and give ideas.

 

[mrbobian]

Do you think you will get a publication before you apply to med schools? If you are unsatisfied..look for another project to work on. Committing 1.5 years is pretty good as is. your name will prob go on the pub regardless of you staying or not considering the amount of time you put into it....That is unless this is your very own project that you solely work on. In that case, might be better to try to finish it up. That would also look awesome.

So if you want to pump out pubs..get into clinical medicine. Lab stuff you never know how long it will take. I worked in a hospital and there was just unlimited data to work with..so all I had to do was come up with some ideas. Asked the PI I worked for to help me a little and give ideas.

Ahh maybe its the clinical medicine I'm always seeing... I don't know. Unfortunately, my app is in now, and the pub. that I will be included in (for helping with) is just now being written. I DO have my very own project with no bench help from anyone. Its pretty much just me, and I bounce ideas off my PI and she gets me advice, literature, and supplies. Its really exciting to me, and I could talk for hours to an adcom about all the work I've done, learned, and been apart of; it just doesn't look that as on paper that "Two publications etc..." At any rate, my name SHOULD be on the Developmental Cell quality paper in the works even though it will probably be after I graduate. At least I can hang it on the fridge...

 

[Benedictus123]

Plenty of undergrads get on papers as second/third authors. A lot of it is luck; if you happen to fall into a project that is going well and just needs a few experiments to finish it, you can easily get on a paper. Sometimes though you get stuck on something that seems to never end and circle around a bunch. Most admissions people understand that ultimately it's almost never an undergrad's fault if they don't have a paper. It's almost always out of your hands. Hell, I didn't have a first author publication until the fourth year of my PhD.

 

[angemon89]

Easy if you work with a postdoc who pushes out papers yearly.

 

[JoshuaGuit]

Second author on a high impact paper and first author on an abstract that I'm presenting at the BMES, along with a few other submitted abstracts that I'm second author on.

It all just depends on the type of project you're working on. Cell biology related take a lot longer than a biomaterial paper.

 

[neusu]

Just curious how people are getting pubs. because I see people writing things like "2 publications as first author" when talking about their research experience. I'm confused as to how that is possible?! I've been working in a cell biology lab for 1.5 years, put in OVER 50 HOURS per week over the summer. I have a great hypothesis, story and data regarding the proteasomal regulation of a centrosome assembly protein. I am not really close to considering myself ready to publish but I feel I've been putting A LOT of great work into my science.

My question is, am I behind the curve on publication because of my field? My small school? or am I just stupid?

Bench research takes forever. A summer of 50 hours a week will not be enough work, de novo, for you to get something that is publishable. Likewise, for bench research, there is a significant lag between results and printing a paper. I suspect many of these kids either walk in to labs where there are projects nearing completion or have several years worth of research credit/work. I did research as an undergrad and worked 30 hours/week for 3 years. My first paper came out 2 years after graduating from college..

 

[niblet]

How is it that undergrads "publish"? Are they actually coming up with the hypotheses and experiments/controls or are they just basically running the experiments borne out by their PI?

The latter is what I do in my lab, and the idea of undergrads, who don't even have a college degree, doing the former seems crazy to me. Or are some of you really doing this, more or less independently of your PI?

If not, which I suspect is most cases, why is it that "getting published" matters at all? It seems like it's something you happen upon randomly.

 

[NickNaylor]

How is it that undergrads "publish"? Are they actually coming up with the hypotheses and experiments/controls or are they just basically running the experiments borne out by their PI?

The latter is what I do in my lab, and the idea of undergrads, who don't even have a college degree, doing the former seems crazy to me. Or are some of you really doing this, more or less independently of your PI?

If not, which I suspect is most cases, why is it that "getting published" matters at all? It seems like it's something you happen upon randomly.

Depends. Most people probably start out as glorified lab monkeys and move forward. I know that for one of the labs I was working in I was essentially proposing my own experiments and doing the entire process. It all depends on your PI and your relationship with him/her.

 

[Benedictus123]

PI? In a large group undergrads would be so lucky to talk with the PI more than a few times (obviously your mileage may vary). Typically undergrads get paired with a post doc or grad student. It's rare for them to be given their own project independent of anyone else.

I've personally mentored three undergraduates through projects. They mostly help me with experiments, basic cell culture stuff, and analysis. It's a good deal for both of us: I get an extra set of hands, and they get experience and training in cell culture.

And sometimes it doesn't matter how 'hard' you try. You can't just bootstrap a paper if you get stuck with a bad project, just like you can't squeeze water out of stones. Especially with biology there can be a lot of waiting and lag time from experiment to experiment that you can't avoid. You can't make a baby in a month with nine pregnant women.

So don't worry so much about it. Despite the fact this is SDN, it's a rare undergrad who gets a first author publication, especially in something with an impact factor higher than 2. Just do your best and don't sweet it too much 🙂. I know people with PhDs in physics whom I guarantee are smarter AND 'harder' working than most undergraduates I know who literally graduate from Ivy League schools with ONE paper.

 

[mrbobian]

Ahh well I guess it is reassuring that you kind people don't think it's the end of the world for me. I've really enjoyed my research and yes, I think I'm one of the rare ones that have my own project and hypothesis. After a couple of weeks after joining, my PI saw that I wanted to actually DO something. She gave me a list of proteins from a co-IP assay related to our project and basically said "figure out what these have to do with our component and centrosome assembly." I spent hours in the library on databases and with literature and came up with a hypothesis and am now testing it. We talk almost everyday about what is happening and where to go next. Its really exciting and I can't wait to talk about it in an interview, I just hope I get the chance to because it doesn't look impressive on paper! Thanks again all!

-Mike B.

 

[TheShaker]

Plenty of undergrads get on papers as second/third authors. A lot of it is luck; if you happen to fall into a project that is going well and just needs a few experiments to finish it, you can easily get on a paper. Sometimes though you get stuck on something that seems to never end and circle around a bunch. Most admissions people understand that ultimately it's almost never an undergrad's fault if they don't have a paper. It's almost always out of your hands. Hell, I didn't have a first author publication until the fourth year of my PhD.

This is what I see. There's a really productive and I daresay easy project in my lab that turns out a paper almost every year because it's just characterization. Once you finish the experiments, you are bound to get a paper simply because the hypothesis is easy to reform and keep its impact on the field. My project, however, gains a lot of progress but it's all in favor of the null hypothesis that loses all of its impact if changed. Three years without a paper but I still feel that I made a lot of progress and learned a lot. It's still a bit depressing sometimes though.

 

[chillaxbro]

6th author pubs ftw

 

[Barcu]

It is not extremely common, and it is mostly luck.

Being able to talk about your research and the role you played will go a long way in interviews.

 

[45408]

Depends on the type of research, the data you have to work with, the PI, the number of grad students or post-docs, how prolific they are, how hard you work, how close someone's paper is to being done and you can just jump on board, etc.

It took me a little over a year as a resident to get to the point of having an abstract worth submitting, and now it'll probably be at least another nine months on top of that to have an accepted paper.

 

[Bangersandmash]

Bench labs are notorious at my institution for failing miserably during undergrad. So many people complain about working on projects for a year or more with no usable results to show for it in the end. The worst part is it is usually a PI/Post-doc project and not even their own. Some people still do manage to push out a paper or two though.

I on the other hand joined a clinical/chart and stats based department, looking at patient data seen in the clinics. Reactions can't fail; only data can fail to come up with significant trends, but even then, so many patients are seen that there are a great number of ideas you can run with. I've gotten to explore many of my own project ideas, 3 of which have led to first author poster presentations (one at a national conference) and one of which is currently being submitted for publishing.

However, this is still after 2 years of work.

 

[Tots]

Just curious how people are getting pubs. because I see people writing things like "2 publications as first author" when talking about their research experience. I'm confused as to how that is possible?! I've been working in a cell biology lab for 1.5 years, put in OVER 50 HOURS per week over the summer. I have a great hypothesis, story and data regarding the proteasomal regulation of a centrosome assembly protein. I am not really close to considering myself ready to publish but I feel I've been putting A LOT of great work into my science.

My question is, am I behind the curve on publication because of my field? My small school? or am I just stupid?

Breathe. As an undergrad you do not need to publish to have a great research experience. I did research in the same lab for 3 years and was never on a poster, let alone a paper. Doesn't seem to be hurting me yet. A strong letter from your PI and being able to intelligently describe why your research experience was valuable to you will get you far IMHO. Also if you are like me you have a lot of awesome stories on why your work was never published(let's just say I am glad I was only an undergrad and not the PhD student who saw her dissertation go out the window...)

 

[yellowfish]

Breathe. As an undergrad you do not need to publish to have a great research experience. I did research in the same lab for 3 years and was never on a poster, let alone a paper. Doesn't seem to be hurting me yet. A strong letter from your PI and being able to intelligently describe why your research experience was valuable to you will get you far IMHO. Also if you are like me you have a lot of awesome stories on why your work was never published(let's just say I am glad I was only an undergrad and not the PhD student who saw her dissertation go out the window...)

:cry:

 

[Ruminate]

Rarely do undergraduates actually fulfill all NIH requirements of authorship. But that depends on the PI. Because pretty much all of the "easy" things have been solved, now knowing and keeping up with a field is imperative to even find a manageable problem to answer.

Just because you did most of the work doesn't mean you will get on the paper. The normal way is that technicians don't get on publications while receiving an acknowledgement. Some labs, they get on every single one of them.

I wouldn't really say luck. You want to set yourself for a good future. If you don't care about publications, obviously you wouldn't have joined a lab that was small and at the beginning of a project, right? Or maybe you joined a large lab that had a huge risky project. There was no guarantee for the project. Why join the project? It's easy to look at hindsight. That's why knowing what research topic you're going into is huge.

Anddd...this is why you may want to consider a lab that is more dry lab oriented -- aka computers.

 

[JoshuaGuit]

How is it that undergrads "publish"? Are they actually coming up with the hypotheses and experiments/controls or are they just basically running the experiments borne out by their PI?

The latter is what I do in my lab, and the idea of undergrads, who don't even have a college degree, doing the former seems crazy to me. Or are some of you really doing this, more or less independently of your PI?

If not, which I suspect is most cases, why is it that "getting published" matters at all? It seems like it's something you happen upon randomly.

My lab might be the exception, but the few undergrads in it are extremely self driven. I feel like our undergrad education in BME *HAS* let us be able to get to the point where we can see a problem and propose a solution based off of scientific knowledge. I always thought that was the point of an undergraduate degree-- to teach you how to think.

I feel like learning the basics during your undergrad years (freshman-> junior) should allow you to make the jump from bench monkey to being creative and innovative. It's a shame that apparently so many labs don't promote this, and rather ask for the undergrad to do bitch work.

 

[45408]

My lab might be the exception, but the few undergrads in it are extremely self driven. I feel like our undergrad education in BME *HAS* let us be able to get to the point where we can see a problem and propose a solution based off of scientific knowledge. I always thought that was the point of an undergraduate degree-- to teach you how to think.

It's one thing to think of a question you'd like to see answered, and it's entirely another thing to find a question that you can actually solve and in a reasonable amount of time.