Dear Joan:
You are absolutely correct to expect all of the proper controls for
any research experiment whether that is flow cytometric analysis, Western
blots, PCR, or whatever. Any research data without proper positive and
negative controls is useless. Unfortunately, too many people try to tell
you that they are not necessary. Those very same people wonder why they
cannot figure out what the problems are in their experiments when it goes
wrong. And many of these same people wonder why they cannot get their data
published in a higher class journal. You are not at all getting caught up
in a philosophical issue or missing the point. You are right on the mark.
Science must be exact and "the control tells the story" for any research
data. All students need to learn the use of proper controls and any
research that excludes them is not proper science.
Although you may be in a difficult situation with this client, I
think you should tell your client that you cannot even set up the machine
properly without the control tubes as a baseline measurement. I would
approach your client again before the next weeks experiments are prepared
if possible and just lay down the truth. If the client still does not
listen, then tell the students the problems. Sometimes they learn more
when things do not work. Then they have to trouble shoot. Good luck.
Dr. Susan J. Zunino
Dept. of Genetics
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
Staudtstr. 5
91058 Erlangen
Germany
Tel. 49 9131 852-8784
FAX 49 9131 852-8526
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jan 05 2003 - 19:01:37 EST