thesis pieces

(it's a lung cell doing mitosis)

the main project in my life right now is my thesis.
for those you don't know what i'm doing for that, i might as well tell you because everyone asks.

i am writing a series of articles on gene therapy that would be appropriate for publication in a populous magazine. originally four were planned...but that might be a bit much. article #1 still isn't finalized...i'd like to be done by the end of April...

the first article in the series, on cystic fibrosis and gene therapy, i thought was pretty much wrapped up. but feedback from one of my supervisors pointed out a few weaknesses. weaknesses i was fully aware of and willing to live with so that i could move onto the next piece. a mentality common in journalistic enterprise since you usually have limited space and time.

there is no such thing as perfect, you just have to get things as good as you can. it comes down to a bang-for-the-buck assessment. ie, is another week of research going to be able to add anything significant to the story? a cost-benefit calculation that i suspect gets more accurate with experience. usually i over research the things that end up not being central to the story.

the main weakness in the first draft is that i show there was a gap between the expectations of patients and scientist as to when a cure for cystic fibrosis would arrive, but i don't say what caused that gap. mainly because i haven't been able to find a cause for it. sure i can point to many different factors that could have contributed to it, but no documents or quotes from someone giving a real time-line. honestly i'm not sure i'll be able to find something like that...

but this is a thesis project and this is school, not the offices of a populous magazine...and i am staying into the summer to work on it...so i guess i should take another crack at it.

it's almost there...

as to the next article in the series, i'm already forecasting problems. mainly because right now i'm starting with a theme looking for a story hook that illustrates it, which is hard to do. it works much better the other way 'round.

i don't know about Canadian research into DNA vaccines and cancer well enough. most of the big labs in this field are in Europe and the USA, but i want a Canadian angle.
i need to find some cancer geneticists to go drinking with.

Replies
D
7 March 07

There was a fellow here in Edmonton that was seeking public donations for a cancer treatment a while back. Don't know if that would be the sort of thing that would interest you. His big push was that his treatment was a) extremely cheap and he couldn't secure funding by people interested in short-term profit and b) based on alternate use of something, rather than a new and unique treatment. Could be useful in demonstrating how scientists play a part in building expectations...

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