Posted on by Loosely Translated

Special Trials

It’s a time of rising stress levels here at FABI. Benedicta, a fellow PhD student in our research group, and I are running two big, important trials as part of our PhD’s and they need to be executed flawlessly. In the trenches – counting spores, cutting tips and inoculating trees with different strains of a plant pathogenic fungus – is where special bonds form.

Trials start off as ideas around a table with your advisors and as the months go by the trial begins to take shape, becoming something real. Scary, really! Looking back, when we spoke about inoculating 54 and 109 different strains, it seemed quite simple but the execution — as we found out yesterday and today — has been quite different.

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Benedicta, supervising

 

Benedicta, for her diligence and hard work, became the guinea pig.  She had gathered and prepared her isolates a full week before me and so we decided to move ahead with her trial. After a few sleepless nights and a bottle or two of Amarula (the small ones) she had a design and a plan in place. It was the day before the first batch of inoculations and everything was looking good… until it wasn’t.

 

In all the excitement, we didn’t realize that her design – a work of art and a statistical dream – just wasn’t practical for the limited help and time we had. After a couple of head-scratching moments and the advice of our wise advisors, we managed to come up with a new design to save the trial.

Today, we successfully inoculated the first part of Benedicta’s trial; approximately 2,500 trees with 109 different fungal strains. The replicate of this trial, which should go faster, will happen on Thursday, the 29th November. I then jump into the driver seat next week and we repeat it all again for my work.

I have learnt a lot over the past couple of weeks in preparation for these trials. 1) You might think you can do it on your own (and you probably can) but make your life easier by getting help. Fortunately for us, we have an incredible team of advisors, postdocs and students who are willing to help. 2) Science is messy. You can try control everything but there will always be things out of your control, just accept it. 3) If you see someone struggling, just take the time to help and comfort them; it means the world to them. Trust me, I know. 4) No task is too big when you have an excellent team supporting you. That goes for the PhD as well.

Our two trials will run till January, next year, and we hope that the results are promising so that we can welcome 2019 with success and another step towards the end of our PhD journeys.  I hope your 2019 will be successful too!

Posted on by Mbuyi Shadrack

Get lost in the wilderness…

Depiction of a Ferris wheelPostgraduate studies at times feel like a Ferris wheel. One moment you you’re on top of the world, and at the bottom again the next. It really is a pure torture at times but a blast of fresh air in some very rare moments. But we survive…and get to tell our stories. It’s the most fascinating thing ever. How do we make it through? Well, I think you can ask any postgraduate student and find a different survival strategy. So this month I just want to let you in on my secret…I hope it won’t be too much!

From a very young age I have been a big fan of English literature. I felt like books were a friend and do what no other friend could: allow me to delve deep into my imagination and get lost in there. They could provide a certain level of comfort in that silence. So, when everything got too much at my level now, I decided to go back to that level of comfort and tranquility. I decided to read.

In the past seven months (the months that really got hectic for me), I have read five books and I’m busy with the sixth one now. I spoke to a friend about it and he told me how ridiculous the idea was. I mean, it really does sound absurd. Come to think of it, I have to go through mountains of scientific literature every day to try and make sense of my research and hopefully contribute to science innovation. At the end of the day, with failed experiments and scientific data that isn’t making sense, no sane person wants to open a book and try to decipher new messages for fun! Or maybe some of us do. Here is a list of what I have been reading:

Magna Carta of Exponentiality by Vusi Thembekwayo Some of the book titles that I have been busy reading

America the Beautiful by Ben Carson

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

Gifted Hands by Ben Carson

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

If you look at those books and what message they contain (for those who may have read the books of course), it’s like learning a third language, or getting lost in a wilderness. They teach an extra skill that is not contained in science research. From Ben’s discovering and living up to your full potential to Robert and Vusi’s financial literacy, the reads have definitely been worth it. Reading for no better reason than to read makes my mind whirl and lets me see the world in a wholly different way. And it doesn’t hurt to see what good writing looks like, outside a scientific article.

Postgraduate studies are a journey. In every journey there are lessons to be learned before reaching one’s destination. For me it’s not just been valuable lessons from colleagues and friends, but the wilderness that I love in the pieces of writing that I think were meant for my peace of mind!