Follow
"A Fred Sanger would not survive today’s world of science. With continuous reporting and appraisals, some committee would note that he published little of import between insulin in 1952 and his first paper on RNA sequencing in 1967 with another long gap until DNA sequencing in 1977. He would be labeled as unproductive, and his modest personal support would be denied." https://goodscience.substack.com/p/three-thoughts-on-high-risk-research
@enroweb @cientounero
I remember that quote from a few years ago when there was much agitation for high-risk, high-reward science. Misses that much of the risk is born by trainees and junior scientists, to whom the productivity treadmill matters even more. Presumably, Sanger's PhD students during his "unproductive" periods will have graduated with a career-ending lack of publications.