Derek Lowe's commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry. An editorially independent blog from the publishers of Science Translational Medicine . All content is Derek’s own, and he does not in any way speak for his employer.

Today’s column goes out to readers in graduate school. Are you feeling as if you have more to do than a single person can accomplish? Does your boss expect a lot of you, pushing for results? All that can be pretty standard for the PhD experience, but here’s another question: does your research advisor scream at you and threaten you? Constantly insult and berate you and other lab members? That is way over the line, and don’t ever think it isn’t. That, you don’t have to put up with.

This story is what has me writing about this today. It’s about the suicide of a Wisconsin engineering student, John Brady, who found himself in just such an environment, and whose mental health was in the end put under too much strain by it.