A computational biologist describes the elation of making a breakthrough – and the misery of not doing so – while three other scientists tell us how their work plays on their emotions

I can be very emotional about my science. I get excited, frustrated, disappointed, delighted and exhausted by turns. Sometimes, I have stand-up arguments with colleagues and sometimes I have to sit down and quietly rethink an idea through from the beginning. Six months ago, I had a long argument, standing at the reception of my institute, with a colleague about how general a set of experiments were. I thought they were quite general; he disagreed and, moreover, wanted to make his point in print. Things got pretty heated and harsh words were said. A few days later, he sent me flowers to make up and I took him out for dinner a week later. We must have been a sight: two geeks wildly gesticulating and laughing, happy to be friends after a virtual plate-throwing fight.

This is not what you write up in your scientific paper. When scientists communicate with one another we have to be precise. We have to present our data, analysis and interpretation in a way that allows another scientist to understand each detail. Each step logically follows on from the next. I am sometimes jealous of novelists and artists for whom sharing and explaining the emotional journey of a piece of work is celebrated (almost required). The lack of a natural forum for scientists to describe their emotions in their work can lead to the mistaken view that scientists are unemotional people. In my experience, this is very far from reality. In the working world of science, people spend a lot of time externalising often half-formed thoughts and probing new ideas. Scientists are men and women who are unafraid to question both themselves and one another openly and who have made a huge emotional investment in their work.

In many ways, debate and argument keep the scientific world turning. It is not for the faint of heart. One of my most vivid memories is of witnessing my first scientific debate at the age of 20. It was the summer I worked at Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, a leading molecular biology institute half hidden in a leafy, turn-of-the-century clutch of wooden houses along the north shore of Long Island, New York. People filed into the auditorium to hear an invited speaker and milled about, chatting, with a remarkable lack of deference to their eminent guest.

Within the first five minutes of his talk, the speaker had already been asked to go back and explain a graph that was – in the opinion of the questioner – far too complex for the point he was trying to make. Soon enough, the audience broke into heated debate over whether the speaker's whole programme was even remotely sensible and the speaker stood mute, a silent bystander, wondering whether his detractors had a point and struggling to remain balanced during this debate. This was about as far as one could get from sitting in a lecture hall and consuming scientific information as a parade of truths.

Experiments can take a very long time – sometimes years – and it's often impossible to be emotionally detached from the outcome. Pivotal moments in science can cause an outright physical reaction – a wave of giddiness when you realise you've backed the right idea. I remember when we were analysing the chicken genome and wondering how much chicken DNA would "line up" with the DNA of humans and mice. We knew that, either way, whether it was a lot or a little, it would still be interesting, but we weren't sure we'd set up the analysis right to get a result. I can remember the tingle up my spine as the "money" graph slowly plotted out on the screen and there was an answer to our question. (It's a lot, by the way.)

But then there's the sinking feeling when you just can't make an idea fit. When this happens, I become distracted and frustrated; a small "thinking" frown on my face signals the start of a complete shutdown, when I have to close down all conversation around me (my wife is, needless to say, a saint) and concentrate on the problem.

I once had a particularly thorny scientific problem that I kept hacking away at (if you must know, the in-memory layout of compressed DNA structures for fast search retrieval) and it almost killed me. I thought about it as I commuted to work by car and it absorbed all my attention as I drove around Cambridge – through traffic lights, tailbacks and roundabouts. So much so that when I started to see a solution, my brain shut out more and more of the world around me. I was totally startled when someone tapped on my car window and asked if I was OK. I had frozen in front of a roundabout and apparently hadn't moved my car for a good three minutes. I hadn't even heard the beeping behind me. I apologised profusely and drove on and have since then stuck to a rule of not thinking too hard about things while operating heavy machinery. I take the train a lot more.

Ewan Birney is computational biologist and joint associate director of the European Bioinformatics Institute, Cambridge

Helen Czerski, photographed in her laboratory at the Institute for Sound and Vibration Research at Southampton university. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer

Oceanographer Helen Czerski: 'Hooray! My idea wasn't rubbish!'



A proposal is a wonderful thing, bursting with potential and big plans. The scientific sort doesn't involve rings or going down on one knee, but you are still offering up the best that you have and hoping it's enough. A proposal is where most new science begins these days and it's set out like a business case. After all, your fabulous new idea needs money: equipment, salaries, overheads… it all adds up.

The UK science piggy bank is presided over by the research councils, a tough crowd to impress. So the excitement of having a big new idea is only the first step. Next, you write. The first proposal I ever wrote was for a three-year fellowship. At first, writing was fun and my days were full of ideas. Writing about why my research topic mattered cheered me up no end. It's easy to forget the bigger picture when you're working on the details and it was very reassuring to remember that my science was needed.

Working out the project details was fiddly and time-consuming. Then it slowed down even more, to a dull plod, as I checked and rechecked that this was the best I could do. I was very aware that this was my idea and I desperately wanted this to be good, to deserve funding. After a while, I knew every word off by heart and I was sick of the sight of it. Tea breaks came around surprisingly often. Then the deadline came and took my big idea away.

Months later, an email popped up to tell me it had all been worth it, that the piggy bank would fund my science. Hooray! My idea wasn't rubbish! Other people wanted it too! It felt like the end of a really long race, but really, it was only the start.

Helen Czerski is a physicist and oceanographer at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research at the University of Southampton

Professor Andrea Sella, photographed in the chemistry department at UCL, London. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer

Inorganic chemist Andrea Sella: 'The individual is part of the action'

A few days ago, I got a message from a student: "Drop by the lab – there's something you should see." A couple of hours later when I stopped by, the student excitedly showed me a flask with a dark solution in it. "Watch this," she said. She shone a torch at it and it lit up, a vivid bright green. "Fluorescence," I said. "Beautiful."

Turning the lights off in the lab and shining a UV lamp at the flask, the glow was even brighter and the excitement attracted a small crowd of students. Although not a research-changing observation, it was surprising and it sparked off excited speculation. Why would a gallium compound be fluorescent? What was the structure? How was the light being generated? What spectrums and measurements should be recorded to understand the observation?

That little buzz of excitement is a faint echo of the moment when Humphry Davy first electrolysed molten potash – a terrifying experiment – and was rewarded with a spray of brilliant flashing droplets of potassium; Davy danced round the room in delight. But in that thrilling moment his mind was filled with ideas and possibilities.

Few of us are likely to come close to a discovery on that level, yet there is something profoundly pleasurable in discussing results and observations with students and colleagues. The unexpected turns up in little ways in day-to-day research and each time a miniature brainstorming session ensues, where small adjustments are made to the research direction.

More importantly, it is in these discussions that new ideas materialise, in moments of very human interplay. And it is only when we write up our work that we revert to the inhuman, impersonal passive voice that creates the convenient fiction that the individual is not a part of the action. But it is not how science is done.

Andrea Sella is a professor of materials and inorganic chemistry, University College London

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: 'A good mentor can change your life.' Photograph: Dan Burn-Forti

Neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: 'I remember feeling a flood of relief'

I remember being in my late 20s, just having finished my post-doc in France and not really knowing how a scientific career was meant to move forward. It seemed to me that you chose a field and stuck to it, making incremental progress over a period of decades. I chose to study psychology and focused on schizophrenia during my PhD and post-doc.

One question that started to nag at me was why the onset of schizophrenia – a devastating mental disorder characterised by hallucinations – occurs at the end of adolescence. You can make it all the way through childhood and adolescence and then suddenly become afflicted. Does something happen in brain development during adolescence that acts as a trigger? As I read the existing literature, I became increasingly frustrated that there didn't seem to be many answers.

I was discussing the problem with my mentor, Professor Uta Frith (now Dame Uta), and she said: "Why don't you fill the gap yourself? Apply for a fellowship and start some new research in developmental neuroscience focusing on human adolescence?"

Why not, indeed? As she spoke those words I remember feeling a flood of relief, at the same time as feeling excited and slightly apprehensive. It wasn't until then that I realised that was exactly what I wanted to do – move into a field that was quite new to me. I'd wanted to make the change all along, but I needed that vote of confidence. I was taking a risk by moving into developmental work with so little experience, but Uta's encouragement made all the difference. I was ready to take it on and 10 years later I'm glad I did. A good mentor can change your life.

Prof Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is a Royal Society university research fellow and professor of cognitive neuroscience at UCL