Can a biologist fix a radio?—Or, what I learned while studying apoptosis - ScienceDirect

As a freshly minted Assistant Professor, I feared that everything in my field would be discovered before I even had a chance to set up my laboratory. Indeed, the field of apoptosis, which I had recently joined, was developing at a mind-boggling speed. Components of the previously mysterious process were being discovered almost weekly, frequent scientific meetings had little overlap in their contents, and it seemed that every issue of Cell, Nature, or Science had to have at least one paper on apoptosis. My fear led me to seek advice from David Papermaster (currently at the University of Connecticut), who I knew to be a person with pronounced common sense and extensive experience. David listened to my outpouring of primal fear and explained why I should not worry. David said that every field he witnessed during his decades in biological research developed quite similarly. At the first stage, a small number of scientists would somewhat leisurely discuss a problem that would appear esoteri

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