Writing Contest Exhibition
We are pleased to present the contributions to this year's Writing Contest!
Just H2O
by Katharina Götz
“Just H2O”.
That was the dull declaration of my brother when I told him enthusiastically about my current work in the laboratory. “The whole day you are just pouring H2O back and forth”. Since I’ve never been particularly quick-witted, I couldn’t come up with a good answer.
Performing my next experiments, I took a closer look at the clear and colorless liquid inside the reaction vessels. He was right, looks like just H2O. For sure, I know that there are also dissolved salts, enzymes and DNA inside and I can do great experiments with it.
Secretly though, I do sometimes have my doubts about that, especially after an unsuccessful outcome. Did I make everything right? Was it the correct DNA concentration? Were the enzymes already degraded? Were there any impurities in my buffer? The next day, I supposedly do everything the same way and then it suddenly works.
Why? I am not sure myself. My brother is not satisfied with that explanation, even though it was always just H2O.
But in the end, we are all made of just H2O, too.
Think Inside the Box
by Shrey Jain
I have always believed that if we look closely enough at nature, it has already given us most of the answers. Science, to me, is often the art of noticing them.
My EUREKA moment began with a scientific question: could we use B cells to discover antibodies against intracellular tumour antigens, targets hidden inside cancer cells and therefore difficult to reach? Working on B cell receptor–based hybridoma enrichment showed me that we could. But the real revelation came afterward.
As I began working with human B cells to search for tumour-specific intracellular antigens, I started thinking beyond the experiment. B cells are remarkable. So are T cells. So are NK cells. Yet none of them, alone, seemed sufficient to confront something as adaptable as cancer. And suddenly, cancer began to look less like a problem in a textbook and more like a lesson in life.
We rarely overcome life's greatest challenges alone. Families, communities, friendships, ecosystems - each survives through countless individuals doing different things, compensating for one another's weaknesses and amplifying one another's strengths.
Why should our immune system be any different?
Cancer is a monster born from our own cells. It learns, adapts and finds ways to survive. Perhaps defeating it does not mean finding one perfect weapon, but understanding how the different parts of our immune system can work together in symphony.
That realization changed the question that followed. The goal was no longer simply to find a target, but to uncover vulnerabilities that could engage an entire orchestra of immune cells - each with its own instrument, its own strength, and its own role in creating something no single player could achieve alone.
My EUREKA moment was not discovering that one cell could defeat cancer. It was realizing that nature has never really worked that way. From the smallest cell to the largest ecosystem, life is built on relationships, on different parts doing what they do best, together becoming something greater than any one of them could be alone.
Perhaps that is why I keep looking to nature for answers. It reminds us that the solution does not always lie in finding something new, but in seeing what is already there in a different way.
We are so often told to think outside the box. Perhaps, when it comes to understanding life, we should first learn to think inside the box.
The Scientific Chandelier
by Duy Thai Duong Le
When I first came to Würzburg, my professor introduced me to a chandelier in the RVZ stairway between D15 and D16. When I saw it, my first thoughts was “Okay, that’s dangerous - like the dangling sword of Damocles”.
Why would anyone want to put expensive, usable scientific tools on a chandelier, hidden away where most people are probably too busy to stop and appreciate it? Moreover, if those weren’t broken by scientists trying to discover something new, then, it’s a waste if you asked me.
Then, after a year, it hit me: there is some truth to it.
Precision provides the light for science.
Immunoprecipitation (IP) was something I did hundreds of times in another country, and it had always worked perfectly. Yet, for some reasons, it did not work in Germany. The same reagents were used with the same equipment and method, but somehow, the proteins were not detectable in the IP.
After several failed attempts, I finally realized what went wrong. Previously, the buffer I made with those ingredients always showed the optimal pH levels, so I had stopped measuring it. I became careless and thought it would be the similar case here.
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.
The pH was too high to maintain the protein complex, thus, their interaction was undetectable in my IP.
All in all, science advances through precision. Check everything. Measure everything. And never assume that something is the same just because it worked before. I still have so many things to learn and it has been a fun ride on this PhD journey. I’m looking forward to the following years.
When the Experiment Fails, the Visa Should Not Be the Next Thought
by Raymond Okokoh
It is Friday afternoon. The experiment has failed again.
The cells that behaved perfectly last month have suddenly decided that differentiation is optional. Thirty days of work have produced a graph that requires considerable imagination to call a result.
Every experimental scientist knows this moment. You question the protocol, the reagents, and briefly yourself. Then you accept a fundamental truth of research: experiments sometimes fail. You redesign and try again.
For many international doctoral researchers, however, another calculation begins:
How many months remain on my contract? What happens to my residence status if my project takes longer than my funding?
Suddenly, a failed experiment has degenerated into an immigration problem.
Research is inherently uncertain because the answer is not known. If the answer were guaranteed, it would not be research. Cells do not differentiate faster because funding is ending. Viruses do not replicate according to grant milestones. Antibodies occasionally appear to have personal disagreements with PhD students.
But scientific uncertainty becomes heavier when accompanied by immigration uncertainty. The question can shift from “What is the best experiment to answer this scientific question?” to “What experiment can give me publishable data before my contract ends?”
Those are not always the same experiment.
International researchers may therefore be running two experiments simultaneously: one asks whether the hypothesis is correct; the other asks whether they can remain long enough in the country to answer it.
We cannot remove uncertainty from science, nor should we. But universities, supervisors and policymakers can reduce unnecessary uncertainty around the scientist through clearer completion-phase residence options, earlier institutional support and better coordination. I believe I am speaking to the future decision/policy makers.
Experiments will fail. Protocols will stop working. Hypotheses will collapse.
Those are problems scientists are trained to solve.
But when the experiment fails, the visa should not be the next thought.
