Refine
Clear All
Your Track:
Live:
Search in:
The Lonely Pipette : helping scientists do better science
The Lonely Pipette : helping scientists do better science

The Lonely Pipette : helping scientists do better science

The Lonely Pipette is a podcast where scientists share tips to help you do better science. The episodes include conversations with researchers around the world. Renaud Pourpre and Jonathan Weitzman will talk to inspiring people to learn about their habits and recommendations for all scientists. Don’t stay alone, come join The Lonely Pipette community!

Available Episodes 10

Dear Lonely Pipetters,
Season 2 has been an amazing journey, BUT Season 3 will be awesome. We are so proud to be still here, with you supporting us. Thank you! In this final episode, we take the chance to give you untold stories about Season 2 making-of, personal stories and what you can do to help us build Season 3. Don’t miss it out !

Subscribe to be updated when Season 3 starts : https://bit.ly/NLTLP

You want to support our work ? Buy us a coffee !  ==> https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lonelypipette

To find out more about Renaud and Jonathan :

More about the soundtrack :
Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/

This week, we talk to Maria Leptin about her path to the head of the European Research Council 

  • Maria claims she didn’t receive any formal mentoring advice, but rather absorbed and learnt along the way
  • Against the perceived wisdom, Maria warns against the advice to be continually networking. She advises to listen to what others say and then add your own thoughts.
  • Maria is sure that if you really enjoy the stuff you're doing, then you will do it well and you'll get something out of it.
  • She says that sabbatical breaks can be good to ‘put your brain to air a little bit’
  • She says the ERC aims to  select the very best researchers across Europe, across all disciplines, and allow them to make wonderful discoveries. 
  • To attract ERC funding, organizations or countries or regions need to create an environment where researchers are happy to work and have good conditions.
  • Maria makes a passionate plea for fundamental research and better access for science journalists
  • After a lie-in, Maria starts the day with a coffee and a cookie in the office
  • Maria likes our question “if you had $100 million or euros to spend in science, how would you spend it?” She uses it herself in interviews.

She mentioned these institutions and researchers


To find out more about Maria visit her websites or follow her on Twitter

You want to support our work ? Buy us a coffee !  ==> https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lonelypipette

To find out more about Renaud and Jonathan :

More about the soundtrack :
Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/

This week, we meet our first philosopher guest - Thomas Pradeu tells us what scientist can learn from philosophers 

  • Thomas shares his journey navigating from philosophy to immunology and biology
  • He explains the difference between ‘philosophy IN biology’ compared to ‘philosophy OF biology’
  • He mentions ‘mutual ignorance’ - that scientists often don’t know about philosophers who would be interested in their science
  • Thomas argues that philosophers should be brought in at the beginning of a project rather than at the end. He describes his model for embedding philosophers within a biology research environment
  • He gives lots of specific examples, from immunology and beyond, where philosophers made an impact on science by intervening upstream
  • Thomas stresses the importance of challenging the foundations (in the lab and at home)
  • He also stresses the importance of reading every day
  • Thomas talks honestly about the difficulties of improving life-work balance and gender balance in academia
  • Thomas is proud of his success in creating examples of the Philosophy IN Biology networks as a model for interdisciplinary collaboration 

He mentioned these researchers/philosophers

To find out more about Thomas visit his websites or follow him on Twitter

You want to support our work ? Buy us a coffee !  ==> https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lonelypipette

To find out more about Renaud and Jonathan :

More about the soundtrack :
Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/

This week, Elphege Nora shares personal thoughts on his journey from Paris to California

  • Elphege discovered at an early age that the best way to explain who we are is to look back at where we come from and our evolutionary trajectories
  • From his earliest research experiences, Elphege was intrigued about the sociology of the lab and it’s unusual social etiquette
  • He shares his memories of working with Edith Heard and what she taught him about mentoring
  • He claims that personality tests can be useful for understanding how to interact with colleagues and team members
  • Elphege recommends that it is good to present your work early at conferences in order to gain visibility and attract recruits
  • He shares thoughts about the different scientific approaches he has encountered in Europe and the United States
  • Elphege shares how his interaction with his (famous) father pushed his to think about the abstract and conceptual impacts of his work
  • He had to learn when it’s important to strive for perfection and when it is not
  • He stresses the importance of trust in mentoring relationships
  • He concludes ‘You need to understand what you're good at and what you suck at’

He mentioned these institutions, researchers and resources

To find out more about Elphege visit his websites or follow him on Twitter

You want to support our work ? Buy us a coffee !  ==> https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lonelypipette

To find out more about Renaud and Jonathan :

More about the soundtrack :
Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/

This week, Christophe Lavelle shares his double passion for science and for cooking

  • Christophe left engineering studies for the freedom of research science. And then he jumped from physics to biology for his PhD studies
  • He thinks science makes him a better cook and cites lots of specific examples
  • He describes his very free mentoring style and questions what makes a good mentor
  • He describes his chaotic ‘schizophrenic’’ interdisciplinary interests
  • What has to be done has to be well done - else don’t bother doing it
  • He tells us that the ‘wow’ in the lab is when you finally understand something, but the ’wow’ in the kitchen is when you don’t understand something.

He mentioned these institutions, researchers and resources

To find out more about Christophe visit his websites or follow him on Twitter


You want to support our work ? Buy us a coffee !  ==> https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lonelypipette

To find out more about Renaud and Jonathan :

More about the soundtrack :
Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/

This week, Ana-Maria Lennon-Dumenil tells us about her passion for science interfacing with physics and her journey from Santiago to Paris

  • Ana-Maria was inspired from a very young age by her namesake Ana-Maria Lenon
  • She quickly left genetics because ‘DNA doesn't move enough’
  • She stresses that every Principal Investigator needs to find their own way and warns against trying to imitate others
  • Ana-Maria feels that the biggest mistake is to think that everyone in the lab is like you (instead of appreciating how different they might be)
  • She stresses the need for optimized communication in the lab and the need to clearly articulate expectations
  • She learnt the hard way that ‘management is not natural’
  • Ana-Maria laughs about the fact that she was too short to be a chemist
  • She describes the challenges of finding a common language in interdisciplinary research collaborations
  • She also insists on the role of parents in giving confidence to girls at an early age to become scientists

She mentioned these institutions, researchers and resources

To find out more about Ana-Maria visit her websites or follow her on Twitter : 

You want to support our work ? Buy us a coffee !  ==> https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lonelypipette

To find out more about Renaud and Jonathan :

More about the soundtrack :
Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/

In this episode, we talk to George Church about his successful career in DNA repair and his entrepreneurial adventures translating research findings into biotech companies

  • George proudly describes himself as a biologist-engineer
  • He ponders whether his dyslexia may have helped him by making him realize he was different from others when he was growing up
  • He looks for projects in ‘exponential fields’ that combine pure scientific interest, technology breakthroughs and bring societal benefit.
  • George cautions against using the word ‘impossible’
  • He talks about how he has contributed to scientific and technology revolutions
  • He emphasizes the important of considering ethics, safety and security at the outset of ambitious science projects
  • George remembers how he reacted to having his genome sequenced and speculates about the future of digital genomics and NFTs
  • When recruiting, he looks for people that are ‘nice’ and have deep knowledge in at least two different fields
  • George gets up at 4:30 a.m. and his head is immediately whizzing with new ideas
  • He tells us how much he learns from his grandchildren (and even mends their party dresses) 


He mentioned these projects, institutions, companies

To find out more about George :


To find out more about Renaud and Jonathan :

More about the soundtrack :
Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/

In this episode, we talk with the multi-talented Jenny Rohn about her journey zig-zagging from academia to a biotech-startup, to science publishing and then back into academia.

  • She tells us about her unconventional path and how she decided to go to a start-up and then come back to academic research
  • She made long, agonizing lists about pros and cons of leaving or staying in academia
  • This period of indecision led her to start writing novels
  • Jenny admits that it was not easy to get back on to an academic path
  • She warns people against giving negative advise and she always tries to be honest, but positive feedback
  • Jenny says that In the ‘old days’ there used to be a myth that there was only one way to do science. She says that somewhere in the ‘90s there was a shift but it took a while for the old-guard to notice.
  • “Do not ever turn away from an opportunity to network. You need to get out and talk to people”
  • She tells us how she came up with the idea of ‘lab-lit’ and recommends some of her favourites
  • “If you want to be a writer… you need to write a lot and read a lot”
  • Jenny shares her thoughts about the place of narrative in scientific writing 


She mentioned these labs, resources and lab-lit authors

To find out more about Jenny visit her website or follow her on Twitter

To find out more about Renaud and Jonathan :

More about the soundtrack :
Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/

Get ready for 2023 ! In this special episode, we're going to change the narrative. We're going to dive into this original narrative-interview with 4 scientists who experienced an original meeting with us. Invited by Jean-Leon Maître in the south of France  at the fondation Les Treilles, are you ready to ask yourself why you go to science conferences?

Our special guests are : 

  • Jean-Léon Maître, the organizer of the meeting, CNRS research director at the Institut Curie, at Paris, France
  • Rita Mateus, group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics and the Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life (TUD) in Dresden, Germany. 
  • Mariaceleste Aragona, associate professor and group leader of the tissue architecture lab at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine, reNEW at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • Tim Saunders, associate professor and group leader of an interdisciplinary group of the Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology at Warwick University in England.

This episode is linked to an article published by Jean-Léon Maître on The Node : https://thenode.biologists.com/present-and-future-of-quantitative-developmental-biology-in-les-treilles/events/ 

Note : The constraints of this episode allowed us to focus only on small-scale conferences. It goes without saying that none of the guests, nor we, think that this format should replace the classic meeting format which has other advantages. This episode only aims to bring a new perspective on how we interact as scientists. Small-scale formats are a way to inspire other ways of connecting the scientific community.

We thanks Jean-Léon Maître and the Fondation Les Treilles for the invitation.

To find out more about the guests : 


To find out more about Renaud :

To find out more about Jonathan :

To learn more about the soundtrack :
Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler

To find out more about Renaud and Jonathan :

More about the soundtrack :
Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/

This week we have a surprise treat - a conversation with Jonathan’s twin brother, Matt. He discusses his energetic commitment to mentoring and grant-writing workshops. They share their genetics, but also a desire to “help scientists do better science”

  • Matthew comments on the usefulness of healthy competition in science
  • Matt compares the joy of running a lab to cooking in the kitchen
  • He loves the flexibility of science and constantly stimulated by interactions with colleagues and young scientists and new ideas
  • Matt makes a strong argument for peer-to-peer mentoring, cascade mentoring and seizing constant casual mentoring opportunities
  • He comments on the advantages of going to a small lab for graduate school and he advises students to look carefully at the type of scientific questions, the environment of the lab and the chemistry of the PI/mentor relationship
  • Matt describes his pioneering Grant Proposal Success (GPS) grant-writing program and the importance of collective, grant-writing communities. Matt dissects the grant structure and tells us what funding committees are looking for
  • He suggests that staggering projects and having work at different stages can help to integrate life and manage the lab
He mentioned these institutions :  


To find out more about Renaud :

To find out more about Jonathan :

To

To find out more about Renaud and Jonathan :

More about the soundtrack :
Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/