I got scooped

[Tall Chai Latte]

Warning: this post may sound pissy.

 

I have been working on a side project for at least a year, where my goal is to figure out the structure of a protein. The project is very time consuming and hasn't been going very smoothly, and all of a sudden, I got scooped by our collaborator! Whoa where did that come from?

 

What made the situation worse is, that my PI was involved in both sides simultaneously. While there is no lost to my PI, my effort has gone down in the drain. Now I'm asked to complete the project for the sake of finishing it.

 

I hate hate hate hate it. My PI acted like it's none of her business, and me being scooped is entirely my fault. This project is not her expertise at all! Sigh, I hate how grad students are just vulnerable to PI's doing and being controlled.

[fuzzylogician]

That is infuriating! I am so sorry to read this. If I were you, I'd be looking into possible official steps I could take, possibly trying to enlist my advisor to my aid and if not then seeking the next person up the chain to mediate. But then there are bigger considerations, as you say, that might affect your whole career. That's sad but true. I don't have any advice here, I hope never to be in a similar situation. I just wanted to express my outrage! :-/

[ion_exchanger]

I have been working on a side project for at least a year, where my goal is to figure out the structure of a protein. The project is very time consuming and hasn't been going very smoothly, and all of a sudden, I got scooped by our collaborator! Whoa where did that come from?

 

 As a person who works on protein structure, I completely understand how time consuming protein structure can be, and am sorry to hear this. I can't believe they asked you to continue the project! This is infuriating! Gosh, how do you even trust your PI anymore. I agree with fuzzylogician, it's a slippery slope. I can only offer my sympathy. Feel free to vent more, or even PM me to vent.

[St Andrews Lynx]

Much sympathy. 

Leave yourself a week to get/remain pissy, then try to sort this out with your advisor.

[aberrant]

My PI acted like it's none of her business, and me being scooped is entirely my fault. 

Obviously, nobody should think that way. It's science, it's protein structure, it's time consuming.

 

To make you feel better, I'm working on a project that is +1 year behind of our major competitor, yet I'm still working on it -- not for the sake of finishing it, but rather to learn more about this thing and apply it to a different system.

 

Sometimes it is about luck, I think. Roger Tsien also beat the other group by publishing his GFP structure on Science 1 week before their competitors publish on Nature Biotechnology. He said that he may not win the Nobel prize should the referees  further postpone their publishable work for a 3rd review.

[Tall Chai Latte]

Thanks everyone for your encouragement and support.

 

Sigh, I'm not sure what to think now. Nothing is ever transparent when it comes to project details and potential outside collaborations with my PI, and I feel this will become a bigger problem in the future. I tried to approach my PI with this, but apparently I got the impression that I've overstepped my boundary, and I only need to "just do your experiments". While I do have other projects that I can based my thesis on, I find it difficult to carry on without fully trusting the PI.

 

People always put their own interests first. I just had to learn it the hard way.

[fishasaurus]

Is there a department graduate adviser who is impartial and can give you some guidance? It seems like you should address the trust issues with your PI before they start impacting your work, and a neutral third party could help with that.

[snowshoes]

Wow, I can't believe somewhat was scooped by their own supervisor!

 

Any updates?

[fuzzylogician]

Wow, I can't believe somewhat was scooped by their own supervisor!

 

Unfortunately, that's not unheard of. I think that (as far as scooping goes) getting scooped by your advisor is probably one of more common ways to get scooped, if for no other reason than that they know their advisees well and can take advantage of that knowledge. See some examples in the post here. 

[snowshoes]

Unfortunately, that's not unheard of. I think that (as far as scooping goes) getting scooped by your advisor is probably one of more common ways to get scooped, if for no other reason than that they know their advisees well and can take advantage of that knowledge. See some examples in the post here. 

That is shocking, I have never heard of that before.  My supervisors have always had my best interests at heart and seemed to take their role as a mentor seriously.

 

If a researcher is mid-career and has 50+ papers, why would they want to steal from their graduate student?  Don't they understand that one paper means more to the grad student and that what they are doing is completely unethical?

 

If this happened to me I don't know what I would do.  I would probably contact the university and make a huge stink about it, let everyone in the field know what an asshole the supervisor is, and find a new supervisor to work with.  I couldn't work with someone if they acted like this, pathetic behavior!

[TakeruK]

That is shocking, I have never heard of that before.  My supervisors have always had my best interests at heart and seemed to take their role as a mentor seriously.

 

If a researcher is mid-career and has 50+ papers, why would they want to steal from their graduate student?  Don't they understand that one paper means more to the grad student and that what they are doing is completely unethical?

 

If this happened to me I don't know what I would do.  I would probably contact the university and make a huge stink about it, let everyone in the field know what an asshole the supervisor is, and find a new supervisor to work with.  I couldn't work with someone if they acted like this, pathetic behavior!

 

Fortunately, I think that the majority of advisors out there are not out to screw over their students! Unfortunately, cases like this aren't rare either Like you, my first experiences with mentors were good ones. But as I met more students at different places, I started seeing cases of not-so-great advisors. Some of them aren't actually out to get their student, but not every supervisor is going to be a good mentor and not every supervisor wants to be a good mentor! Sometimes it's best to find two separate people to fulfill the work-supervisor and career-mentor roles.

 

Also unfortunately, in most of these cases of being scooped, the power is all on the prof's side. First of all, it's usually not illegal or against official regulations for an advisor to do something like this. There's no law to prevent people from doing some "jerk-y" things! So, while going to the university, graduate dean, director of grad studies, your student society, the university ombudsperson, etc. might still be a good idea and you might get some support, it ultimately isn't going to reverse what happened. But it's a good idea to do this if you feel that your working relationship with your advisor is now irreparable and you want to go in a different direction.

 

Secondly, if a supervisor does this, it's likely that the supervisor has way more clout in the field than you. Like many workplaces, academia is one of those crappy places where people might tolerate actions from distinguished profs that would not be tolerated in other aspects of life or from an undistinguished person! The most you can do is to warn incoming students or prospective students about this advisor but unless you know these students well, they don't really have a good reason to accept your advice without skepticism. 

 

Thirdly, in academia, it's really bad practice to badmouth someone else, even if that other person deserves it! This is not really something unique to academia though -- we all learn that in job interviews, we should never badmouth our previous employers etc. etc. If a student goes around to all conferences telling everyone they meet about how horrible their advisor is, they might also inadvertently give themselves a bad reputation as well. And even if people believe all of the student's legitimate complaints, in the end, they will see Prof X as a person who has accomplished a lot, but has flaws A, B, C while they would see Student Y as having complaints D, E, F but not positives to balance it out (because of course, the advisor has made it very difficult for the student to achieve much).

 

Fortunately, this has not happened to me. If it did, I would probably be really frustrated and want to speak out but I don't know if I would given the above points and potential to hurt my career more than the tenured prof's career. I don't really know how to fix this complete imbalance of power in academia. I am thinking that with modern technology, everyone in every field is much more in communication with each other now than decades ago. So, I am optimistic that students/junior faculty would be able to share info like this more discreetly and effectively and that in turn, would help shift the balance of power away from senior faculty.

[Guest |||]

Terrible, being scooped is the worst and with your supervisor.  Im sorry for your situation.

[juilletmercredi]

Talk to your university ombudsperson; they can help you decide what to do and who to talk to.  The DGS is a good step, too.  It's unethical for an advisor or a collaborator (or both) to publish work that you also contributed a substantial amount to without crediting you for authorship, and is actually probably against the values of the journal they submitted to, too.