Biochemical Education 27 (1999) 69—70

Editorial

And this above all........At one time there was a vogue for books of the ‘pi-jaw’

[1] variety entitled Advice to a ½oung... X, X beinganybody from a seminarian to a stonemason. GeorgeBernard Shaw wrote a version, tongue in cheek of course,called Advice to a ½oung Critic [2]. In the sense that weare all professional critics, at least of our students’ (andoften of our colleagues’) efforts, it might hold somethingfor us; however, more relevant is the book published byPeter Medawar in 1979, Advice to a ½oung Scientist [3].Elegant in its prose, philosophically inclined, it is indeedrewarding to read. But what of a career in biochemistryitself, or even more specifically, in biochemistry teaching?What would one say to a young person about to set out,today, to teach the subject in a college or university?

‘‘First of all’’, one might venture, ‘‘you have to beprepared for constant change’’. Every colleague I speakto, from whatever country, is in the process of ‘revisingthe curriculum’. It is possible that the most frenetic activ-ity obtains in medical schools, but that is a moot point.Some institutions start to change the new curriculumwithin a few months of implementing it (I could give youexamples). Everybody has an idea of what is desirable,without necessarily having any evidence to the point.You have to be prepared to sit on countless curriculumcommittees, arguing with people who don’t seem to listento you. You have to be able to defend your teaching in anera when interdisciplinary boundaries are vanishing fast.Nothing illustrates this better than the furore over sil-denafil [4] — an obvious topic of interest to students— which one could have taken up quickly to demon-strate being up to date. The role of nitric oxide in theenzymic transduction system might seem mainstreambiochemistry to us, but be prepared for claims on behalfof pharmacology, endocrinology, andrology, neurology,genitourinary and/or cardiovascular medicine, as well asphysiology. [And who is qualified to touch upon theethics and psychology of the matter?]

With the modularisation of courses, which seemsa great idea to those who do not actually have to workwith the system, students can pick and choose to a largeextent. This means that you have to make your modulesappealing, otherwise you may be out of a job. Sometopics do not look intrinsically attractive, and you haveto acquire some skills in the use of language in yourpresentation, or marketing, as it is usually called. I do notknow if there is anywhere a module called ‘Sludge Bio-chemistry’, but some other form of words could be

sought. On a related point, student assessment ofteachers is now almost universal. This means that youhave to make them like you. This can generally be doneby copious notes and exam hints but a personal groom-ing course might well not be out of place if you can affordit. Despite the harshness of the criticism you will encoun-ter from time to time, you will have to be a kind andconsiderate mentor, listening to lengthy heart searchingof problems you can do little if anything to solve.

You will now have to have a passing knowledge ofeducational jargon. Myself, I was only introduced theterm ‘formative assessment’ a few months ago but I nowbandy it around in great style. You will have to be able tocalculate the ‘difficulty index’ of an essay question andwork out the penalties to be applied in the case ofa wrong response in a multiple choice question.

Most institutions are now keen to work with industryand you may want to explore some means of acquiringa degree of commercialisation of your work, which willcertainly be taken into account in promotion exercises.Of course, some fields of endeavour are not readily ap-plicable to the real world, and you may have to makesome hard decisions as to whether you want to go in thatdirection, especially as some of your colleagues will ap-pear to be rather good at it. Again on a connecting factor,you will need a minimal knowledge of patent, and per-haps copyright law. You may from time to time have tocommunicate with the media, which may present a differ-ent problem — of exposition to the public, of confiden-tiality, of defamation — on every occasion.

At various points you are likely to be required to helpin the organisation of conferences. This can be enjoyablebut is extremely time-consuming and you cannot rely onit for promotion purposes. It goes without saying thaton all occasions you should be able to write and speakwell, the latter preferably entraining jokes here and there.Also implicit is the ability to keep abreast of a complexand rapidly advancing subject, as well as progress ininformation technology, and the acquisition of manualskills.

All this will leave you little time to reflect on thephilosophy of science, which should surely underpin thewhole effort, but believe me, you will enjoy the multiplechallenges, if not the relative poverty when you look atclassmates who adopted other careers!

J. Candlish

0307-4412/99/$20.00 ( 1999 IUBMB. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.PII: S 0 3 0 7 - 4 4 1 2 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 2 9 7 - 0

*Original article PII: S0307-4412(98)00091-0.

References

[1] This word is derived from ‘‘pious-jaw’’, describing the tedium of theprolonged advice so beloved of scoutmasters, schoolmasters,clergymen, and doctors. Its classical locus is in Shakespeare’sHamlet, the speech of Polonius in Act 1, Scene 3.

[2] G. B. Shaw, Advice to a Young Critic, Owen, London, 1956.[3] P.B. Medawar, Advice to a Young Scientist, Pan Books, London,

1979.[4] The wide range of potential disciplinary inputs can be readily

appreciated by considering the mechanism of action of the drug. Innormal erectile function increased parasympathetic activity as re-sult of visual or tactile or other stimuli releases NO which results indilation of the small branches of main cavernosal arteries, thenrelaxation of the smooth muscle of the traberculae of the corporacavernosa. NO activates guanylate cyclase producing cGMPwhich relaxes the cells. Sidenafil citrate, a purine analogue, inhibitsphosphodiesterase 5 and thus prolongs the effect of cGMP. It wasoriginally developed to improve cardiac blood flow in anginasufferers [see I. Goldstein et al., New Eng. J. Med. 338 (1998)1397—1404].

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Erratum*

There was an error in the Abstract to the paper byM. Gugliotti, M. J. Politi and H. Chaimovich, ‘A simplesurface tension method for demonstrating the Lb-Latransition in biological membranes’, Biochemical Educa-tion, 1998, 26, 233—238. The Abstract should read ‘‘Therate of vesicle fusion at the air/water interface . . .’’, not‘‘The rate of vesicle formation at the air/water inter-face2’’

70 Editorial / Biochemical Education 27 (1999) 69—70