Oh yeah we are we are actually live now you will notice your screen is not visible Yeah, is it now? Yeah it was okay yeah we need to wait for some more few more minutes to for the viewers to come okay let me just do three minutes we can give before we start there are only two people who actually live I don’t know why people are less we can always transfer that if we can to another time I know it’s super last minute but that would be fine that would be possible for me just just that is an option in case Yeah, but it’s okay I guess because anyway after the webinar we are going to pause the video here and also on STEMcognito so and we will definitely share the link also so interested people can always watch the video later. If it’s not possible for them to see now and pause it they can also email us the questions they have. So yeah, so already for people are watching. So I guess we will start slowly. So let let the people join in between. So if you’re already we can start. So I’ll just I’ll just start with the introduction. Okay, where we started. So good afternoon to everyone and welcome to the chapter three of the bio battalion webinar series. Today we have with us is a really distinguished personality with a scientist, science writer and communicator, and at the same time professional and competitive diver and sailor. It is an absolute delight to all of us at by battalion to host Dr. Pace Langer, the founder of the science writer space as our speaker for the third chapter of Maya battalion webinar series. So before I hand over to days, let me take the liberty to speak a few words about her. Dr. T. schlanger, is a creative scientist with a diverse and international career. She worked in cancer and Immunology research and presented her work. In more than 11 conferences around Europe. Dr. Langer holds a bachelor’s degree in applied sciences from RMIT. Australia, a master’s degree in microbiome molecular biology from noumea University Sweden, a PhD in Molecular Medicine from Harvard Medical School, Germany. After her PhD, she worked as a postdoc in a preclinical project, developing CRISPR cast nine based immunotherapies for cancer. She is passionate about education and reliable information and firmly believes there is no use in learning when not shared. Thus, after living and working in more than six countries, she finally decided to share her scientific know how and passion for science communication by creating science writer space, science writer space aims to bring science closer to society in an accurate, creative and inspiring. outside work. She competes in sailing and is appropriate as a professional diver. She sailed several international competitions, including two World Championships and some exclusive records as she also worked as a diver master for environmental and educational projects in Thailand and UAE. Let us Let me invite Dr. Denise Langer to this event. Welcome Dr. Langer. So just a heads up audience because their science and sailing questions in the comment box and we will moderate it at the end of the presentation. So yeah, if you’re ready, we can slowly start right. So Hi, everyone. It’s a pleasure to be here. I was super happy with invitation. I really enjoy the project. VO battalion. Honestly I looked at their website and look up what they’re doing and It’s really nice. I hope we have more initiatives like that in the future. So I will talk to you a little bit of how to navigate a scientific career, I like to give a very personal approach to how, how I dealt with that. And I like to make a lot of personal details, because I do think that’s the career and in life are absolutely intertwined, right, we cannot separate one from another. So any questions, afterwards, you’re free to ask me or send me an email. We had some technical issues with sharing the screen here. So I’m going to have to do this presentation like this. So I just hope you’ll bear with me a little bit. So I just give you a preview of what I’m going to talk about, I’m going to share with you my background. And I got down I’m going to go into science communication, what is science communication? And why? Why is it a growing field? And why is it so important, and how to get into science communication, and and why as well, I’d say that a why comes before to how, you know, you need to know why you want to get into it before you find a way to get into it. And whether that is for you or not. And then I’m going to talk a little bit about life and career choices. So as was mentioned before, and my lovely introduction, I have a few animations, it’s I have to take it out. I come from Brazil, I was born and raised in Brazil, and my CD lies by a huge, huge lake. So I was raised by the water with a lot of nature and a lot of wind and a lot of boats around me. So of course I ended up growing up sailing. And during my teenage years, I started competing sailing, so I was always locked into that sport, and into water sports in general. And one thing you learn as a sailor at a very young age is that you cannot choose the weather, but you can always adjust your sails. So the weather will be there no matter what you know, and that goes for life as well. opportunities come and go and and you adjust accordingly. And you see the best you can get out of of each weather or each wind right that you have to face. I started my journey, my scientific urinate started in veterinary medicine school. And I was passionate about that. So I stayed in veterinary medicine school for four years. And during that time, my first contact with science communication was because I was anatomy teaching assistant. And then I started building skeletons and pieces for the Museum of Natural History of my university back home. And I got involved in several collaborative projects at a time and it got very, very passionate about it. I thought it was so cool that I could study that in that school, the rtgs system and yet collaborate with a museum. So bringing whatever we knew back to the public or whoever was curious to learn about. I worked in many projects that ping me on the top, it’s a penguin. I build it myself. And then I joined also a collaboration with the biology department to build whale skeleton. That was the biggest challenge we had was incredibly nice. But my family faced several financial issues at a time and I had to become financially independent, very early age in my life. So that forced me to drop vet school, which at that time, I was like, Okay, I’ll drop it for a couple of years and I come back and graduate No problem, right? I didn’t happen as you already know, but I went into other jobs. I was a waitress, I sold water filters. I worked as a hotel receptionist, and because I had to work during the day, then I wanted to I was like okay, I like communication. So I’m going to study at night. So I was studying dance, social communication and digital media. And later on I shifted into international marketing. I got a job at an advertising agency. I’ve worked in advertising for a year and a half and then I was like No, that’s really not it. I miss science. I want to go back to science somehow I want I would like to go back to that school, but I couldn’t afford it. So the crew, you know, creativity took place. And then I decided to take a job to apply to become a flight attendant. So I moved to Dubai, I applied for the job still in Brazil, I got the job. And I moved to Dubai and that’s me here on the corner and a hole and the Zurich airport This picture was taken by a photographer was really nice picture. And so I worked with as a flight attendant for four years when I joined the company and Dubai I finally could afford to study again. But I didn’t have the time. So how can I put that together, I couldn’t go back to veterinary school because the Turner school was a full time study. And they couldn’t do that. So I started studying Applied Sciences in Australia. I was doing everything online, all the theory by myself all the exams of the British Council and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. And I was going to take, I was taking vacation from work to do the practical laboratory work at RMIT Melbourne in Australia. So basically, for three years, I didn’t really have a vacation, and I had a very organized schedule on I focus. And, and then I did a double major, I mean, like I didn’t have time enough, but I wanted to do a double major. So in d&d, I did Applied Sciences with a double major in biotechnology and bio sciences. So I graduated at RMIT in 2011, and I thought, great, now if I want to go back to the water, maybe I can work with marine sciences, right, or something like that. So I moved to Thailand. And then I became a divemaster. And I was working with environmental and educational and marine resource management projects in Thailand with building and maintaining artificial coral reefs, and teaching other divers how to participate in our projects, was incredible year. But then I thought, okay, I want to do a master’s degree, maybe if I go into molecular biology, I can then go into future for marine molecular biology. That would be great. So I moved to Sweden, and I did two years master’s degree in molecular biology. Of course, I didn’t end up back and marine molecular biology as you already know. So I was done in Canada did my project at a medical department at a university and I stay there to work as a research assistant after that. So I worked for a couple of years as a research assistant. And during University which was great for me, I got a lot of laboratory techniques under my belt. So I learned all kinds of techniques you can imagine I worked in vivo, I worked ex vivo, I worked in vitro so I had a lot of experience. And I thought the only way to go was a PhD you know when you were in research and when you are in academia, you don’t really get in touch with the options outside right, you kind of go with the flow a little bit. So I think that’s more more or less what I did. So I got a PhD position in Hanover medical school. So I moved to Germany. I worked on in immunology, transplantation immunology, I loved my PhD project which is something very important for whoever is thinking about doing a PhD so and then after the enema at the end of my PhD then I was pretty lost To be honest, I was like okay, what do I do with all that work? Where can I go you know, and so I took a break I create a blog I create a website because I always had a wish to go to science communication I was the one always reviewing abstracts and writing material from the lab teaching my students on science communication presentations and so on. So I thought what is out there that I can do with so I explored it for a while but I was afraid to be honest to put my website out there and to start and I always thought I needed to learn more I needed to to to get more experience. So then I was offered a postdoc position at Hanover medical school was well and I took it it was a very nice project was CRISPR engineering for developing immunotherapies for cancer. So it was it was very interesting so I took it but after a few months again I was like yeah, it’s that’s not it. It’s amazing I love the lab and I love science but I really wanted to develop something else I really wanted to use my communication skills you know an experience I gained there is so long in my career to to become more independent to do something else. So I finally Oh, sorry. Yeah, that’s because I’m not in a presentation so I click enter so sorry. I finally put my website out there. So I created clients writers days. I honestly when I started writing a blog and a website, I had no idea what a plugin was that that is really reality. Okay, that was two years ago. And I learned everything by myself. I sat down I was like, Okay, how do you create a website literally googling how do we create a website? I learned about design I learned about language I learned about search engine optimization, I learned about keywords I learned about marketing and so on. And I created my website I created my mind my science writer space, name, my domain I put it out there and as to start as a science and medical freelance writer and I did it again and my science writer space focus on is basically to bring science closer to society which I always thought it was a huge gap. I see with my family and my friends nobody really knows what I do, or has no idea what I do even though I try to explain it. So I find this dis dis huge distance between research, biomedical research and academia to society. And I always had to wish to straighten that, that distance you know, to to to, to shorten that distance and so I created science writers face and I develop evidence based content through science writer space, to blogs and websites and and whoever wants to also review evidence based content or fact chat so I also do fact checking off science related content. And I also provide science communication workshops be that for journalists or healthcare practitioners, I last year even had a workshop with physiotherapists and physical educators because they wanted to learn how to properly read a scientific article, how it works, how to actually judge whether it’s studies good or bad, how they can apply it as a studies how they can do their prop day their own research. So basically bringing what scientific, peer reviewed articles to the people that work in health and work with, with other people, you know, with, met in the medical or health fields. So, um, but what is right, I was gonna get into what is in why science communication dis review from 2019, I strongly recommend for whoever is interested in learning more about what science communication is how it works, does it work? Right? It’s a good question. Um, and so this review talks a lot about the importance of understanding science communication. And if we work in science, the importance of us knowing whether what we do, and what we communicate actually gets the message across, right? Whether the way we communicate gets our message across. So, but why science communication. So science communication educates and informs it influences opinion, it drives behavior change, it generates political support or not, as we’ve been seeing lately, and enhance democratic legitimacy of funding systems. It basically also fights back fake news, right, that we see, sadly, spreading in a very harmful way throughout society. So basically brings science closer to society. And it builds public trust, and I can’t emphasize enough on the importance of building public trust, I think we all seen the consequences of that in this recent pandemic, and how much disagreement abroad and how much fear abroad before afraid, and they’re afraid, because they don’t understand. And that is, that is acceptable, you know, we’re all afraid of what we don’t understand. And we lose the power over our own health and life decisions. So it’s incredibly important that we develop good ways of science communication, effective ways of science communication. So according to that paper, and that review that I brought to you there, science communication is mainly divided into two parts, which is the dissemination and the public participation. The dissemination goes through words via a formal education, like schools and so on, like, reviewing national curricula for schools, right? teaching a science, it’s cool. Also by a math medium, so via TV shows or documentaries, popular science books, science, magazines, and so on. So he goes one way to dissemination goes from people that know science or some people don’t want to learn about science. The public participations goes both ways. So it’s really the participation of the public with the science development with scientific data generation and so on. So you have public hearings, you have science shops, right, where people basically defines the demand, right? We have scenario workshops, and we have citizen science projects and I will talk about the citizen science project a little bit more detail because I worked with a In the past as well. So one example of science communication dissemination, for instance, on science communication. It’s happening now here in Germany, for example, the visiting stopped in Berlin 2021. And I’ve been there last week, now, three about three weeks ago. It’s it’s really it goes all over town with different expositions about different science fields and different topics discussing different things about science. And the project basically states that the corona pandemic and the climate debate are particularly dominating in current events, right? Particularly dominating current events. We all know this, everybody’s talking about climate change, or talking about what to do with a pandemic, how to handle it before last. And so this is this project basically tells the story of research knowledge, and how the citizens of the displays live together in the Capitol, and how all this is connected to the research that is done around this Capitol. So it brings all the research that is being done around universities of that all in Berlin, and institutions and so on together down and explain to the public, why are they important how they work. So he brings the community and his research together and in an interactive and informative way, and tells them about the latest approach and innovative solutions, and so on, and how each each individual benefits from all these research and that is very important to, to, for people to understand how it works, right. This is these are pictures that I took from that exposition, and they bring very, very, how do you say important topics like political science, they talk about the climate research and how we confront the public how, how actually scientists are involved in climate research, and they are often accused of ideological bias in many polite and political opinion. I’m not saying that that doesn’t happen, but how is all that connected How does that work, how people can understand that or be able to judge well that is going on and that is not right, that is very complex matter and that is the role of scientific communication as well to bring that to the public. And then I also work with a public participation also part egg, which is you, the citizen scientist project, for instance, I worked with that for many years during the throughout the reef check Foundation, which is based in California, but works all over the world and they have this huge project which is a dive against the breeze. So, basically, I would teach people how they could contribute, how the project worked, and also gather volunteers to work with us and collect data. So the basically the study goes into the impact of diving tours on local coral reefs and what kind of of the breeze we find the most one we are planning in analyzing different reef different reefs around the world. So this little red here is just to, to show that I was there and I was the group leader for a while for this project there in Thailand in Qatar. And it was it was incredible to work with people from all over the world collecting data for for this project. And here you can see, to have an idea of the size of this project. So in 2020, they published this data on the sea floor the breeze at Science Direct. And this data is used to advance critical and marine research projects all over the world. Here is where they did they collected all the data they all the locations exactly the data they collected at each locations. And here the pink one here is basically plastic. So this graph shows different types of degrees. So we can have an idea of what is the main the main source of debriefs on the oceans all over the world and also part location. So this is all done by volunteers by people getting involved and to into how science works into collecting data and getting getting them also motivated to understand and to do something, you know, to feel that they participate. So going further now into why science communication I want to now talk a little bit about the things we read in science like scientific articles, peer reviewed scientific articles, for example, and this one published only lot a life You can find this this I really recommend reading this one, it Did this analysis of more than 709,000 abstracts published between 1881 and 2015, from 123 different scientific articles, analyzing the readability of scientific texts. And it’s incredible how it got worse, I’d say I mean, readability really decreased over the years. And that’s why the show, even for scientists, so I don’t know if it happened to you before. To me it did. I often took a long time to understand the scientific journal, not only because the data was complex, but because the way it was presented the way it was written, right. And some jargon, if I’m reading an article that is not from my field, there’s so much jargon there that I often have to, you know, Google it to find out what they’re trying to say. And here it gives a very brief overview of why. So they show here the increase of science specific jargon, and common words, and a decrease of common words. So science, scientific, common words are in sciences, specific words and science jargon increases, why are common words decreases, this is what they have at all everything detail on this paper. So basically, what they see is how much readability all scientific articles decreased and became challenging, even for specialists from different fields. So why is it important that scientists learn about science communication, right, not only journalists, or people from the media and so on, I think you should be I mean, part of basic scientific programs and during Masters and PhD degrees, because it increases accessibility of science results, to honor scientists, even to so to others, to specialists from different fields, we are so multidisciplinary nowadays, when we work in a lab where we work with chemists, we work with molecular biologists, we work with physicians, we all communicate in different ways, we all use different jargon, you know, so it’s important that we learn how to make it what we know more accessible, even to other specialists. And to also increase reproducibility that we know it’s a big deal in science currently, many of them the majority of science published is not reproducible. And also to increase the dialogue of policymakers, you know how to communicate uncertainty, for instance, that for us is just another day in the office, everything is uncertain, we’re used to that. Society is not and politics doesn’t want that. And, and nobody wants uncertainty. For us, we don’t understand why. So the way we communicate comes across as like, well, they don’t know anything. But the thing is that we just have different ways of communicating. And, and that is important to understand, when dialoguing with policymakers, for instance, for the public, for example, to reach out to social media and science blogs, these are so incredible, credibly important, like like sada was was saying on the other day, when she had her talk at via Bhutan, how important science blogs are, and they are. And if we had more people doing that would be incredibly useful. I’m so sorry, I fall down again, I want to go a little bit now to medical writing. And I know I’m jumping from one topic to another, but just to give you an overview of science communication is because it’s such a broad term that involves so much stuff, and medical writing is also a broad term. So medical writing could be basically very basically divided into two main main topics, main disciplines, which is regulatory writing that involves clinical trial reports and protocols and technical documents. It’s not my field, that’s not what I do. So I cannot really develop on that, and medical communication. And that goes into patient education. For instance, all these folders that you see from when you go to the doctor are talking about a new drug, talking about a new treatment. That is part of medical communication, blogs, and websites, magazines and news articles talking about health and medical equipment, treatments and so on. And also has it health and medical devices and therapies. So all that goes into medical writing. And then, finally, if you like any of these topics, and as you could see a little bit I hope I could show it to you how broad that is. You know, you can work from museums and exhibitions and public exhibitions to writing to patients to write into doctors to write into physicians. So there is a huge field out there that you can explore. So, first of all, I would say for you to reflect on what you have, you know, we’re Select What are your skills? Like? Are you good at writing, communicating and talking? Are you like introvert or extrovert? What kind of communication? Like, what are your talents? You know, what are you good at? We all have unique talents. And, and what kind of education and practical experience do you have, I would say honestly, that to go into medical writing and health writing, you don’t need to have a PhD. Of course it helps. But you don’t need to, you need to be good in research, you need to understand what evidence base is, you need to understand how the how reliable information works, and then have practice and practical experience. But you can also start from scratch, and your unique characteristics that what makes you who you are, what makes you talk when you talk, you know, like me, I’m a sailor, I’m a diver, I like to do that kind of that kind of thing, that this kind of things. And that also makes me a little bit be the way that I am, or talk the way that I talk, you know, and these things are important when you think of selling yourself out there. And at least what you think you do not have and I say think because that is from practical experience, we often think we don’t have Oh, I don’t have this, I don’t have that I don’t have that. And actually, sometimes we do have or it’s easy to get you know, it’s it’s like experience or portfolio, if you don’t have experience, you don’t have published material like I didn’t, okay, I had a couple of peer reviewed articles and so on. But that is not really where I want it to go. So I do have my own portfolio, I wrote my own portfolio, I wrote different pieces I, I hired a writing coach to work with me, and we work together and building a portfolio for instance, then it can be done, it doesn’t have to be published, you just have to show that you can write, you have to have some knowledge of the field that you have internet, right, and you have people and you can pass around and network. That is very important. That is really, really very important. And you have to learn how to do that properly. So that you can always rely on the horses in that fork, I always would recommend riding horses, especially if you’re a non native speaker on specific fields, if you’re curious on specific niches or it Yeah, just choose some riding horses, they are always very useful. And that’s working with a lot of people definitely ask, ask ask. That is absolutely true. I use that a lot. But when you do be precise and straightforward. If you just send the message like I receive messages, sometimes it is I want to find a job beside calm. How do I do it? This is just such a broad question that I don’t have the time to write the tax department, you know, so be straightforward. Listen on that and that I’m curious about this. Do you have any tips, you know, that is helpful. You’re not sure what to do or where to go or where to start? Maybe a career coaching could be helpful, I did it in the past for me was super helpful. I honestly thought out it’s not going to help so much. And he did incredibly, incredibly. And if you don’t have a career coaching option or anything, just try, literally just step out there and try you know, because you never know where you can come out of it. And bravery is an important thing on anything you do. people admire doubt. So go for it and communicate to yourself and others what do you want to do and what is your wish it’s incredible the power of how things can change once you voice them to you. You know it sounds a bit new age, but it’s not. It brings things and and saying in it saying it to yourself and putting it out there like on LinkedIn for example, or or Instagram whatever you use the most is incredibly helpful. So the basic knowledge I would say that it was very should have for that as writing skills. You need to know about different types of articles to sell because they change with the tone of voice they use on a blog on a future on a news article, for example. So you need to get a bit of of a sense of that. You need to know grammar and clarity. Definitely. You know, you need to know about these things. If you want to be a writer and if you want to specially like advertise yourself on social media. be absolutely thorough on reviewing what you’re writing and make sure it’s correct because you cannot sell yourself as a writer if you don’t write it correctly, right. In fact, effective communication you need to know about that. And we need to know about target audiences. It’s if you’re used to write scientific papers like I was it more difficult than you think to make it simpler? And you need to know that Who’s your audience? Who are they? What do they do? What are they age? And what do they want to know? That that is incredibly important? Why do they want to know, you need to know when and what kind of media you’re gonna put your your content, it’s online, it’s offline, if it’s online, you need to know about search engine optimization, you need to know about readability scores, you need to know about keywords, you need to be aware of that. And that will define your audience because that will reach out to your audience or not, online, offline. Also, you need to know how to write an offline changes as well. And, of course, why you’re writing this and why is it important that it must be loud and clear on whatever is whatever content you’re creating, be that on LinkedIn or visa on, for clients without for your research work, you need to be straightforward, and why is it important, that is a way of selling and the skills that you can have that you should have First of all, we must be a good writer and communicator for sure. And but these are skills that you develop, you know, if you like it, you develop, you work on it, you become better and better. Writing is practice, I’d say really practice, practice, practice, and it gets you get it gets easier every time. You have to enjoy writing and learning. And I do for instance, on chairs of everything. So I love when it comes to a project that is something that is kind of curious to me that I don’t know much that I need to learn more, I really like it, you know, so that is why also medical writing and science communication. For me, it’s it’s really motivating, because I’m always learning something new. You need to be extremely good at project and time management. But that is another skill that you can develop as well. And there are several courses out there to give you some tips on it have to be good at interpersonal skills, because you’re going to be if you become a freelancer, you are your own boss, if you work in a company work with different people from different fields, and you need to know how to communicate with them. You know, you need to be good at networking. And if you become your own boss, which was my case, you have to learn about marketing website business management, content management, and it does sound like a lot I know. But it’s really not. It goes step by step, I’m still a bit overwhelmed with all the business management thing to be honest, coming from a science background, but it’s incredibly nice to learn. So then transfer those skills here is listed for instance, I use this as an example because we think that not all experiences will be used to that and I tell you every experience will be used to that I was a flight attendant for four years and then you would say yeah, but what can she use won’t fit in a flight from being a flight attendant down to a scientist and then to a science writer, write everything. as a as a flight attendant, you’ll learn about everything, including conflict management, leadership skills, customer relations, interpersonal skills, team building, multicultural communication, time management, because being a flight attendant is like literally working in the army, you have time for everything and you need to, you need to be disciplined. Even when I think about safety, security, self defense survival skills that I had to learn in my time of being a flight attendant, you learn about risk assessment and teamwork and effective communication, you can deal with anything in a very confined space that you have no choices, but to deal with. So this the skills are absolutely transferable to whatever I do in my life, you know, and they are valuable. And that’s what I say that sometimes diversifying a little bit your CV and trying other things will just add will never remove. Okay, so I know people think differently, and sometimes people are afraid. But these are things that will make you stand out, bring something else to you. Overall life and career is an organic process. I like to say it’s not a linear or mechanical process, and they are intertwined. So every experience counts. That’s my final message to you because a lot of happens so try to deal with because literally, this was my catch that was what I plan I was going to be that I had everything figured out I was going to take a break and go back to bat and graduate and here I am, you know nothing of that half. And so just try to navigate through that the best you can and and and just try to see the opportunities will bring something that you will never discover if you just stay put. So I think that is very enriching for whatever you choose to do in the future. So basically life and career as change, adapt, learn and repeat. That is Well, that’s my take from my career and from my choices and everything so far, and I hope that that this experience could inspire you a little bit to try, if you have something there in the back of your mind, it’s worth it or not, most of the time will tell you that it is. So just, hopefully this was a bit clarifying to you and helpful to you. So I want to thank you now, for battalion for this really nice invitation. And I’m sorry about the technical difficulties we had here. But again, life happens rise, so we had to adapt. And I tried here to give you the best I could out of the information that I have. So thank you very much. Oh, that is a really, really inspirational story from your side days. I mean, I hope the listeners would really enjoy enjoyed it. I mean, you truly are a package of so many things. So one, one specific question that came to my mind when I was listening to your story was, since you had lots of lots of good things, and at the same time, bad things happening in life since life is not so linear. So I just would like to ask, what was your biggest motivation when things were not falling into your place? Every time? Yeah, exactly. Well, that is the thing. First of all, it’s like I think, Okay, what choice do I have, because getting angry or things not going my way will not change things not going my way, right? They will continue not going my way. I’m just gonna be pissed, but they will be not going my way. But what I tried to see, like what is out there that maybe I didn’t do yet that I can do it and learn and get a new skill in my pocket, right? And a new technique under my belt, what is there that I can do to adapt to that, it’s like jumping on freezing water and like, oh, okay, if I stay here for five minutes, I get used to it. Because more or less, I thought, you know, fighting back only and just trying to stick to a plan that is not working is not always that productive. But I’m also not saying don’t just quit because I never quit being a scientist, I wanted to go back to science and I did whatever I had won people there are two types of people that I look at my CV two types of human resource one, you your your CV doesn’t show, you know, that you wanted, I mean, it doesn’t show that you know what you want. And another type of Human Resources person that says, Wow, it really shows that you did whatever you had to do to reach where you are now. And these two people probably had two different lifestyles, the problem the second one had a more lifestyle like me, they can see that CBO is like, well, this person was really creative to be here today applying for this job. Because so try to adapt the way that you can there, there is always a way out. I am had been in the situation right now as well, when I finished my PhD, to be honest, I was back into that place and just try to be open to what is passing by because there will be opportunities passing by you and people telling you things that could help you out. That could give us some clarity. That’s what I would say. Yeah, that makes sense. That’s a true story. And we have some questions from our viewers. So I will just mentioned questions here. So one by one, I will take the questions. So first question is from Wireshark a visual not just out of curiosity, how could one obtain revenue from science communication? Yeah, there are several ways so I would say begin by finding your niche. Okay, that was a tip that I got from a very experienced science writer. And I didn’t take it seriously at first. And then I understood what she was saying, find what you like. So to obtain a revenue, we will only obtain revenue if you focus on one thing at least the beginning. So like, okay, I live right into patients, then you develop How do I write to patients who learn about that, then you contact for instance, saw patients associations, like oh, I am a specialized, let’s say in immunotherapies, or then you go to, I don’t know a Diabetes Association or something or any out immune disease that maybe work with immunotherapies and you talk to them and say, Well, I can write content for you or just go out there and just start asking people so if you find a niche that you like, find medical writers or science writers that work on that niche on LinkedIn, for example, and send them a message sometimes and ask them that how did you start where did you start, but the revenue comes mostly from there’s so many different sources like right now I’m working with the Institute of Molecular Biology at Porto University I’m working with reviewing entity enable. They have their for a product on gene editing, for example. I actually did a job interview with them some time ago. I didn’t get the job, but they I got them a freelance work, which was my favorite. So things like that happens, you know, the revenue you get from contacting people learning and putting yourself out there as an expert of what you do of the niche that you chose, and trying to charge for the service you provide. You know, you have different charges, you’re charged for articles you write for reviews you can do for editing of material, then you have to know, of course, how the market works, where it worked to have different different quotes. That’s that’s basically what I would say. Hopefully that helped a little bit. Yeah, that’s a really comprehensive answer. It’s like the child, even though there are lots of revenue generating options. It’s good. It could be like, so challenging out there. The possibilities are challenging. Yeah. And next, second question. This is from my side. So following up the same question that Wireshark asked. So other than freelancing aside, are there any or the other funding options available for science communication that you are aware of? Yeah, that is the thing I know there are I know, sad. I also addressed that last time. Yeah. Is as she said, It’s incredibly, incredibly difficult to get I am honestly not there. I’m not doing that. I’m going on a different approach completely. Okay. So I’m not developing big projects or anything. What I’m basically doing is pitching and trying to sell articles to websites, and so on and working with healthcare professionals. That’s where I like the most to understand working for patients, and university. So I don’t I’m not really aware of that I’m not really the best source of that at all. And there’s a second question from Wireshark or visual not. So he was asking, How can we extend the audience for science communication? Or in other words, how can we effectively share the content to a general audience or people from non science background? Yeah, that is, that is a very important question because I honestly I’m very passionate about that topic, mostly is that we get so when we’re working in research universities, we get so used to the language we use, that we’ve we forget that actually people do not understand they do not speak that language. It’s a different language. Science has a different language, and you know, even a different way of communicating. So you have to learn about that you have to go like, have to go to your dad or to your brother who is not a scientist and tell them what to do. And until they don’t understand you means that you don’t explain yourself, right? If they don’t understand what you’re saying to them, it means that you are not able to communicate. So in order for us to learn how to communicate to people from non science background, we need to talk to them and try to make ourselves understood. No use our jargon scientific, like a specific language. If you have to use that explain, be very simple as if you were explaining to a kid I’m writing that I’m writing a book now on on genetic engineering, and I’m thinking, Oh, God, how do I explain that to a 16 year old and I literally have to write as I’m writing to a 16 year old you know, if I talk about nucleotide, I put their nucleotides this this, this is the building blocks of blah, blah, you know, and is that that you really need to talk like that. It’s important that and I think we need to do that more often, you know, via blocks and via any source of, of media that we have. We need to do that more often. And learn about that more often. Yeah. That’s, that’s for one another. Another question is, from some key display, even though we put a lot of work enhancing science communication, don’t you think language is a barrier, especially when you want to bring it to the comment, folks? I guess you answered that question by mo it’s honestly the the language of science is English, right? I would say that the advantage is that most of us are not no are no native speakers, that’s an advantage. That’s not a loss. Because by being non native speaker, you tend to use simpler language. But what we have often is that we tend to then copy and use a format of how other papers are written and write it the same way which is often not good because it’s were using language that other people are using that are not good already. And that’s why the readability of scientific articles is decreasing instead of increasing. What we need to do is simplify. We know when we learn English, how simple we have to do things for me at least I’m not a not a non native speaker. They are Portuguese native speaker. So I had to learn from simple a simple way and I tried to use to maintain that retain a simple English we’re not, Don’t go Don’t go like very What is a complex? We don’t have to do that it’s an advantage to be a no native speaker. So keep it simple. Keep the language simple. I think it is it is not a barrier. I think it is the advantage, honestly. Because most of the people do things the other way, because since being a non native speaker always has sovereign limitation. That’s a common Yeah, that’s a common term, common concept that I have heard of. And do you have something to say about because recently, there are, there are so many articles that I happen to read, like, even though in our scientific publications as well, we have a problem of incorporating so many acronyms. It’s like, it becomes even tougher for the people in the same field to understand each and every day, the new acronyms coming out. Oh God, I mean, I was really a paper the other day, seriously, I had to start writing papers, so I could continue reading it, because even for B cell, they would be seen, you know, to the point with like, we get to do that. And I don’t know why. And this is also if you read our paper, I told you about readability, they will see that they are mentioning this problem there. It’s okay to repeat words, if there are technical words, it’s okay. It’s not going to look that horrible on your texts, repeat it, that’s fine. But using your problems, it’s making everything worse. And that if you were writing science for life, people for general public problems are forbidden. You know, of course, common occurrences like RNA and DNA, fine. But creating a quantum out of all that stuff. Now, if you can, if you have to write a whole thing, write a whole thing. Every time write a whole thing, like nk cell people are putting any Casey. I was like on it’s just so okay, if you can do that, you know, I mean, and I can read it without what it was any case, he again was in a band, is it a new pop song or something? Not? So let’s try and avoid that whenever we can. That’s that’s the way to go. Yeah, one more. One more thing that came to came to my attention lately was there was a paper two years back there was a paper like, it was it’s a scientific paper. So the title of the people looked very fancy. It was like fantastic east and where to I don’t I don’t remember fantastic east. So essentially, are there any kind of rule of thumb that we have to follow while we are constructing a manuscript in terms of how the title of the paper should be or something like that? It depends a lot to which journal you’re writing, okay, and the editor that you’re writing for, I would say that for instance, journals that have editors as native speakers or are entornos from native English, native speaker countries, they are more open to simple language specially and a bit of storytelling. And I say this like Think of your project Think of your research when you’re writing as a storytelling what Where did Where did the idea rise? Why is the question asked to begin with, we all have that and instead of following searches, were like, making such a complicated introduction and go with this paper aims to Okay, of course have to put the end. But we can always try to write that in a bit like telling you a story to where is reading that we can do that, you know, you can say well, the idea started from the blog because the disease because we’re observed and then and so you can make a bit of a story. Avoid acronyms. Always avoid jargon. You don’t need jargon, you don’t need to make it sound complicated. You always already publishing a paper in a scientific peer reviewed journal. Everybody knows you’re smaller. You know, that’s my point. I always say people we know is more, just make it simple. You know, it’s as if Kadena, we are trying to speak complicated, because if we make it easy, we don’t sound smart enough. And I think that is the problem where we see now of this disconnection that people don’t understand what I was saying, of course, but they don’t I mean, I barely understand sometimes professors giving a lecture. You know, if there is not a minefield of there’s too much jargon. So try to to, to make it simple grammar, absolutely. Always check for the grammar, that’s very important. Make it concise, make it flow, like one idea connects to the next, you know, it’s not like last paragraphs, but one thing connects to the next. Always, and that tells a story. But literally, I really think and Yeah, they do, of course, depends on the editor, as I say, but I’ve seen interviews with editors, they say, I love when people are a bit creative on their title, that the title, it says something like fantastic east or something like this. I see many editors like that, you know, because it really attracts attention. So I think the they’re a little bit more, you should they’re definitely to make a good storytelling out of your paper. And I think that’s doable. And if audience are more questions, they are free to post it in the comment section. We will moderate it one by one. And there’s one question from cannon, do you think bringing science communication into the curriculum would empower scientists to be better communicators of their science. And if you believe that it’s true, how to go ahead with it, no doubt about it. To be honest, I wish I could start a movement of life, science communication, so obligatory on every PhD program and every Master of Science program, because I do see a lack not only for science communication to the public, but also among ourselves. How many presentations Have you been have other students or PhD students that you do not really understand very well did slides are not well designed, the images are bad, and the results are badly presented. I mean, it’s a common thing, even among scientists, you know, don’t have to even go outside. So it is I think, something we all give very little value to. In the US, they value that a lot more. So it’s common for you to go to conferences, and when you have american people talking, they are incredibly engaging, everybody’s engaged in what they’re signing, the way they’re speaking the way they’re presenting, because they are taught that in a few universities there so I do think that science communication could become courses should become courses and to implement that I do think that you’d have workshops and, and courses available for PhD students and for Master of Sciences students, and even for for bachelors such as introductory course, the importance of science, communication, the role of science, communication with a society and the importance of communicating what you do to the society, what are the implications, you know, what of how can we influence the world by communicating what we do properly. And and simply, I think that should be the way to go is start with an education. school. I don’t think there are any more questions. So if you have any questions, our live will be on for one more minute. So if people have more questions, they can put it in here. They will moderate it now. So we will make for a few more seconds to see if other questions. Yeah. Celine Dion. If somebody hasn’t subscribed to the channel, they can subscribe it because it will help you get the notifications instantly whenever we go live. And yeah, I guess that’s it. We don’t have any more questions so we can end the live. Now we will see in the backend live. Yes. Thank you, everyone. Thanks a lot.
