Read any Good Papers Lately?

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't look up once in a while you'll miss it." This worn standard of high school yearbooks holds as true for scientists as for the hero of the 1980s movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The glut of journals and papers can turn a small lapse of attention into a permanent state of catch-up for researchers who try to stay abreast of the latest findings in their fields. "Reading tends to fall by the wayside when people get consumed by their own work," says Kathy Lee, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University. To scale these mountains of information, scientists still meet in journal clubs to discuss hot papers in their fields. But these clubs are generally viewed in the same light as a trip to the dentist: No one doubts the inherent benefits, but many still don't want to bother. For some principal investigators (PIs), the unpleasant aftertastes of the journal clubs they had to attend at university still linger. "They were required when I was in graduate school," says Joe Dillard, assistant professor of medical microbiology and immunology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "I would hope I would have gone anyway, but I can't say that for sure." Some clubs are set up merely to satisfy training grants, which often require scientists financed by the grants to work jointly on projects, according to Samuel Green, associate professor at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Taking an hour each week to discuss the latest in new literature often seems the easiest solution to the training stipulation. Most schools do not mandate journal clubs but strongly encourage them. The journal club for molecular biology and genetics at Cornell assigns each member of the group a set of journals to scrutinize. "There's so much out there it's good to have some kind of summary of the material," says Lee Kraus, professor of molecular biology and genetics. Other professors use the clubs to help their students sharpen thinking skills. Green says graduate also lack training in critically reading literature. The University of Virginia now requires first- and second-year cell biology grad students to take his course, "Current Topics in Cell Biology," which is essentially a for-credit journal club. But even the most fastidious journal scholars overlook significant articles, and many clubs have shifted their focus. "What the students really get out of this is the ability to analyze current research," Dillard says, adding that scholars also get presentation experience. Any member can become the club star for a day, which allows each to dip into public speaking in a nonthreatening way. "You're not presenting your own work, so you're not going to be criticized in a personal sense for flaws in the logic," says Tom Blackwell, research associate in the department of human genetics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. With as much time on their hands as has a mother of newborn octuplets, postdocs and PIs may snub the clubs. "Some of the faculty are not supportive because this pulls them away from the bench," Green says, "But our graduate committee thought this was important enough to require it." Club participation may drop off as semesters wane, but many club members show up at the same time, same place every week anyway. Says Lee: "Journal clubs are an interruption, but a good one." Hal Cohen can be contacted at hcohen@the-scientist.com.

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