Why do I do science?

For the über-Nerds only...

As I mentioned in an earlier post I have ‘skin in the game’ when it comes to my stated goals of "understanding psychoactive drug actions” and, hopefully, to use this information to “create safer and more effective neuropsychiatric medications”. Certainly, those goals of attaining insight (read ‘wisdom’) and being of service to others by relieving suffering (read ‘compassion’) sound remarkably similar to the ultimate goals of Zen which are to ‘return to the marketplace with bliss-fulfilling hands’

As decades of science (and Zen practice with three distinct and remarkably patient Zen teachers) have passed, I have actually been a bit successful in my goals: a drug I co-invented heads to registration trials for seizures and many technologies invented are used by 1000’s of labs world-wide (Chemogenetics; Trupath; Presto-Tango; etc). As a bonus, all of these are shared via ADDGENE!

Sounds wonderful…right?

‘Wow what a humanitarian…and a scientist to boot!’

Here’s the dirty little secret, however.

I do science because it is fun!

As anyone who has ever spent time in my lab will tell you:

Bryan loves data—any time (even 3 AM)!

I have found that I love to discover things—especially things that no one has ever dreamed about. I also love to invent technologies for my own personal enjoyment which (I hope) will help me discover something new!

I have also found that drug discovery is hard: even if you cross the ‘Valley of Death’ and your compound actually makes it into a human you still have a 90% chance of failure!

But…the biggest thing I found is: “Expect the unexepected” (those damn Black Swan events) as my Zen teachers tell me….

BMB-101, our drug we invented ‘to cure epilepsy’, was actually created as part of a project to create new drugs for schizophrenia and depression! The anti-seizure activity (which was entirely predictable from the 5-HT2C KO mouse data) was re-discovered by accident using a model organism screen. Frankly, I’ve been skeptical about this, but given the positive results thus far am cautiously optimistic.

FULL DISCLOSURE: UNC and UIC own equity in DRUG 0.00%↑ and, in theory, I could be rewarded financially if the BMB-101 is ever approved for use and actually makes $$. To date, I believe I have made ~ $7,000.00

At the end of the day, however, when pressed I would have to admit that all (or nearly all) of the work we did on 5-HT2C agonists was to provide funding on the margins for crazy schemes in my lab we knew no one would ever fund.

And, that, dear reader is how my lab survives—we do science for the pure joy of science.

Now, after 2 Rohatsu sesshin in one month, I head back to grant writing hell!