Biomedical Research: An Insider’s Guide

Seward B. Rutkove, MDProfessor of NeurologyHarvard Medical School Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center330 Brookline Avenue, TCC-810Boston, MA 02215

Foreword.- PART 1: Basic considerations.- 1. So do you really want to pursue research?.- 2. What’s in store: The brighter side of medical research.- 3. What’s in store: The darker side of medical research.- 4. One degree of separation.- 5. Choosing and working with a mentor.- 6. Identifying a research niche you can call your own.- 7. Useful Definitions.- PART 2: Research Foundations and Structures.- 8.  The Institutional Review Board: Do’s, Don’ts, and Nevers….- 9. Animal Care and Use Committees.- 10. Research beyond humans and vertebrates.- 11. Hiring Research Staff.- 12. Strategy and Tactics: Running a Successful Laboratory.- 13. Everything you ever wanted to know about collaborationPart 3: Successful Paper and Grant Writing.- 14. Writing a successful research paper. I—Up to the point of submission.- 15. Writing a successful research paper. II—Revising, resubmitting, and post-acceptance tasks.- 16. Funding: An overview.- 17. Where to apply for funding: making the right choices.- 18. Writing a winning grant application.- 19. Grant budgeting.- 20. Grant writing: Pearls and lumps of coal.- 21. Research Training, Fellowship, and Career grants.- 22. Grant review from the inside.- 23. Interpreting your reviews.- 24. To resubmit or not resubmit and how to do it.- Part 4:  Good presentations, conferencing, networking, and other useful tools.- 25. The art of good presentation.- 26. Effective conferencing.- 27. Networking in the 21st century.- 28. Conflicts of interest.- 29. Scientific conduct and misconduct: what is right and proper, what is not, and what is somewhere in the middle.- 30. Article review and reading: being efficient and as thorough as you need to be.- 31. Patents.- 32. Working with industry.- Part 5: Career choices and life lessons.- 33. Jobs in biomedicalscience: seeking, landing, and changing.- 34. Academic Promotion and Titles.- 35. On being a mentor.- 36. Yardsticks of success.- 37. Research Life Lesson #1: Everything takes longer than you think, so plan for it.- 38. Research life lesson #2: A person’s research is endlessly important to them.- 39. Research Life lesson #3: Balance, timing, cycles and seeing the big picture.- 40. Research Life Lesson #4: Your career is an ultramarathon, not a sprint.- 41. Conclusion: Nothing satisfies like meaningful work.- Acknowledgements.