======= Date Modified 13 Jul 2011 11:13:45 =======
======= Date Modified 13 Jul 2011 11:12:56 =======
Thanks for the replies. I'll continue to try and get some data (any data) to justify the thesis submission. I've spoken with the University student services but they don't really want to get involved. It's all damage limitation as far as they're concerned, especially with the current press attention around student fees. I am seeking legal advice at the moment but as a student I exist in a kind of limbo state from any kind of employment law or rights. My supervisor already has a string of existing cases against them however, so I will add mine to the pile. In terms of publications it is indeed damaging to the university and the faculty, but as this person is now heading the faculty they answer to nobody, and we were told in a lab meeting last year "I have my career already. You need me more than I need you" so there's not much room for negotiation.

I guess it's been an experience whatever the outcome, and I hope to at least have transferrable skills I can use to ensure I never put myself in this position again. I hope somebody somewhere can one day clean up the mess that academia is getting into, and prevent the unnecessary stress and career damage that Ph.D training can bring.

Thanks for your reply. I was hoping that I could somehow demonstrate a good scientific rationale in the way I had gone about attempting what I had done, even though the underlying approach was flawed. Some people have told me that data is not important, it's the justification of the research time, but others have told me it's just down to what you achieved.

My supervisor has recently jumped ship to another University after a new dean level administrator was about to investigate the progress of the faculty and they were about to be called into question. I was forced to move to continue my PhD, where unfortunately this person now answers to nobody. This has also happened to my colleagues where their PI's flip faculties and schools to avoid reprimand.

I will continue for the next few months and attempt to gather any data I can, and then face whatever comes.

Hi,

I am a UK Ph.D student in the final 4 months of my funding. My Ph.D has been a bit of a disaster. I have built a genetic circuit in yeast that had fundamental design flaws (homologous recombination, untested component parts, multiple interacting promoters and repressors with no characterization) that my supervisor would not change despite protest from myself and numerous post docs. I managed to get this built, but the assays are also flawed (antibodies don't work for western blot (or exist), banned from using qPCR because it's "not reliable", banned from high throughput assays with gfp because of inter-department feud) and some initial luciferase expression data looks like the whole circuit isn't working anyway. The project also contains a modelling component that has struggled to progress due to my biological background and no access to computer science expertise or training. I also presented models of my system which I was told to stop working on due to lack of scientific value, which later got published in Cell and PNAS by other groups. My supervisor also actively blocks any of his staff from publishing any of their work too, so publication strategy has been non-existent (no publications from anybody for over 5 years).

So I have plenty of theoretical understanding of my field and lots to write about in terms of how the project should have been done, but as I stand now I have no results.

Is it possible to write a thesis based on how the study should have gone and justify any of this with being forced into the direction it went? Will I be examined purely on the results I have generated and publications I have produced?

thanks for any assistance.

Hi, I am having some real problems with my Ph.D project. It's biological sciences based and I have made little progress due to technical problems constructing plasmids in the lab. I started my final year in October and my lab moved to another University so I lost a fair chunk of time being involved in the logistics of the move but I am still having technical problems. I work on my own as my supervisor is not really around the lab and there is no post doc support. I have no data so far for my project but I could potentially generate it reasonably quickly if I got the cloning to work.

Basically, I'd like some advise on time scale of how long I realistically have left in the lab. I have to submit in September (the university rejected my application to claim the move time back as an extension). I have my literature review and methods sections done, and I've written it in LaTeX so I can compile bibliographies and do formatting on the fly. I am struggling a bit with what I feel is stress at the moment (as with all Ph.D students), but I'm working about 13 hours a day in the lab at the moment so I'm not not doing the work, and I'm committed to getting through it. However, I'm just not sure how much time I can realistically keep ploughing away in the lab before I should really look for a job and consider not submitting. The move has left me isolated somewhat in the new university and I don't have any kind of progress examiner or advisor.

How far down to the wire can you go with this kind of thing?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.