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To reveal it all, or not; that is the question

  

Once again it’s time to get ready for ARVO. I have been attending ARVO for many years, and have enjoyed it in many ways. The usual planning involves 1) deciding several months in advance whether you have substantial and hopefully exciting data to report, 2) writing an abstract (and hoping that it will catch everyone’s eye), 3) deciding between poster and paper presentation, 4) advanced registration to save some money, 5) checking out shuttle routes/schedules and booking hotel, 6) reading ARVO emails on a regular basis to see what to expect this year, 7) arranging travel funds, 8) preparing the poster or slides, and 9) building an itinerary. In my case (like many others), I have to worry also about international travel, visa and health insurance etc. Needless to say ARVO has been helpful at every step of the way in achieving all these objectives and in finding answers to any question that I may have had.

There is one thing, however, that I have been confused about. And this is not specific to ARVO. I have wondered, more so in the last few years since the first sets of data started coming out of my own lab, about how much data to include in the abstract or present during the meeting. ARVO (among others) requires, for a good reason, that the data you submit is unpublished and remains so till the meeting is over. Following this policy obviously carries the risk of getting scooped. Of course, one can get scooped even without presenting any data in any meeting, but in that case at least the release of an abstract is not the reason. This may be less of a problem for bigger labs with multiple big projects running, but for the junior or even mid-level researchers, losing out on novel ideas can be detrimental to their careers. It’s not that anyone goes to a meeting with the idea of “stealing” ideas, but if you see a solution to the problem that you have been facing, would you just close your eyes? Or, if you find someone doing the same kind of work as you, would you simply stop working on it? The same conundrum applies to reviewing a manuscript. There, at least mechanisms exist, such as “conflict of interest” and “excluding specific reviewers”, although I don’t know if they always work. One could argue that such situations would lead to healthy competition and advancement of science, and in many cases they probably do, but the possibility of “unhealthy” competition is not ruled out.

We can talk about ideals, standards, morals and ethics, but let’s face it – getting them to function flawlessly may need to wait for better policies and maybe even for human evolution. Right now we need an understanding and resolution to the problem at hand. Should you, or should you not, reveal all the relevant data when it is yet to be published. One wants to share all the data with peers, but may not want to risk the full ownership of the work. You don’t want others to take your ideas and publish before you do, but you also come to the meeting with the expectation that you will gain from others’ ideas/comments about your work. The concern is even more acute for someone like me, who comes from a developing country where implementing new ideas can be slow, for a variety of reasons. I have heard people talking about sending an abstract to a meeting ONLY when the manuscript is ready to be submitted. Is this the best we can come up with? What about the data that is exciting but has not become a full story? Should you present a new method or a new transgenic animal you invented but have not yet utilized? What if you had wonderful beginning in a project, but you are not able to take it to the end point? Is it alright if others can take ideas from your work and take it to conclusion – after all this will help science and the society?

I wonder what other ARVO attendees think about these issues!

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