江上語録6

Trends in Glycoscience and Glycotechnology Vol.15 No.83 (May 2003) pp.165-174GLYCOESSAY

EGAMI GOROKU (Egami's Sayings). 6 "Do not Chase after Unique Work ."

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Kasai, Ken-ichi Department of Biological Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Teikyo University

Sagamiko, Kanagawa,199-0195, Japan FAX: 81-426-85-3742, E-mail: [email protected]

"Do not Chase after Unique Work." Professor Egami never pressured his disciples into pro-ducing experimental results without mentioning his real feel-ing, though almost all laboratory bosses used to be continuously frustrated by the slow progress in the research project with which their disciples were struggling. However, once one of them suc-ceeded in obtaining some results, he dramatically changed as if he had turned into a different person, and pressured them greatly every day to write and submit a report. Readers might think, on the basis of today's circum-stances, that he threatened his disciples so as not to destroy their career or not to lose the chance to get funds. However, it was not the case. The reason was completely different. The number of published papers was his least concern.

"When you get new experimental results, you have to

publish them immediately, no matter whether it is a major dis-covery or not. Even though it seems commonplace, never fail to publish it".

"When some new scientific fact is discovered, it is the

duty of finder to make such knowledge available for all other researchers. It helps at least to avoid useless repetition of the same experiment. More important is that it will give other re-searchers the chance to examine your results from a different viewpoint and to make an unexpected significant finding, even though you don't estimate it highly. If you don't publish your results, nobody will have the chance to know them. Since no-body knows at any moment whether your result may turn out to be valuable information for other people or not, you cannot ignore it".

"Many people look down on experiments which seem to

give commonplace results, and regard them as "cow-horse" ex-periments or "copper-iron" experiments. It is totally unfair. Before you finish your final experiment, you can never predict that the results obtained with a horse will be really the same as those which were already obtained with a cow. You may of course get almost the same result. On the other hand, you can make great scientific progress by getting an unexpected new finding. You should be free from preconceived ideas and carry

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Trends in Glycoscience and Glycotechnology Vol.15 No.83 (May 2003) pp.165-174

out experiments with a fully flexible mind. It is a big mistake if

you fail to publish your results because you consider them to be a simple enumeration and of no value."

As a consequence, whenever the work of his disciples was finished, he became fanatical about making them prepare a manuscript. I was also forced to face his direct attack when my

project during the two years of the master course was over in March. There are various types of researchers. Distinct differ-ence lies between those who have no difficulty in writing re-

ports easily and those who hardly do it at all. I regret that I be-long to the latter, and always envy people who can produce many

papers without difficulty; for example, one of my seniors Dr. Kenji Takahashi. Since he seemed to dedicate all his life to do-ing experiments as if he was an embodiment of experiments, everybody wondered when he had time to go to bed. However, occasionally, he disappeared and was away from the lab as long as one week or so. When we were puzzled by his absence, he appeared again after a week with a completed manuscript. Prof. Egami would have been free from trouble if all of his disciples had behaved like him. On the other hand, there are a fairly large number of troublesome researchers who are poor at preparing manuscripts, although they don't mind doing experiments all day long. I belonged to this category. Prof. Egami had already learned from his bitter experience that such a pupil unworthy of his teacher would never finish a manuscript. Therefore, he became more and more hasty though he had been hasty enough. It was too difficult for me to escape from him.

However, he never gave us any direct order, such as, "do this experiment", "take your research in this direction", "bring me the results I demanded no later than this date" or "finish the manuscript no later than this date". Forcing people to do un-willing work was completely opposite to his philosophy.

Nevertheless, it was quite unlikely that such a poor pupil could finish his manuscript without any pressure. Moreover, I was supposed to move to Paris as a scholarship student of the French government after six months, that is, on November of the same year. If he was unable to make me finish the manu-script before I escaped from him and left for Paris, completely out of his reach, the manuscript would never be completed. Therefore, he began to put me under continuous pressure in his unique manner. Every day, he came to my bench at least twice and repeated exactly the same question about the degree of

progress with the manuscript. Ordinary people can hardly re-peat exactly the same question tens of times a day. However, Prof. Egami never heeded such a stereotyped behavior. It was almost impossible for me to hold out against such repeated in-

quiries that would last forever. As I already wrote before, my work of the master course

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was reversible denaturation of RNase T1. It was the consequence of a shameful deviation from the original highly motivated

project proposed by Prof. Egami. My work resulted in mimicing the work done by Anfinsen's group because of the change of the object from bovine RNase to Aspergillus RNase T1. It was a typical bovine-equine experiment. Though I got some different results which reflected the difference in the nature of both pro-teins, it did not seem worth publishing in a hurry. I had already started another small project which was supposed to be finished before my departure for Paris. Since manual labor was much more lax than mental labor, it was inevitable for me to escape occasionally from writing the manuscript.

It was the first time I had the experience of not only do-ing research but also preparing a scientific paper. I did not have anyone to give me the necessary advice on how to write a scien-tific paper. Much more difficult was that the manuscript had to be written in English instead of Japanese. Since my training in English writing had ended at high school, that is, six years be-fore, I had already forgotten almost everything. Therefore, ev-erything was virtually a new experience for me and too difficult to do. Every day, I faced the difficulty and countless balls of

paper with only a few sentences were crumpled and thrown into the waste-papes basket. Today, plenty of instruction manuals on writing scien-tific papers are availabe, and if you buy some of them, you can easily learn all you need to know on how to prepare a scientific

paper and how to write proper English. At that time, nothing like that was available. Today, even a beginner would be able to

prepare an English scientific paper without great difficulty thanks to the aid of these manuals. How lucky you all are! I envy today's young scientists (but I wonder if is it truly happy to be able to avoid these difficulties where one has to struggle by trial and error).

Whenever I tried to sit down in front of the desk to pre-

pare the manuscript, I failed to continue with the effort. I used to escape from the desk and go back to the lab where I felt much more comfortable, because I could forget the manuscript for a while if I did experiments.

However, such a calm period never lasted long. The sound of foot steps came from the direction of Prof. Egami's office. Oh, God! He is coming. It's too late to escape from him. I wish he would pass by this room. Oh, no! He has entered this room and is now just behind me. I could not help pretending to be very busy, handling pipettes and test tubes.

No matter how complete my disregard was, he never hesitated to pose the question which was always the same.

"Have you finished the manuscript ?"

Since I had made little progress, I could only reply using the minimum words and an attitude as indifferent as possible.

"Ah, uhuu, almost nothing."

He did not demand any further explanation, but only said,

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"Ah, I see". And he went out the room to find another

victim. It was a great relief to be released even temporarily.

However, it was Prof. Egami who never gave up. If the first attack was made in the morning, only 3 to 4 hours later in the same afternoon, he certainly came again, and there would be an almost identical scene.

"Have you finished the manuscript ?"

My teacher! I told you this morning that the status of the manuscript was far from completion. Only three hours have

passed since then. Nobody can finish a scientific paper in such a short period. Why can't you remember what I told you in this morning ? I wished I could have said these words, but I had to keep patient, and only mumbled.

"Ah, uhuu, almost nothing."

Then, he went out of the room saying, "I see." You are too naive if you believe that the danger has passed

away. In the same evening, before he left the lab for home, he would come again as if he had learned nothing from his experi-ence. Of course, nothing new had happened. There was the same conversation composed of only three short phrases. My teacher ! Why don't you remember what I have told only three hours ago ? It's unbelievable, because you should have an excellent memory, one hundred-fold bigger than mine.

Thanks to his ceaseless effort, a slow person like me could finish preparing a manuscript-like something after three months. It was a truly rough draft of a draft, and far from completed scientific article. After a thorough and penetrating check done by Prof. Egami, it might be just about ready for submission. I was convinced that it was far from the standard scientific ar-ticle. I handed it timidly to Prof. Egami asking his kind inspec-tion.

We used to hear that a manuscript written by an inexpe-rienced student would be subjected to complete rewriting by the teacher and no trace of the original would be left, because his nerve would crack due to too poor composition and English of his pupil. I was of course prepared for such severe criticism, but I did not feel so calm and was afraid how severe would be his estimation of my manuscript and how many parts I would have to revise. I anticipated about ten days before my manuscript would be returned to me.

However, to my surprise, he appeared next day taking my manuscript in hand, and said.

"Not so bad. But, you made some mistakes in spelling. Here and here. Submit this manuscript after you correct them." That was all the advice he gave me. Isn't it too fast even if he can read extremely fast ? Did he really check my manu-script? There is only trace of corrections. Is it ready for sub-mission to a scientific journal ?

However, I could not help submitting it because it was

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his order. In consequence, a totally immature manuscript writ-ten by a greenhorn was submitted to the Journal of Biochemis-try, published by the Japanese Biochemical Society. It was just before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics and also my sched-uled date of departure for Paris. Since the most troublesome burden had gone away, I got on the plane leaving for Paris full of cheer. There was nothing left to worry about !

It was my first experience of living in a European cul-ture. Every experience in Paris was fresh. New days of research started in the Institute of Physicochemical Biology located close to the Quartier Latin, the very center of European culture. I en-

joyed every day strolling the various streets and small alleys, such as Boulevard Saint Michel and rue Mouftard, through which I used to walk to get to a student canteen for both lunch and dinner. Food served by the canteen were not always so tasty, but French bread was always excellent. Almost every day, I used to return to the lab even after dinner, continue experiments, and rush to the Metro station to catch the last train and come back to the student dormitory, Maison du Japon (Japan House), located in Cite Universitaire (City of University), only to sleep. I en-

joyed everyday life because there was plenty of opportunities to enjoy opera, music, theater and museums. I completely forgot the manuscript which I had submitted.

However, about two months after I had started life in Paris, a thick package was forwarded to me from Egami's lab. I hesitantly opened it, and found a dreadful thing! It was the manuscript that I had erased from my memory. A letter from the editorial office of Journal of Biochemistry was also enclosed.

"Your manuscript was judged acceptable concerning its

content. However, since your English is too poor for publish-ing, we asked a native speaker to check and correct it as the first draft. Since this process is really a draft, the charge will be paid by our editorial office. We ask you, therefore, to retype the whole manuscript according to the corrections marked in your original manuscript, and return it as soon as possible." How shameful! I of course know my English is terrible. But, could they not have been less direct? My teacher ! You were not so kind. If you had checked my manuscript more care-fully, I might have been treated a little more kindly.

In spite of this feeling, I had to sincerely thank the kind-ness of the editorial office because my terrible English had been improved without paying any charge. I borrowed a typewriter from the office of the institute and retyped the whole manu-script and returned it. This is the story how my first modest scientific paper was made publishable and appeared in J. B iochem. The editorial office of J. Biochem. seemed to conclude

that such a process was effective in improving the quality of English written by Japanese authors. They established a proce-

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dure in which every accepted manuscript was published after checking and correction of English by native speakers who were appointed by the society (though, apart from my special case, authors were expected to pay for this themselves) .

I think almost all scientific journals currently published in Japan now adopt a similar procedure. Alternatively, the edi-torial office will demand authors to submit manuscripts after revision by native English speakers. Today, there are many in-dividuals and organizations which do such a job for poor En-

glish writers, and every Japanese scientist can take advantage of them for publishing English papers of not so shameful qual-ity. (We receive advertisements from time to time. I envy En-

glish-speaking people, because they can do good business us-ing their own language.)

In the days when I wrote English reports for the first time, only a small number of people who happened to be friends of native English speakers could ask them to correct the En-

glish. I think it took at least one month before the manuscript was returned because all correspondence was carried out by mail. It was completely beyond the reach of most young scientists. Today, all processes have become extremely easy. You have no hesitation in asking such a task because it is completely on a business base. It will take only a few days to receive a checked manuscript by the use of Fax or e-mail. What a convenient system we enjoy today! But I hope that you remember occasionally there was a

poor victim like me who had been subjected to the experiment in order to judge the efficacity of the system you are now enjoy-ing.

You may wonder how the quality of English of reports

published in J. Biochem. had been sustained before such a cor-rection system was introduced. It is surprising that no system-atic procedure existed and it was completely left up to a per-sonal effort. Greenhorns had to try to improve their poor En-

glish asking for advice from as many as possible of their friends, seniors, and teachers. However, since only a few people could ask for advice from native speakers, a considerable portion of submitted manuscripts would have been written in terrible En-

glish, even though they were acceptable from the viewpoint of scientific quality. Since there was no established system for im-

provement of English, it was the task of the Editor-in-chief of J. Biochem. to take on this a burden. What a hard job! I cannot help thanking you very much for your trouble. However, such an effort was not always appreciated by authors because they would not always accept the advice given by a non-native speaker. One day, one of my seniors, Dr. Sadako Inoue was in a bad mood, because her manuscript on a newly discovered sul-fated glycan from triton (it was named horatine sulfate) had been

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corrected by the editor-in-chief of J. Biochem. "It is really of-fensive". She complained. "My sentences were changed with-out my approval". If my English had been corrected, I would have been very grateful for that kindness. However, Dr. Inoue had enough confidence in her English because she had lived for two years in Australia.

Though the English was terrible, my manuscript was fi-nally published without receiving any criticism of it scientific content. However, at that time, manuscripts submitted to J. Biochem. were often rejected because referees judged them not unique, even though they reported some original observation not yet published elsewhere, and there was no problem con-cerning experimental procedure, obtained data and conclusion. The reason why such draconian decisions tended to be made was that the instruction for authors of J. Biochem, declared only "unique" reports should be accepted (since the words "original"

and "unique" are often translated by the same Japanese word "dokusouteki"

, some referees took the words "original report" as "report of unique work"). Prof. Egami detested this term men-tioned in the instruction for authors and repeatedly accused them of being unreasonable.

"To demand unique work is absolutely wrong. If a sci-entific journal does not accept manuscripts unless they are unique, almost no papers will be publishable in J. Biochem. The

purpose of a scientific journal is to publish "original findings" which means a finding not yet published anywhere".

"It was a consequence of bad translation when the edito-

rial board made the instruction for authors by referring to those found in foreign journals such as J. Biol. Chem. They thought the English term "original work" was equivalent to the Japa-nese term 'dokusouteki' which means unique work. If you con-sult an English-Japanese dictionary, you can find such a term as one of the possible Japanese equivalent. However, the condi-tion for acceptance indicated in most foreign journals by the term 'original work' does not mean such a strict requirement. It was a mistake made by swallowing a description found in En-

glish-Japanese dictionaries. They demand too high a standard in comparison with the world standard. Such a term should be eliminated".

"Every new scientific finding deserves to be published, and it is the duty of the finder to publish even if it does not seem to be unique. Nobody knows when it might benefit other scien-tists. Whenever you find something new, you have to record it carefully, and make it available for all scientists. If a journal rejects a report on such a finding because of the lack of unique-ness, it cannot contribute to the progress of science". The policy adopted by J. Biochem. that only unique re-

ports should be accepted was the outcome of the editorial board who wished to raise the status of J. Biochem. as high as pos-sible. It was the days when people were struggling to escape

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from the lowest depths after World War , and the Japanese

economy had at last began to turn up. Many Japanese scientists were also enthusiastic to reach the level of Europe and America as soon as possible. In consequence, some of them demanded a too high standard for submitted papers, because they were too impatient and too nervous of being regarded as imitators of the work done by foreign scientists. It seems to be the consequence of the repeated protests made by Prof. Egami that the demand for "unique work" for acceptance in the instruction for authors of J. Biochem, disappeared without notice. In its place, we found a Japanese term meaning "unpublished work".

Prof. Egami detested the words 'unique work' from the beginning. The term 'unique' mentioned in the instruction of J. Biochem. was not his only enemy.

"Do not chase after unique work !"

This is one of the most famous phrases of Egami's sayings. At the beginning of 1960s, when we started our careers as researchers, people everywhere shouted the slogan, "we have to achieve a unique work !". More than ten years have passed since the war. It is no longer the postwar era. The worries about food have gone away. Economic state is now going up. Japan should no longer stay as an under-developed country. We have to do our best to become one of the members of the developed countries, and equal to them. Inferiority to European countries must go as soon as possible. To reach such a high situation, Japanese scientists should produce a lot of unique work that is not an imitation of European scientists. This slogan was surely understandable. However, Prof. Egami always opposed this tide, and would not cease to object.

"No matter how loud you shout that we should achieve

unique work, and no matter how hastily you do experiments,

you cannot achieve unique work. Don't be dazzled by the term unique. You will be more and more separated from the truly unique work."

"If you are a genius, you will be able to accomplish unique

work without any special effort and without shouting any slo-

gan. The great insight you have been endowed with will make it possible to notice the most important object. However, ordinary researchers like me cannot achieve unique work no matter how eagerly and hastily we run after it. Instead, I recommend that

you love your own project and do experiments keeping your own pace even if people criticize you for not being unique. If

you keep pursuing your own project carefully, some unexpected finding may occur to you, and you will finally receive good evaluation of being unique.

How do you feel when you hear this advice ? You might wish to say such advice is harmful to young ambitious scien-tists, because there seems to be no challenging spirit. There is only an undesirable stance of retreat from the front and passive waiting for something favorable to happen. It does not have any

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positive attitude of throwing oneself into the most advanced field. If all Japanese scientists were satisfied with such an environ-ment, the scientific level of Japan would never become compa-rable to the rest of the world.

Nevertheless, none of you who have learned enough about Egami's saying will be caught by such a booby-trap set by Prof. Egami. You must know his technique fully. You should easily

perceive his intention hidden in such a paradoxical expression. You would be too naive if you had taken the phrase, "do not chase after unique work", as a recommendation to escape from unique work. "Do your best to accomplish truly unique work !" This is what he wished to mean. This was his real intention.

You will never achieve such a goal, if you do as others do. The slogan, "we have to achieve unique work", is already a mimicry of what almost all people say every day. It is only to follow fashion, and no unique view is involved. It is harmful for

you to be too much influenced by such a slogan because you might be entrapped by complexity and too eager, so that you lose your own perspective. A person who has achieved a truly unique work will never advertise his uniqueness. Don't be anx-ious about whether your work is unique or not. Be confident with your own work, nurse it, grow it by keeping your own pace. This is the most efficient way to achieve unique work. This is what Prof. Egami wished to mean.

"Don't chase after unique work". This phrase has be-come a thick callus in my ears because it was showered on me thousands of times. Escaping from it is impossible for a poor apprentice of Prof. Egami like me. However, it is too difficult to achieve unique work without running after unique work. How can a commonplace researcher like me fulfill such a hard task, which Prof. Egami could have done without any difficulty ? He was gifted to be unique and did not need to make any effort to be unique. On the contrary, I am completely opposite. Prof. Egami was like a personification of uniqueness. He seemed to require no effort to become unique, and free from the complex to be commonplace. He always presented a variety of astonishing ideas without any art, which were ten-times higher than those which ordinary people could propose. Therefore, only a slight extension of his idea became extremely unique. A variety of extraodinary unique ideas, almost impossible to imagine how they could be generated, sprung out from his brain by extension of his routine way of thinking.

It was unnecessary for him to chase after uniqueness. His brain was always full of a variety of unique (rather close to absurd) ideas, and he could not stop them from flooding out. He always looked for a victim who might provide some experi-mental evidence which could support his extraodinary idea. "An excellent idea has just occurred to me. Is there any volunteer who would like to verify it ? I am sure something wonderful will be found". Oh no! My teacher. I will inevitably come

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face to face with ruin if I challenge such a dangerous experi-ment. How many times was I forced to bury my head in the sand in order to let him go past?

I, of course, wish eagerly to achieve unique work. But, I am not a person comparable with Prof. Egami, who always sprung extraodinary ideas without any effort. I can never have confidence in my ability to achieve unique work being uncon-scious of pursuing uniqueness. I always become aware that I have been wondering whether my idea was unique or not.

No baseball player in Japan has been able to imitate the skill of Mr. Nagashima, who was one of the greatest sluggers in the history of Japanese baseball. He did not become such a great slugger after continuous hard practice, because he was a man of

genius from birth (too obvious!). No matter how carefully or-dinary baseball players watched Mr. Nagashima, they could not steal his skill, because, when a ball is approaching, his body always spontaneously took the best movement to let the bat hit the ball. It was almost the same as the mental acrobatics of Prof. Egami.

My teacher ! The wall is too high for your pupil unwor-thy of his teacher to ever climb over. It is absolutely impossible for me to do as you have done. Could you please forgive me for conducting my research with a slight consciousness of being unique?

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江上語録6

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