End of year rant.

I started this weblog at the beginning of this year because I got so pissed off at the wretched News & Views in Nature Methods that WH Li wrote about our NDBF-EGTA paper. It seems fitting to end with another rant.

So what does it take to be news-worthy? In Science (doi:10.1126/science.314.5806.1674 , 15 December 2006) these is a three page article by the science journalist Greg Miller on “optogenetic” control of neuronal firing that features the work of three groups prominently. It starts with an account of a Jay Leno joke on Gero Miesenbock’s latest cool piece of science that was published last year (April 2005) in Cell (Yes, JAY LENO).

The next highlight is the collaborative work of the Isacoff-Trauner-Kramer Berkeley triumvirate. This group of talents has been working on cross-linking azobenzene probes to channel proteins for a few years. Dual wavelength irradiation opens and closes the channel. Very clever. This work has had a decent amount of scientific press (but nothing so cool as a Jay Leno joke).

The third highlight (we are told) comes from Stanford. This is where the account goes off the rails in my opinion. The journalist tells us that “Karl Deisseroth and colleagues” who are “across the San Francisco Bay” from the Berkeley group, have developed the third important new approach to optogenetic control of neuronal firing (using channelrhodopsin-2, ChR2: DOI 10.1038/nn1525). This one requires no exogenous ligand, like the other two, so is potentially much better.

What is so inaccurate about this account is the folk who actually pioneered ChR-2 are not even mentioned. Now this is a 3-page article, so don’t tell there is a lack of space, as much unpublished work is also mentioned. In fact, Deisseroth collaborated with the discovers of channelrhodopsin (Nagel & Bamberg in Frankfurt) on this work. Furthermore, the latter have used the same channel to control C. elegans movement (A&B in pic above, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2005.11.032, submitted 2 days after the Deisseroth paper appeared online). A Japanese group have also done similar work (Right panel in pic above, doi:10.1016/j.neures.2005.10.009).

So I have two questions (OK, gripes). Why can’t non-American groups get more credit for their work here in the USA? I actually know Nagel & Bamberg (I have spent 5-6 weeks in Bamberg’s lab over the years). I recall Bamberg saying this was always a problem, but I always told him he was being too sensitive. Japanese friends say the same thing, but I say that I am sure they have the wrong impression. This recent hype tends to make me agree with them.

Secondly, who do you have to know, and how much money do you have to pay for a 3-page highlight of your work in one of the two most widely read journals in the world?!