Blog – When Experiments Fail: Staying Positive in Research

We all know that sinking feeling when an experiment we’ve put days, weeks, or even months of effort into doesn’t work. Whether it’s a failed staining protocol, troubleshooting western blots, or electrophysiology recording setups which refuse to cooperate, disappointment is an unavoidable part of research. In this blog, I am going to share how I have learnt to overcome that feeling, and how you can keep a positive mindset towards your work.

My take-home message from this blog is that failed experiments do not make you a bad scientist! All scientists, at any of their career, have experiments which don’t work the way they’d hoped. As researchers, our role is to discover NEW things, so it’s actually really common for experiments to fail.

As scientists, we spend a lot of time celebrating successful experiments and exciting results, but the reality is that a lot of science involves things going wrong. As an electrophysiologist, I have had to learn to adapt quickly. Whole-cell patch-clamp can sometimes feel like a huge amount of effort for very little reward. There are countless variables that can affect an experiment, and troubleshooting often becomes a significant part of the job. Yet everything that ‘goes wrong’ teaches you something. When an experiment fails, you have usually learned something about what doesn’t work, which can be just as valuable as learning what does work. Over time, I have tried not to let my experiments dictate my mood. That’s easier said than done, of course. In the moment, it’s completely normal to be annoyed when something doesn’t work. We’re human, and we care about our work and take pride in it.

The best piece of advice I have been given about failed experiments was from my lab manager during my MRes degree, he said; “A lot of people’s moods are determined by whether their experiment has gone well or not, and then they’re in that mindset for the rest of the day, even after work. Try not to let it affect you in that way”. I have really taken that advice on board, and when I can feel myself getting into that well-known ‘rut’, I pull myself out of that and remind myself of that great piece of advice.

Some major breakthroughs in medicine were discovered by accident, which at the time, could easily have been viewed as a failed experiment. For example, X-rays, which are widely used in medicine today, were discovered by accident when Wilhelm Conrad Rontagen was experimenting on a cathode ray tube and noticed a glow from a nearby screen. When he put his hand in front of the glow, he noticed that the bones of his hand were actually projected onto the screen. Another famous example which led to a Nobel prize, penicillin was discovered by accident by Sir Alexander Flemming. The fact that he had mould growing on his petri dishes could have easily been viewed as a failure.

I’m not saying every time an experiment doesn’t go to plan, that it can be a major discovery, but rather it’s all about the mindset you have towards your work moving forward.

One thing that’s helped me is maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Unless I genuinely need to work in the evenings or on weekends – for example, preparing a presentation or finishing off a report – I try to leave my work in the lab when I go home. It’s easier said than done, but having that separation can be extremely helpful, especially when your experiments haven’t gone the way you hoped. Often, after having a good evening away from the lab, I return with a much clearer head and a better approach.

Especially during the initial stages of a PhD, failed experiments really do remind us of the qualities needed to be a researcher. Not only understanding the science, but also being able to persevere and to be resilient. Research rarely progresses in a straight line. Progress comes with many setbacks, troubleshooting sessions, and repeated attempts. The ability to keep going and try again when things don’t work, and to take a step back and think about what went wrong with a clear head, is just as important as technical skill.

Know when to take a step back and re-evaluate

Another great piece of advice I have received is to; “know when to stop”. It can have a real impact on your mental state after weeks or even months of failed attempts of the same experiment. While troubleshooting is invaluable, it’s also very important to know when to stop, take a step back, and re-evaluate your approach. Taking a step back and having a re-think can be really helpful to stop yourself getting into a rut, trying to do something which is unlikely to work.

For example, I spent a few months working quite long hours trying to clone a plasmid which I designed to optimise my transient transfections. However, due to reasons I wasn’t aware of at the time, this was quite unlikely to work. Alongside this, I was working on optimising the transfections with the plasmids I already had. When I took a step back, spoke to some colleagues and re-evaluated, I realised that it would be a much more productive use of my time to continue optimising the transfections and bench the molecular cloning experiments for the time being. In hindsight, this turned out to be the right call. Now my transfections are working well, consistently every week. I may not have been at this stage if I had carried on down the molecular cloning rabbit hole.

I have found that speaking to colleagues and getting advice on your work can really help me to recognise when to try again, or when to take a step back and re-evaluate. We are a community as researchers, and it often takes more than one person to identify where to troubleshoot a protocol, or why things aren’t working as they should. Asking for help and advice doesn’t make you a bad scientist. Really, it’s the complete opposite! Good scientists know when to take other people’s ideas on board and recognise that science is a team effort.

Especially when starting a PhD, it can be very easy to compare yourself to others. Sometimes, your colleagues’ experiments going really well can coincide with a time when yours aren’t going as you’d hoped. But, the point of doing a PhD is that every thesis will be something new, and something unique. Since all PhD’s are different, it’s futile comparing yourself to anyone else, because it’s only you who is working on your project. It’s important not to compare yourself to your peers, and to be confident in your work.

The reality is that experiments will continue to fail from time to time, and that’s the same for all scientists. The key is not avoiding failure – but rather learning how to respond to it, adapt, and keep moving forward in a positive mindset. In research, success isn’t about never encountering problems. It’s about having the resilience to overcome them. Next time you’re staring at a failed experiment, remember it does not mean you are a bad scientist. Instead, see it for what it really is; a normal part of research. Research is challenging because were trying to answer questions nobody has answered before. If everything worked perfectly every time, it just wouldn’t be research. So keep a positive mindset, stay resilient, and keep going!

Beccy Owen

Author

Beccy Owen is a PhD Researcher at the University of Warwick, exploring how tau pathology disrupts neuronal ion channels and brain network activity in Alzheimer’s disease. As part of the Midlands Integrative Biosciences Training Programme, her work uses electrophysiology to better understand the molecular drivers of neurodegeneration. Originally from the Welsh countryside, Beccy’s passion for dementia research was shaped during her postgraduate studies and through personal experience with a family member living with the condition. She will be sharing her journey, insights, and lessons learned throughout her PhD here on the blog.

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