Meet Dr Afif Abdel Nour, Field Application Scientist for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa at Bio Rad Laboratories
What is very important is to be true to yourself. Whenever you will be publishing, it should be for yourself, i.e. about yourself. Once that is the case, the paper will have a lot of meaning to you.
MUKUNDH: Hi folks! Today we’re in conversation with Afif Abdel Nour from Bio Rad. We are going to talk to him today about his journey in research and science. Hi Afif!
AFIF: Hi! How are you?
MUKUNDH: Good, good. Let us start with your first fascination with science and research?
AFIF: Ok, first let me thank you for this interview. My interest in science started very very early, when I was 7 years old. I was very interested in reading all kinds of nature books. I was interested in National Geographic from the start. Then it continued as normal workflow: liking biology, hating math...
MUKUNDH: Yes, we've all been there.
AFIF: Biology was always excellent for me. I always liked it and that is how my research career started.
MUKUNDH: How did this lead to the decision to embark on a PhD?
AFIF: Well, PhD was a long story in fact; I didn’t want to do a PhD. Even now, if someone asks me if they should do a PhD or not, I would say “no”. But a lot of people are doing a PhD. It is good to go deep into a subject that you like. A subject was proposed to me and I said yes, because it was nice, about nutrition, pregnant women and helping people. It was not the basic basic research where you don’t know what you are doing, like in fundamental sciences where you often don’t know where you will end up. It was applied research where I could see the specific answers. I ended up doing my PhD in France in an excellent lab with an excellent supervisor. I finished it in 3 years and had 4 publications. It was a good journey.
It is always good to accomplish something. I know the feeling that sometimes after accomplishment people can get down and a bit depressed, but I didn’t have it. I was always going forward.
MUKUNDH: So after doing the PhD, after this sort of high from a PhD that lasts for 2 to 3 years, you finally get it and what follows is the feeling of “what next”? What was your thought process at the time?
AFIF: The second day after getting the PhD, I woke up, walked to the lab and wanted to do an experiment regarding my PhD and they said that it is finished now and that we need to look for something new. I had this honor of being recruited before I was out of my PhD so I knew that I would be the assistant professor after my PhD. I was teaching, doing research and working on projects. I didn’t have a break, so after two or three months, I was washed up. I needed a break and needed to rest a bit. It is always good to accomplish something. I know the feeling that sometimes after accomplishment people can get down and a bit depressed, but I didn’t have it. I was always going forward. I am lucky.
MUKUNDH: How did this lead to your current role in Bio Rad?
AFIF: I’ve always been into academics. Friend of mine proposed the job to me, just to check in fact. It was in industry. So I worked for 8 months for a small company Primerdesign. Then I went back to academy and didn’t feel good. I was in contact with Bio Rad and we were doing some business, e.g. an iPhone application and similar things, so once they proposed a new position to me, I said “Yes. The Field Application Scientist for Middle East, Africa and Turkey would be excellent”. I ended up working for one year as a Field Application Scientist.
The Middle East is an emerging market. The market is very tricky there because you have lots of funding to do research and they have started to experience the push towards publishing.
MUKUNDH: Can you tell us a little bit about the Middle East and the energy of research there right now?
AFIF: The Middle East is an emerging market. The market is very tricky there because you have lots of funding to do research and they have started to experience the push towards publishing. So it is not only about buying an instrument and showing off that you have the newest instruments in the world, it is about working with this instrument. I am lucky because I am at a Company that thrives with that. If it’s an instrument, it should work and generate data. So what is happening now in the Middle East is that there is a lot of publishing and there’s some excellent work, but there is still some research that is wasted, some funding is wasted. If you just read the latest paper of Stephen Bustin, you see that up to 85% of funding is lost in the field of science. So it is a global issue, and they are pushing forward to have good quality papers.
MUKUNDH: It is interesting to also bring up Prof. Stephen Bustin and the idea of digital publishing. How did this idea come up?
AFIF: Four years ago the MIQE Guidelines were published. I discussed this with Michael Pfaffl, saying that it is an excellent paper and concerning these guidelines: how can I follow them? How can I follow it interactively? So that is how we developed the MIQE Application. So if you are reviewing your paper you can use it. If you are an author you can use the app. If you are a student, you can use the app for your experiments. We have had around 10,000 downloads, which is more than certain applications on the Android or iOS market. It is a powerful tool and people like it because everyone has an iPad or similar product and can use it.
Publishing has existed in science for centuries and everyone will keep on publishing. This is the only way to keep on going. Digitalization and the internet have added a lot to publishing, but what they have mainly added is availability. Papers are and will be available so everyone can find what they need.
MUKUNDH: One thing that I would also like to explore is instead of the top-down publishing approach that is usually conventional in science, do you think that digital publishing can bring more community based and user based feedback?
AFIF: Publishing has existed in science for centuries and everyone will keep on publishing. This is the only way to keep on going. Digitalization and the internet have added a lot to publishing, but what they have mainly added is availability. Papers are and will be available so everyone can find what they need. We are in the 21st century. In the 19th century people used to have one symposium and were travelling for days to arrive at a symposium. At the event people used to share the work they have been working on for the past couple of years. Now you can share whenever you want. Often with just one click you can share your idea. So yes, the digital age is excellent. A good part of the digital age is also the digital books which are interactive and are not finalized like the paper books that cannot be easily changed after they are done. You can still read them and receive a lot of information from them but the editing stops the day you publish. The excellent part of digital publishing is that whenever you want to add the new thing, you just do it. You can copy-paste your updates practically. Whenever you have a new video you want to add, or a quiz you want to add to the content, a new photo, an image etc., everything can be easily added. This is a big advantage. We started with the MIQE qPCR & Droplet Digital PCR e-Book many companies were involved in its creation.
The digital age is excellent.
MUKUNDH: Before we let you go Afif, do you have any pearls of wisdom for our listeners, for PhD students, post-docs struggling in the lab, early career scientists, etc.?
AFIF: Don’t do a PhD. (laughs)
MUKUNDH: (laughs)
AFIF: No, what is very important is to be true to yourself. Whenever you will be publishing it should be for yourself, i.e. about yourself. Once that is the case, the paper will have a lot of meaning to you. We all perform a lot of experiments that are eventually not published and that is normal. So whenever your paper is rejected, it is not the end of the world. Grab whatever opportunity you can: re-write if needed to become better and so on. It is an excellent journey but often a very difficult one. And in most cases don’t expect your relatives to understand what you are doing!
It is an excellent journey but often a very difficult one. And in most cases don’t expect your relatives to understand what you are doing!
MUKUNDH: (laughs) Ok Afif, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and ideas.
AFIF: Thank you!
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