Fibrosis & discussion writing

The Cell and Molecular Biology module (MEDC0107) has given me a detailed background in cell signalling, organisation, replication and more: understanding of these and many other cell processes is key, especially when considering a biomedical research pathway. Actually, also the assessment of the module was linked to the practical aspects of this career: we were provided with the introduction, methods, results and figures of an unpublished article on pulmonary fibrosis research; our task was to write the missing parts… title, abstract and discussion!
The study investigated the role of transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) in fibroblast-to-myofibrolast differentiation and collagen synthesis, and the downstream intracellular mediator SMAD3.

Although I had become familiar with the structure of a research article after reading many publications for other pieces of coursework, this was the first time I had to write an abstract and a discussion myself. Also, the word limit was very strict (with no 10% leeway) so as to imitate the real-life situation wherein journals set tight word counts which cannot be trespassed.

Personally I found writing the abstract relatively straightforward, as all the information was “already there”. My task required understanding the experiments and identifying what was worth highlighting. Rather than simply reporting the results, I also thought it was important to provide the reader with a concise interpretation, showing the value of each experimental finding and the overall contribution of the present research to the field.

For the discussion, selecting the articles to cite was difficult. I aimed to compare my research with previous publications; however, finding other articles with a similar research objective or experimental set up was not easy.
Now, thinking back at my approach, I realise that I should have been more systematic when searching and reading other publications. A valuable skill for the future may be learning how to use other research motors than PubMed or Google Scholar, such as Scopus or Web of Science.

Another tricky part was highlighting both the strengths and the weaknesses of the study. Indeed, I found and “unwillingly” pointed out a significant limitation to one of the findings. This fact has actually led me to reflect on the chief importance of honesty, critical thinking and clarity in every aspect of scientific research.

I kept the title for last because I wanted to make sure to focus on the most important message of the paper. I wrote a few options before choosing the most clear and informative one:

Transforming Growth Factor-β1 drives collagen synthesis independent of canonical Smad3 signalling in human lung fibroblasts

As well as improving my scientific writing skills, this piece of coursework has allowed me to look into the principal signalling pathways involved in the fibrotic process. This was particularly interesting as I have appreciated the importance of fibrosis across multiple organs also in the “Molecular Basis of Disease” and “Infection Inflammation and Repair” modules.

In conclusion, I believe this assessment has served as a practice for the many other abstracts and discussions I hope to write in the future.