Why laboratory scientists can make great scientific writers

Abstract cartoon image of a woman surrounded by laboratory and writing equipment

When I set out on my new professional journey, I always knew I wanted to be a writer. I talked extensively in my last blog about my love of reading, and why writing was a natural stepping stone for my next career move. However, there are also more rational reasons why becoming a scientific writer was a sensible choice.

I come from a practical background, where I made my bones in this industry with years of my life in roles which were heavily laboratory based. I do not even dare total the number of hours I have spent running immunoassays, isolating and amplifying nucleic acid or being confined in a dark room developing Western blots. I still have emotional scars of splitting multitudes flasks of mammalian cell culture in the height of summer, cramped in a lamina-flow cabinet in 30C heat, working in an air-conditioned-less, window-less laboratory, all whilst wearing a heavy lab-coat and double gloves.

Laboratory scientists can make great scientific writers

So, when it comes to applying scientific best-practices, a laboratory scientist is your go-to person. They understand everything involved in both the physical aspect of the products they are using (the weight, the size and the ease of use), as well as the science behind the result (performance, robustness and reproducibility). Therefore, if you find a scientist with both practical and theoretical experience, coupled with a love of writing (i.e. someone like yours truly), you have the start of the makings of a rounded scientific writer.

That is not to say that this is all you need to succeed as a writer in this industry. Being a scientist and having a love of writing means that you will naturally excel at the more technical pieces (academic publications, scientific posters, manuals and user guides etc.), where accurate and systematic description and translation of highly detailed scientific concepts are the centrepiece of the content. For more informal pieces (e.g. blog posts, website content, social media posts etc.), an implementation of fundamental marketing principles is crucial to ensure that these pieces of content gain traction in the digital arena. For example, understanding search engine optimisation (SEO) best practices, the use of appropriate hashtags, and knowing how to pitch the message to the desired audience are all necessary to meet the brief.

Exploiting your VOC experience

The main advantage of having a technical scientist generate content for you is that they can bring the voice of customer (VOC), as laboratory scientists are customers. They will have interacted with numerous suppliers and sales representatives from a variety of biotechnology organisations, knowing exactly they are looking for in terms of products and services to add value to their own work. I have had conversations with countless companies, scoured through their website and marketing collateral to see if what they are claiming is backed up by their scientific content.

One of the greatest examples I have seen of how to meet the needs of the customer is from a next-generation sequencing (NGS) company. Anyone who has experience with any form of NGS in the laboratory knows how complicated and multifaceted the steps can be. This company produced digital and printable methods, protocols and schematics which could be adapted to the experience of the user. A novice could access the entire experimental format with all the nuanced detail, whereas an experienced user could download a lighter version, expanding in areas where further clarification was needed. It was a beautiful example of where the marketing team had clearly listened to the technical scientists and tailored the company website to meet their needs, at the same time not losing any marketing-related messaging. I have not run an NGS protocol in a laboratory for about ten years, but I still remember the clarity of this company’s information. This just goes to show just how powerful listening to your customers can be. And this is why laboratory scientists can make such great scientific writers - they know what other scientists want to see in their own technical and promotional material.

Different writing styles between the public and private sectors

I do not come from a marketing background, but I was fortunate to have worked closely alongside some very talented marketing experts. From them I learnt that scientific writing does not always have to be so clinical or formal, and they encouraged the use of more informal language that is accessible to a wider audience, without losing the scientific clarity or accuracy of the message.

Having experience in both public health and the private life-sciences sector as both a laboratory scientist and a writer, it is interesting to see the differences in both the overall objective as well as the writing style of the content. Writing in public health falls into two main camps – highly detailed writing for peer-reviewed publications and conference posters, or diagnostic and pathogen-related surveillance reports to send to clinicians or other public health teams. There is not much room for creativity unless you work specifically in the marketing or communications divisions of these organisations. In contrast, the private sector offers wider scope for a scientific writer, especially if you work in a team which supports either the new product development pipeline or any adjacent marketing activities. By supporting the marketing teams, there are opportunities to contribute to more relaxed forms of collateral, including application notes, case studies and web content.

Extrapolation of data vs an honest admittance of a knowledge gap

A fundamental value of working in this arena is honesty. Scientific credibility is everything. Your success in your chosen field is rests as heavily on your reputation as it does on the science you showcase. And so how you sell yourself from a marketing perspective relies on the same levels of honesty. Which leads to the marketing of science by extrapolation. We as scientists would put more value in a company whose content is open on the areas of science where results need more validation, rather than claims based on loose findings.

We understand that it is not possible to test every variable, and that extrapolation is an important scientific principle that can infer trends in related data. However, there is a fine line between genuine extrapolation based on a robust data set, and a scientific claim which may not be true.

It the holy grail of all scientists to find a one-size-fits-all, one protocol for every sample type and for all downstream applications. I do not know if we will ever discover this apocryphal golden egg. Which is why it is so important to us to know that the technical and marketing messaging is both aligned and true. For example, if the data supports the use of a particular reagents on one sample type, it would be a stretch to say that this reagent would work as robustly on different sample types. We as laboratory scientists would need to either see this comparison data or run our own in-house validation. So, we put more credibility into those companies that openly state that further work must be done to translate the protocol across different workstreams.

And it is not just the science we are looking for. We are looking for how professionally the company markets itself, including how each piece of collateral aligns with each other, how easy it is to navigate their website, how clear their messaging is and how easy it to access appropriate technical support resources. Companies which take time to ensure all the messaging, branding, colour schemes, layouts and formats are consistent across all their collateral showcases real professionalism, instilling a sense of confidence in their customers. It shows us, the laboratory scientists who work with precision every single day, that they are just as invested in ensuring uniformity in their sales pitch and marketing campaigns as they are in the science they are trying to promote.

Having a unified and comprehensive marketing portfolio conveys to us scientists not only the robustness of your products, but their breadth of applications which could be possible. Couple this with uniformity in the way this science is relayed in your marketing material, and your scientific customers will be inspired to invest in your products, hoping to achieve the same level of proficiency in their own research.

On a final note…

I loved being a laboratory scientist. Working in the lab provided me with so much joy, allowing me to revel in my top-tier organisation and meticulous time-keeping skills. It also provided me with a real insight into those suppliers who gave real attention-to-detail to the technical collateral they relayed to their customers. Seeing their science align perfectly with their branding and messaging was the key to ensuring I would follow-up with them for both new and legacy purchases. I therefore aim to instil this same consistency in my own writing, knowing that this steadiness in my work will inspire the same level of respect in the writing I put out into the world.