About the author

Dan Rhoads

Dan is a postdoc working at the University of Cyprus in developmental biology. He has a BSc in molecular biology and a PhD pharmacology and biochemistry.

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In a recent issue of Cell, there’s an interesting commentary on Molecular Movies… Coming to a Lecture Near You. The article got me thinking – wouldn’t it be useful if there were more skilled graphics and animation experts at the disposal of researchers?

Conveying the information content of your average proposal, report, lecture, or public exposure moment in a way that gets and keeps the attention of the non-expert is something that comes very difficultly to the average scientist. I know it does for me, not being experienced in anything beyond PowerPoint and Adobe Illustrator.

And last year, I had the chance to work on planning a project with the assistance of a graphics editor at my disposal. The difference in quality was astounding, with faculty members involved in the project’s conception commenting vigorously on the schematic figures, and it becoming *much* easier to explain the project concept to people outside of our immediate team.

It strikes me that with the notoriety of molecular biology and microbiology, there must be a market for graphics editors interested in shopping their skills around – graphics freelancing, as it were. As the Cell article focuses on movies and animations, that would perhaps be top tier. But even a well-done and customized schematic would be an extremely useful addition to any journal manuscript, symposium talk or poster, laboratory website, or research proposal.

Okay, I notice some such multimedia utilizing nice graphics for presenting molecular biology and microbiology, but I rarely hear about research proposals including a request for a small allocation of funds for paying a graphics editor for 20 hours of work. I also rarely hear about a graphics editors circulating business cards at any gathering of researchers who might be interested in getting a funding or publishing advantage (and there are plenty of those).