So this week I tried to gain evidence that supports my supper dupper theory, based on my unexpectedly amazing mass spec results I told you about a few weeks ago. Fortunately I had a staight forward way of testing the implications of these initial findings. And my experiments conclusively demonstrated that this new theory was not right. I forgot about Murphy's laws.
So after having busted my own new theory, the question to ask would be am I upset? No way. Although some of the proteins in my unexpectedly amazing mass spec results had nothing to do with the process I am studying (the nuclear export of SSCR-containing transcripts), there are still some unidentified proteins in that magical fraction. All I need to do is to scale up my preparation and identify these new factors, that's all. In some ways the nullification of this new theory is a relief because it would have been hard to reconcile it with some of my previously published results. Now it looks likely that a totaly unidentified protein may be responsible for SSCR-dependent export. I will soon find out.
I think this happens to all researchers at least once, if not more often. I once spent a good-sized chunk of the taxpayers' money on a flight research project (in Buffalo in February) trying to prove a hypothesis, based on an anomaly in a previous project, that turned out to be absolutely wrong. Fortunately, once we really looked at the data we came up with a better explanation that answered a couple of other questions, too.
I hate it when real life and the data destroy a perfectly good theory.
Yes, it has happened to me many times, but in this case my preliminary data told me to follow up on this new theory that complex X was responsible for SSCR-mediated mRNA export. Fortunately I had a straight forward way to test the theory before wasting too much time and money on it. In retrospect I think that my data was telling me something much more nuanced, that my (still elusive) magical protein may interact with a component of complex X, but acts quite independently of complex X. This actually resolve a paradox that might have arisen if my suped duper theory was correct.
As soon as I get my new mass spec results I'll let you know if I'm on the right track.