Espionage!

The world of science may not be known for it's undercover agents, (with the notable exception of Agent R), but it is full of espionage none the less. For those of you that turned out for the pharmacology poster session this past Monday (thanks for stopping by not_pwang!) it may have seemed like a run of the mill poster session, or perhaps even a sub-par poster session given the lack of food or alcohol. But what you might have missed, and what this NRS journalist totally did miss, was the fact that some full-fledged espionage was occurring. Perhaps I was too busy notifying the General that she was an author on a poster she had never seen (which was an interesting twist of fate considering the the General informed me that I was an author on a poster I didn't know existed at the Zebrafish Conference that she attended last summer...)

Meanwhile, according to multiple NRS sources, there was a man who works at a yet-to-be-identified pharmaceutical company present at the poster sessions taking pictures of posters and copious notes. Of particular interest, apparently, was this NRS journalist's poster despite the lack of data. I was of course blissfully unaware until the damage was done. The extent of the damage is not likely to be great, although it does depend on the identity of the company.

I have often wondered if pharmaceutical companies are the evil empires we make them out to be, and the fact that they would send someone to steal ideas from a student training grant poster session does not help their case. Especially when we compare that behavior to academia, where one PI felt the need to "disclose" to me that he owned stock in a pharmaceutical company before reading the my poster.

The investigation into the identity of the spy carries more clout than usual NRS investigations, so we are optimistic that the mystery will soon be solved. And when it is, perhaps I will use the $5 Starbucks gift card that all poster session participants were awarded to buy a drink to throw in the spy's face. Preferably one with whipped cream on top.