There is a feeling that both hikers, cyclists, and scientists know, although we would all rather avoid it. I am referring to the feeling of disillusionment when you realize that the finish line is further away than you thought. To get to the peak that you were aiming for, or the publication that you were envisioning, you will need to push even longer, and you are not sure if you can do it anymore… For part two of Untold Stories in Science, I talked to some scientists who know this feeling very well.
A never-ending trial
Dr. Floris Schreuder, neurologist at the Radboudumc and cyclist in his free time, was involved in a clinical trial that took no less than 9 years from grant award to publication. The main question in this trial was whether patients who have suffered from a brain hemorrhage should restart certain medications or not. The trial took much longer than expected for several reasons, but mostly because it was hard to include participants in the study. Floris explains: ‘This group of people is vulnerable. They have had a stroke, which has a lot of impact. Many people said: I do not want to participate in a clinical trial right now. Other people had strong preference for a certain treatment, which is not possible in a randomized trial’.
As time went by, Floris and his colleagues became aware that another group was performing a similar study that progressed more rapidly. Luckily, connections between both groups were good, and they decided to try and publish back-to-back in a reputable journal, and present the work at the same annual stroke conference. However, this meant that there would be a hard deadline to submit the paper. The team pushed hard and worked long days to make the deadline, and was happy to have finished this seemingly endless project, until… Their paper was rejected.
Drowsy mosquitoes and slow editorial processes
At the department of Medical Microbiology, PhD candidate and hiking enthusiast Sara Lynn Blanken also knows the feeling of thinking you are done (with a hike or with a project), until you come around the corner and find out there is still a bit to go. Together with Dr. Maartje Inklaar, Dr. Felix Hol, and an eager team of scientists, she aimed to find out what makes people attractive for mosquitoes. They gathered their data at Lowlands, the three-day musical festival, where they asked festival-goers to put their arms on a cage with mosquitoes that could smell but not bite them.
Already on the first day of the festival, a long queue of interested festival attendees was waiting in the summer heat until it was their turn to participate. However, things were not going completely smooth: ‘We were working in a shipping container that was black on the outside, and the heat was intense. At some point it got to 40 °C, which is way too hot for our mosquitoes to be active’, Sara remembers. The festival organization pragmatically solved this issue by sawing a big hole in the container and adding a ventilator for fresh air circulation. This solution made the data gathering process a success, and 465 participants were included in the study.
The Mosquito Magnet team with their research-shipping container at Lowlands festival
Analysis of the big dataset took time and effort, but yielded an intriguing conclusion. ‘We found that mosquitoes are drawn to those who avoid sunscreen, drink beer, and share their bed. They simply have a taste for the hedonists among us’, the team concluded in their preprint. In July 2025, they submitted their manuscript to the Christmas edition of a prominent journal, which is known to publish rigorous science with a light-hearted twist. The paper was sent out for peer review, and then the waiting started. Months passed, the days got shorter. By the time the Christmas edition had already been published, Sara and her colleagues had still not received the reviewer’s comments nor the editorial decision, despite asking repeatedly. Just before the end of the year, the team finally received a decision: the reviewer’s comments were negative and plentiful, and their article got rejected.
Getting to the finish line
For Floris, there was a happy ending to the story, even though it took even longer than expected. After initial hesitations, the team decided to appeal the editorial decision. This proved to be successful, and after peer review the article was accepted one day before the conference presentation. Sara’s manuscript, however, will need to undergo the peer-review process (at least) once more, this time with another journal. Where there any lessons in these challenging processes for Floris and Sara? Floris: ‘I learnt that perseverance pays off, and that it is sometimes okay to take a bold step towards your goal, for example to appeal an editorial decision.’ Sara adds: ‘Instead of only working towards the final result, a published article, I now try to celebrate the smaller milestones on the way, such as the first submission of an article. This helps me to stay motivated.’
Dr. Floris Schreuder presenting his results at a conference.
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Which challenges have you encountered during your research? Share your story with Laura (laura.akkerman@radboudumc.nl) to get featured in this blog series!
