Confused about masters project I am an integrated master student doing a rather short project of only 4months in the lab (due to covid). The project is quite a weird one as it either works or it doesn't and if it doesn't I have no data at all cause it is a cell based project. I'm about a month in and my cells keep dying and I have no data. I am super concerned that I'll have nothing to show or write up at the end of my project. I want to ask my supervisor if I could simultaneously work on something that would generate data fast as a backup project if this fails to generate any data but I'm not sure if it would look like I'm &quot;giving up&quot; on this project. Also, I have only 3 months left to start a new project. I'm not entirely sure how to deal with the situation. Additionally, I am currently applying to PhD and would need my current supervisor's to act as a referee.
Thanks!
Yes, you could ask your question, but you could also ask a different one as well. &quot;What do these dying cells really tell us and can we gain some scientific insight from that?&quot;
I suspect that you could formulate it better, but the idea that a &quot;failed experiment&quot; yields nothing is false. Negative data is still data. The fact that something doesn't work is still, in some cases, valuable scientific information.
I can't say for sure that this is the case here, of course, but it might be worth exploring it with your advisor.