Imagine a scientist who has an idea for a research project but needs other researchers from various countries around the world to help prepare the project application, submit it to a competition, and get the research approved and funded. To introduce and convince these researchers to participate in the project, numerous emails are written. Rejections come in. Out of 20 emails, perhaps only a few receive a response.
This relentless scene is from the pandemic period, when Agnese Brangule, an Associate Professor and leading researcher at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU), was looking for foreign researchers and professors to collaborate on her project ideas. And not just for one project—by honing her writing skills and treating the writing of research project proposals as an experiment and an opportunity to learn what others think about the research direction, she wrote several projects simultaneously. This way, she was able to convince professors and researchers from Taiwan, Poland, Turkey, and others to join.
Having been hardened by experience with project rejections, Brangule concluded that in scientific research competitions, one cannot win with just a simple study, like one about plant composition—you need a slightly crazy idea! The research proposal must be versatile, well-developed, well-founded, interdisciplinary, and, ultimately, there must undeniably be some luck involved.
Before becoming a scientist, Brangule seriously considered becoming a writer! However, an event led her to change her mind and turn to chemistry.
In this article, we delve into the journey of Agnese Brangule from researcher to leading scientist, the research projects themselves, and the personal fulfillment her scientific career brings.
The Beginning at RSU
Brangule began working at RSU in 2011 in the Department of Human Physiology and Biochemistry. After many years of practical experience in chemistry, as a chemistry teacher, and participating in various educational projects, this was a new challenge for her. “I had to teach chemistry in English to international students. I also taught local students. Local students are more homogeneous,” she explains, “they come from the same educational system, while international students come from very diverse educational systems and cultures. And that must be taken into account. It adds extra responsibility.”
The level of knowledge in chemistry is also different. “As a positive example, I would praise Scandinavian students, especially those from Finland,” she says.
In 2020, after completing her PhD at the Riga Technical University (RTU) and postdoctoral research at RSU, Brangule had already explored a wide range of research topics—from calcium phosphates (looking for ways to use them in bone regeneration) to plant research. She thought that calcium phosphates were easier to study than plants, as they are inorganic compounds with a defined structure and chemical elements. In contrast, plants contain both organic and inorganic substances, as well as various microelements whose composition can depend on the growth location, soil, and climatic conditions (sun, rainfall, and temperature).
And in 2020, Brangule's life took a new turn. The Horizon 2020 Baltic Biomaterials Excellence Center (BBCE) project was developing, bringing together knowledge and infrastructure from Switzerland, Germany, and Latvia to create a scientific center for comprehensive biomaterial research. The Latvian partners in the project included the Faculty of Pharmacy at RSU, the Institute of Stomatology, the Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis, and the RTU Rudolfs Cimdins Riga Biomaterials Innovation and Development Center. At the invitation of Professor Dace Bandere, Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy, Brangule agreed to participate in the competition for the position of leader of the scientific group on Drug Delivery Systems Kinetics and Stability.
Scientific Project Writing: An Art of Persistence
Project writing, one of the tasks in the BBCE project, is an art and a school of persistence! “It’s not enough to have a research idea for a project; you have to be able to write it down!” Brangule emphasizes. Since the BBCE project was a new area of science at RSU, with no existing foundations or established research directions, she approached the project writing process as an experiment. “The first time, I wrote four very different projects to test the waters and gain as much experience as possible. It was an intense and complicated period in which I encountered both a lot of support and some confusion,” she recalls.
She wrote various types of projects: Fundamental and Applied Research Projects (FLPP), M-ERA.NET, and Latvia-Lithuania-Taiwan projects. “International projects can only be written if you have international partners. At that time, it was the pandemic, so communication opportunities were limited, and I wrote emails to professors and scientists from different countries. Out of 20 emails, I got a response from maybe two (people were more responsive at that time, more connected to their computers). This way, for example, I got in touch with professors from Taiwan, Poland, and Turkey, and we submitted Lithuania-Taiwan and ERA.NET projects,” she explains.
It’s an art to write an email that a stranger will respond to! A response is a success that can lead to a project or collaboration. Leading scientists receive numerous emails every day with collaboration proposals, so a response means something in the email caught their attention,” she adds.
Gaining Success Despite the Odds
Through persistent project writing and persuasion, Brangule now leads two long-term projects: the FLPP project “Study of the Dissolution Profiles of Drug Delivery Systems Using a Hierarchical Model Chain (ModelDrug)” and an EU and state budget-funded RSU and LSPA external consolidation project on “Hydrostatic High Pressure: A Dual Tool for the Production and Sterilization of Hydrogel-Based Drug Delivery Systems.”
“Both of these are crazy projects,” she says, explaining that project competition is intense. “In the year we won the competition, only 9% of all submitted projects received funding. That means 91% were rejected! The competition grows because rejected projects enter a revision phase and are resubmitted in better versions each time. Therefore, a standard idea, like studying plant leaves or determining their chemical composition, didn’t work because we had already submitted such projects before. We needed a slightly crazy idea, and everything had to be organized to find the right people who were willing to participate in this madness.”
Thus, the FLPP project “ModelDrug” secured funding. “A big part of it was the groundwork we had done with RSU grants. We had submitted FLPP project proposals on this topic several times before, but didn’t get funding. Since we received a high rating, we were able to obtain an RSU grant of €20,000, and we began mathematical modeling. This helped develop initial data and formulate and test several hypotheses.”
The FLPP project continues to explore how to combine computer modeling with real experiments. The RSU Pharmacy Faculty’s new laboratories are used for practical dissolution experiments, and large computing resources from both LU and RTU are involved.
Research Beyond Practical Goals
Brangule explains that the goal of her research is not directly practical but rather focused on acquiring knowledge that will help understand processes and one day enable them to be transferred from the laboratory to more complex, larger systems.
This is a process so that the knowledge gained can later be applied to more practical research, such as the future transfer of knowledge from solid to soft drug delivery systems.
Her work is not just confined to research. Brangule is actively involved in science communication, helping make science accessible to the public. She participates in various science popularization events, collaborates with the Chemistry Teachers Association, and mentors students in scientific research work. For her, being able to explain complex scientific topics clearly is an essential part of her job as a scientist.
A Desire to Become a Writer
Before her career in science, Brangule dreamed of becoming a writer. She reveals, “I clearly knew that I could go down the path of philology or art; I wanted to become a writer.” However, an experience during her high school years led her to change direction. She spent time in a school in Germany and saw a completely different approach to teaching chemistry. This inspired her to take an interest in chemistry and pursue it in-depth.
“In half a year, I learned everything I had missed in high school chemistry and ended up acing the exam,” she remembers fondly.
Thus, Brangule's path to chemistry was a spontaneous one, leading her from chemistry studies at the University of Latvia to a rich and varied career in research and education.
