Private sector is not willing or able to put in the time and funding needed to perform necessary basic research. It just takes too much time, risk, and money for a company to support the basic biological research, which is what generates the big discoveries.
Basic research (not applied or "translationsal research) in biology leads to knowledge and new techniques. It is not feasible to make a profit off of these unless you can keep the knowledge a secret up to the point of it leading to a product. By definition, for basic research the lag time and uncertainty between investment in research and conversion to a profit making product is too great to realistically expect even large companies to absorb.
Look at the giant drug companies. They have huge research budgets. But, they can support only research that is directly applied to diseases, and only those diseases that will make a profit.
Exactly. It is not the amount of funding per se, but the way it is given out that is the bigger problem. It is given in 4-5yr spans to labs. even worse, NIH budget changes every year, so their long term planning is usually screwed every year. Reducing the number of PhD students and mandating promotions to staff scientists would work only if funds are stable for a given lab.
Thanks for that perspective njnnja. I would mod up if I had points. Unfortunately, from reading comments on slashdot, it appears that many people don't quite get that putting money into biomedical research is a way of increasing human health or moving toward that "pill that keeps our bodies younger longer."
You bring up an interesting example. But, you should consider that there is a fundamental difference between engineering and research. The article was written by highly successful researchers with experience with policy making. I agree with their perspective. From the article,
"Competition in pursuit of experimental objectives
has always been a part of the scientific enterprise, and it can have positive effects. However, hypercompetition for the resources and positions that are required to conduct science suppresses the creativity, cooperation, risk-taking, and original thinking required to make fundamental discoveries."
I think the difference in engineering (building and designing new things from what is already known) and research (trying to figure out stuff that nobody knows) requires different types of support for success. Stability is the key for research to encourage intellectual risk-taking. The problem with the current funding situation is that it stifles innovation and the really basic research. The big ideas are frequently wrong and non productive, but when they are correct, they move biomedical research forward much more than all the short term projects combined.
Finally consider that research is shared knowledge. New insights must be shared for them to be useful. This is different from engineering, where a design or product can be protected and inventors can profit from its use by others.
We should be careful in attributing an effect of viruses observed on human embryonic stem cells to an important role on human embryogenesis and evolution. ES cells are grown in tissue culture conditions, which are related to embryonic conditions, but are not the same. Without knowing the mechanism whereby HERV-H affects ES cell self renewal, it seems just as likely that it is due to some artifact of cell culture as it is due to an effect of evolution.
Sure your comment discusses students. The article in no way does. The article makes salient points about how to support mavericks in science. You do not. Read the article. I'm done.
You have no idea of what you are talking about. You like to attack and clumsily try to poke fun, but you offer no insights into possible solutions. You also know nothing about me, and how I encourage students to question everything and explore novel ideas. Somehow you assume that scientists don't like science and discovery. Somehow you assume that I alienate students. Are you serious??? Look, maybe you had some experience with an a-hole professor or something, but do not make assumptions about me, or other PIs.
Read TFA again. It does not even include the word student. TFA notes that a shift in the way scientists are funded has led to the lack of mavericks. It supports a shift back to support basic research, which scientists by and large prefer..
I don't think you understand how scientific research gets done. Scientists do not in fact determine what will get worked on in the broad scale. We can only really do what we get funding for. If funding is tied to a specific and narrow project, it discourages risky and potentially groundbreaking research. If there is no funding for basic research, I not sure how the students' stipends and reagents to do the experiments gets done.
I think you summarized it very well. There are some (non-government) organizations, like HHMI, which focuses most of its funding on people rather than projects. This is the old style of funding discussed in TFA. The labs getting the HHMI funding generally do really well in terms of breakthroughs; although there is a selection for excellent labs that receive HHMI. It seems to me that the role of gov't funding of science should be more focused on the basic/breakthrough level rather than the application/"translational" level it currently hold.
I don't think you have much of a basis to judge how the NIH works, how it makes funding decisions, how it decides what areas of research it will emphasize, how it determines the ways in which grant proposals are reviewed, scored, and funded. You can choose to listen to someone who has first hand experience in the area, or can choose to continue to be a turd and hurl spurious ad hominem attacks at me.
You have no idea what decisions I have made. I certainly have not decided to cash in by taking corporate funded research, to increase profits as you somehow concocted. I, and most of my colleagues, do basic research funded by NIH. We care about this a lot. I have worked very hard, dedicated my life to my work. I do it NOT for money, which should be obvious if you look at average faculty salaries.
In the last decade or so there has been a shift in focus away from basic research and toward applied or "translational" research. This switch, made by the NIH, in response to congress critters demand for so-called deliverables, changes the way in which research is done. It has shifted away from basic (i.e. more risk).
Your "blame-shifting" argument is stupid. How do you propose one does the basic research if it does not get funded?.
How is support for stem cell research the same as "shuffling money into political thinktanks and corporate welfare"? Did I miss sarcasm, or are you being a dickweed?
Agreed on the 18% being bullshit. They have some wacky formula that uses revisions of grants to reduce the total number of "grants" and inflates the percentage.
I am a professor who mentors PhD students on projects supported by NIH grants. I totally disagree with the assessment of needing to drink the kool-aid to get in on a grant. Most of the PIs (professors that wrote the grant) that I know really do not want a PhD student to come in an be a "parrot" by simply repeating everything the PI says and thinks. The PI gets very little out of this, and it advances a project to a much lesser degree than a student who can make an intellectual contribution. The problem with lack of support for Maverick-type people is that the granting agencies have become quite risk averse, which makes absolutely no sense in science. As a result, I believe te proportion of funding going to translational research focused on an application is too great and funding to basic science is too small.
PI stands for Principal Investigator. This is the leader of a group of scientists, and is the term commonly used by granting agencies, such as NIH, for the person in charge of the project funded by a grant.
I am somewhat confused by that leap of logic, too. I am afraid people will use this interesting work to support the idea that mice are not a good model to study anything human-related. TFS is pointed this direction anyway...
Being rejected by Science and Nature doesn't say much about the paper, other than the editors didn't want it in their magazine. Many possible reasons exist for this. These journals are very picky on the timeliness of the topic of research. Maybe they didn't think it was sexy enough.
Also I must add that the summary takes liberty with the point of "challenging the effectiveness of the mouse model as basis for medical research." Clearly mice share some physiology and developmental characteristics with humans. The article does not support a questioning of all mouse research, but it makes a strong case against using it to study sepsis.
Why would anyone want to recruit people who are easily influenced by superficial things into a profession where the superficial must to be ignored in order to gain new knowledge? Where the makers of the film hoping that people suddenly change their personalities when presented by the wonders of science?
Agreed. I don't know, but I am guessing that big pharma was not always like this, i.e evilly pimping weak drugs for their profits. It certainly does not need to be like this. Congress critters need to grow a pair and enact laws that make the advertising/business bullshit division of big pharma not very profitable. I'm sure that could be done while helping the companies better deal with financial risks of research.
I do not wish to defend the whole Division in Big Pharma companies set up to perpetuate bullshit. This is harmful and infuriating. But, do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. You know what actually makes Big Pharma A LOT of money - drugs that work. Anyone who has taken an antibiotic or Viagra will probably agree. So, the lying bullshit is not the only thing Big Pharma does. Please do not simply condemn medical research and call it all a fraud because of the influence of business/advertising on pharmaceutical companies.
Of course genetics are not everything. The environment, even within the womb, affects development. But, after enough genome wide association studies are performed, gattaca does not seem too far away.
While I will agree with lack of surprise from/.ers, most of my colleagues that enjoy their Macs like to tout "invulnerability" to malware. Mac-pride makes them brave/foolish to the point they will not bother with anti-virus. I think they are more the norm than exception for Mac users. Once the Mac OS reaches a high enough number of users, there will be a significant surprise for most users.
Slashdot Mirror
Private sector is not willing or able to put in the time and funding needed to perform necessary basic research. It just takes too much time, risk, and money for a company to support the basic biological research, which is what generates the big discoveries.
Basic research (not applied or "translationsal research) in biology leads to knowledge and new techniques. It is not feasible to make a profit off of these unless you can keep the knowledge a secret up to the point of it leading to a product. By definition, for basic research the lag time and uncertainty between investment in research and conversion to a profit making product is too great to realistically expect even large companies to absorb.
Look at the giant drug companies. They have huge research budgets. But, they can support only research that is directly applied to diseases, and only those diseases that will make a profit.
Exactly. It is not the amount of funding per se, but the way it is given out that is the bigger problem. It is given in 4-5yr spans to labs. even worse, NIH budget changes every year, so their long term planning is usually screwed every year. Reducing the number of PhD students and mandating promotions to staff scientists would work only if funds are stable for a given lab.
Thanks for that perspective njnnja. I would mod up if I had points. Unfortunately, from reading comments on slashdot, it appears that many people don't quite get that putting money into biomedical research is a way of increasing human health or moving toward that "pill that keeps our bodies younger longer."
You bring up an interesting example. But, you should consider that there is a fundamental difference between engineering and research. The article was written by highly successful researchers with experience with policy making. I agree with their perspective. From the article,
"Competition in pursuit of experimental objectives has always been a part of the scientific enterprise, and it can have positive effects. However, hypercompetition for the resources and positions that are required to conduct science suppresses the creativity, cooperation, risk-taking, and original thinking required to make fundamental discoveries."
I think the difference in engineering (building and designing new things from what is already known) and research (trying to figure out stuff that nobody knows) requires different types of support for success. Stability is the key for research to encourage intellectual risk-taking. The problem with the current funding situation is that it stifles innovation and the really basic research. The big ideas are frequently wrong and non productive, but when they are correct, they move biomedical research forward much more than all the short term projects combined.
Finally consider that research is shared knowledge. New insights must be shared for them to be useful. This is different from engineering, where a design or product can be protected and inventors can profit from its use by others.
We should be careful in attributing an effect of viruses observed on human embryonic stem cells to an important role on human embryogenesis and evolution. ES cells are grown in tissue culture conditions, which are related to embryonic conditions, but are not the same. Without knowing the mechanism whereby HERV-H affects ES cell self renewal, it seems just as likely that it is due to some artifact of cell culture as it is due to an effect of evolution.
Sure your comment discusses students. The article in no way does. The article makes salient points about how to support mavericks in science. You do not. Read the article. I'm done.
You have no idea of what you are talking about. You like to attack and clumsily try to poke fun, but you offer no insights into possible solutions. You also know nothing about me, and how I encourage students to question everything and explore novel ideas. Somehow you assume that scientists don't like science and discovery. Somehow you assume that I alienate students. Are you serious??? Look, maybe you had some experience with an a-hole professor or something, but do not make assumptions about me, or other PIs.
Read TFA again. It does not even include the word student. TFA notes that a shift in the way scientists are funded has led to the lack of mavericks. It supports a shift back to support basic research, which scientists by and large prefer. .
I don't think you understand how scientific research gets done. Scientists do not in fact determine what will get worked on in the broad scale. We can only really do what we get funding for. If funding is tied to a specific and narrow project, it discourages risky and potentially groundbreaking research. If there is no funding for basic research, I not sure how the students' stipends and reagents to do the experiments gets done.
Can't figure out how this was modded "insightful". Perhaps by stating the universal law that "the boss is a dick" in a different way. ?
I think you summarized it very well. There are some (non-government) organizations, like HHMI, which focuses most of its funding on people rather than projects. This is the old style of funding discussed in TFA. The labs getting the HHMI funding generally do really well in terms of breakthroughs; although there is a selection for excellent labs that receive HHMI. It seems to me that the role of gov't funding of science should be more focused on the basic/breakthrough level rather than the application/"translational" level it currently hold.
You have no idea what decisions I have made. I certainly have not decided to cash in by taking corporate funded research, to increase profits as you somehow concocted. I, and most of my colleagues, do basic research funded by NIH. We care about this a lot. I have worked very hard, dedicated my life to my work. I do it NOT for money, which should be obvious if you look at average faculty salaries.
In the last decade or so there has been a shift in focus away from basic research and toward applied or "translational" research. This switch, made by the NIH, in response to congress critters demand for so-called deliverables, changes the way in which research is done. It has shifted away from basic (i.e. more risk).
Your "blame-shifting" argument is stupid. How do you propose one does the basic research if it does not get funded?.
How is support for stem cell research the same as "shuffling money into political thinktanks and corporate welfare"? Did I miss sarcasm, or are you being a dickweed?
Agreed on the 18% being bullshit. They have some wacky formula that uses revisions of grants to reduce the total number of "grants" and inflates the percentage.
I am a professor who mentors PhD students on projects supported by NIH grants. I totally disagree with the assessment of needing to drink the kool-aid to get in on a grant. Most of the PIs (professors that wrote the grant) that I know really do not want a PhD student to come in an be a "parrot" by simply repeating everything the PI says and thinks. The PI gets very little out of this, and it advances a project to a much lesser degree than a student who can make an intellectual contribution. The problem with lack of support for Maverick-type people is that the granting agencies have become quite risk averse, which makes absolutely no sense in science. As a result, I believe te proportion of funding going to translational research focused on an application is too great and funding to basic science is too small.
The bioengineers knew this would happen if their new seeds were overused.
PI stands for Principal Investigator. This is the leader of a group of scientists, and is the term commonly used by granting agencies, such as NIH, for the person in charge of the project funded by a grant.
I am somewhat confused by that leap of logic, too. I am afraid people will use this interesting work to support the idea that mice are not a good model to study anything human-related. TFS is pointed this direction anyway...
Almost everything gets rejected by Nature and Science. The article notes Science only accepts about 7% of the papers it receives.
Also I must add that the summary takes liberty with the point of "challenging the effectiveness of the mouse model as basis for medical research." Clearly mice share some physiology and developmental characteristics with humans. The article does not support a questioning of all mouse research, but it makes a strong case against using it to study sepsis.
I have no mod points, but +1
Why would anyone want to recruit people who are easily influenced by superficial things into a profession where the superficial must to be ignored in order to gain new knowledge? Where the makers of the film hoping that people suddenly change their personalities when presented by the wonders of science?
Agreed. I don't know, but I am guessing that big pharma was not always like this, i.e evilly pimping weak drugs for their profits. It certainly does not need to be like this. Congress critters need to grow a pair and enact laws that make the advertising/business bullshit division of big pharma not very profitable. I'm sure that could be done while helping the companies better deal with financial risks of research.
I do not wish to defend the whole Division in Big Pharma companies set up to perpetuate bullshit. This is harmful and infuriating. But, do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. You know what actually makes Big Pharma A LOT of money - drugs that work. Anyone who has taken an antibiotic or Viagra will probably agree. So, the lying bullshit is not the only thing Big Pharma does. Please do not simply condemn medical research and call it all a fraud because of the influence of business/advertising on pharmaceutical companies.
Of course genetics are not everything. The environment, even within the womb, affects development. But, after enough genome wide association studies are performed, gattaca does not seem too far away.
Not very innovative and geeky. Let's see a gyroscopic pig roasting spit or a hack for my parabolic Weber turning it into antenna.
While I will agree with lack of surprise from /.ers, most of my colleagues that enjoy their Macs like to tout "invulnerability" to malware. Mac-pride makes them brave/foolish to the point they will not bother with anti-virus. I think they are more the norm than exception for Mac users. Once the Mac OS reaches a high enough number of users, there will be a significant surprise for most users.