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Leaders in Biomedical Research: Rescuing Biomedical Research in the United States

00:00:20.28 Tilghman: My name is Shirley Tilghman,
00:00:22.21 and I am here
00:00:23.08 with three colleagues
00:00:25.03 who have been working
00:00:25.21 over the past year and a half
00:00:27.06 to try and think
00:00:29.02 through some of the
00:00:30.03 changes that have occurred
00:00:31.23 in biomedical research
00:00:32.26 since we began our careers
00:00:35.10 some time ago.
00:00:37.03 This began with a breakfast
00:00:40.14 with my colleague Mark Kirschner
00:00:41.29 at Harvard where we came to
00:00:46.14 concerns about the system
00:00:48.02 that were based on two observations.
00:00:50.10 A long standing
00:00:52.17 concern of mine
00:00:53.23 has been the growing
00:00:56.11 length of training
00:00:57.15 for young biomedical scientists,
00:01:00.04 both graduate students
00:01:01.16 and postdoctoral fellows.
00:01:02.23 And the current observation
00:01:05.01 that many of them
00:01:06.11 who were achieving
00:01:07.05 faculty jobs or achieving
00:01:08.23 those jobs
00:01:09.15 at the age of 37 on average
00:01:12.23 and receiving their first
00:01:14.04 R01 grants
00:01:15.15 at the age of 42.
00:01:17.13 As I began to talk to Mark
00:01:19.29 about some of these
00:01:21.28 problems that I perceive
00:01:23.08 in the system,
00:01:24.15 he then identified
00:01:26.11 other issues
00:01:27.13 that I think are just
00:01:28.07 as serious, and I am going to turn
00:01:30.07 to Mark and ask him
00:01:31.00 if he'd be willing
00:01:31.29 to talk about them.
00:01:32.22 Kirschner: Thank you, Shirley.
00:01:34.03 I have been concerned
00:01:35.06 as well
00:01:35.15 about the problems
00:01:36.06 that Shirley has,
00:01:37.25 although she has thought
00:01:38.05 about the economic issues
00:01:40.17 much more deeply
00:01:42.01 and for much longer than I have.
00:01:43.16 My concerns were
00:01:45.05 that many of the
00:01:46.22 preconditions
00:01:47.13 for good science
00:01:48.20 which have been known for
00:01:51.11 hundreds of years
00:01:51.28 that sort of freedom
00:01:53.22 of inquiry,
00:01:54.11 allowing iconoclasts
00:01:56.26 to explore their own directions,
00:01:59.24 free communication
00:02:01.17 of ideas,
00:02:02.08 enough security
00:02:05.13 to be able to
00:02:06.06 carry out the work
00:02:07.02 that you need to carry out.
00:02:09.08 That has been really threatened,
00:02:13.20 and in many cases
00:02:14.19 almost completely abridged
00:02:17.12 by a kind of hyper competition
00:02:19.15 that has arisen
00:02:21.04 out of this now
00:02:23.23 decreased number of resources
00:02:26.11 in our system
00:02:27.06 and an increased number of people
00:02:28.28 chasing those resources.
00:02:30.28 As a result,
00:02:32.16 we find the journal system,
00:02:35.05 for example,
00:02:35.21 broken.
00:02:37.15 Papers now take years to prepare,
00:02:40.06 a year, or even sometimes a year
00:02:43.00 or more to review.
00:02:45.03 Graduate training has lengthened.
00:02:47.14 Postdoctoral training
00:02:48.07 has lengthened.
00:02:49.06 Grant review is
00:02:51.07 a system that, you know,
00:02:55.14 we all believe is
00:02:55.24 the best of all possible systems,
00:02:57.05 but never perfect,
00:02:57.26 worked well enough
00:03:00.16 when the pay lines
00:03:01.25 were 35%,
00:03:02.19 but don't work
00:03:04.27 very well when
00:03:05.25 they are under 10%.
00:03:07.16 And in fact it is not just
00:03:09.11 that we are only taking 10%
00:03:11.15 out of the 35%
00:03:12.16 people that we would normally
00:03:15.02 have taken before,
00:03:15.27 it is that it has focused
00:03:17.18 again on very risk averse
00:03:19.00 kind of a science.
00:03:20.25 A kind of a situation
00:03:22.08 where one person
00:03:23.10 who doesn't understand the grant
00:03:24.08 very well
00:03:24.25 can sink the grant
00:03:28.14 and kind of a
00:03:29.23 misunderstanding that
00:03:31.10 the opportunities
00:03:32.23 that exist in translational research
00:03:34.09 means that everybody
00:03:35.17 should be doing
00:03:36.05 translational research,
00:03:37.15 which I don't think
00:03:38.08 was ever the intention
00:03:39.14 of even the people
00:03:40.08 who proposed it.
00:03:41.22 And that has distorted
00:03:43.04 the scientific community
00:03:44.02 and added lots
00:03:44.28 of stress to the system.
00:03:45.23 Ultimately made it less productive
00:03:48.24 and made it less attractive
00:03:49.24 to the most entrepreneurial
00:03:52.03 and thoughtful
00:03:53.05 and imaginative people
00:03:55.01 that have characterized
00:03:56.03 American science
00:03:57.00 for a long time.
00:03:58.26 That was kind of a little bit
00:04:00.10 of a repeat
00:04:03.09 of the conversation
00:04:03.21 that Shirley and I had.
00:04:05.23 And we realized
00:04:06.10 that this conversation
00:04:07.22 really needed to be enlarged
00:04:09.08 by people who we felt,
00:04:10.22 much more than the two of us,
00:04:13.00 or we knew,
00:04:13.17 knew a lot more than
00:04:14.26 the two of us.
00:04:15.26 And so the person we turned
00:04:18.04 to was Bruce Alberts.
00:04:20.05 Alberts: Thank
00:04:22.00 We call ourselves
00:04:24.12 the gang of four.
00:04:25.21 But the whole effort here,
00:04:30.06 the paper that was published
00:04:30.24 in April
00:04:31.15 in the Proceedings of
00:04:32.04 the National Academy of Sciences,
00:04:33.06 the whole effort is
00:04:33.26 to start a much wider conversation
00:04:36.17 with many more people.
00:04:37.24 And to raise the
00:04:39.12 consciousness
00:04:39.28 of the community
00:04:41.02 to what we see
00:04:41.23 is a major threat
00:04:42.25 to the future
00:04:44.02 of American science,
00:04:46.02 which is basically
00:04:47.05 that we have prospered
00:04:50.13 in this country,
00:04:51.10 and we are famous
00:04:52.09 for the fact that
00:04:53.13 the best young people
00:04:54.23 will get a chance to explore
00:04:56.09 their own ideas
00:04:57.23 at an early age.
00:04:58.06 I think all of us
00:04:59.00 had our own laboratories
00:05:00.18 when we were in our 20s, late 20s.
00:05:01.24 Now, as Shirley said,
00:05:06.01 it's getting to the point
00:05:09.23 where you are almost at
00:05:10.10 the middle of your career
00:05:11.28 before you get a chance
00:05:12.15 or even near the end
00:05:14.24 of your career
00:05:15.03 by the time you get a chance
00:05:16.01 to have your own
00:05:16.20 ideas expressed.
00:05:18.13 And in fact
00:05:19.02 the system doesn't
00:05:22.17 really adequately
00:05:23.15 reward new ideas,
00:05:24.26 and so what I tell
00:05:26.19 graduate students is
00:05:28.23 the ideal world would be
00:05:29.14 that when you get your PhD
00:05:30.26 you think about what mystery,
00:05:34.08 what really important biological problem…
00:05:37.02 (We are all biologists.)
00:05:38.19 … that you want to solve,
00:05:39.15 and then you say,
00:05:40.19 well, I have these tools,
00:05:41.17 from my training
00:05:42.29 in the lab that I got
00:05:44.16 my PhD in,
00:05:45.07 and now I want to take
00:05:46.08 a very short postdoc
00:05:48.26 to learn some new technologies
00:05:50.15 that nobody else
00:05:51.08 can use with my background
00:05:54.06 and then I can do something
00:05:55.18 unique to tackle this problem.
00:05:57.21 What you want
00:05:58.14 really is exploring
00:06:00.01 what I call the white spaces
00:06:02.03 around a cell biology textbook
00:06:03.22 and every time you write,
00:06:05.29 you become very aware
00:06:07.12 that many areas are overcrowded
00:06:08.22 and many other
00:06:09.25 very important problems
00:06:10.28 are very much under researched
00:06:12.14 with modern techniques.
00:06:13.28 And that is because of the
00:06:15.08 inertia in our system.
00:06:16.18 People feel forced
00:06:17.26 to go on and do what
00:06:19.15 they already did
00:06:19.29 in order to get funded.
00:06:21.10 So, the real dilemma
00:06:22.27 that we are trying to solve
00:06:24.22 is how can we create
00:06:27.27 a system where the
00:06:29.09 best young people
00:06:30.05 have a chance
00:06:30.26 to explore
00:06:31.10 really creative ideas
00:06:32.18 at an age, late 20s or 30s,
00:06:37.11 independent of anybody else
00:06:39.22 and with the ability
00:06:43.03 to take risks
00:06:43.22 that are essential
00:06:45.13 to doing good science.
00:06:46.27 And my colleague,
00:06:48.16 I am very fortunate
00:06:50.02 that I have my colleague
00:06:50.17 here, Harold Varmus,
00:06:52.00 who is actually
00:06:53.17 inside one of the major institutions
00:06:55.13 that has to react
00:06:56.21 to this problem,
00:06:58.04 the National Institutes of Health,
00:06:59.24 and without him
00:07:01.01 I think we would just be
00:07:02.03 whistling in the dark.
00:07:03.01 Varmus: So for the reasons
00:07:08.07 that my colleagues
00:07:08.27 have laid out,
00:07:09.10 we felt that it was worth
00:07:11.06 bringing our anxieties
00:07:12.01 about the current state
00:07:13.13 of biomedical research
00:07:14.10 which have occurred
00:07:17.01 in the context of
00:07:18.05 an incredibly
00:07:19.05 triumphant march
00:07:20.21 through recent history
00:07:22.04 which American science,
00:07:23.23 especially in the
00:07:24.23 biomedical sphere
00:07:26.10 has made so many
00:07:27.22 important contributions
00:07:28.22 and entered an
00:07:29.20 extraordinary age
00:07:30.18 in which genomics
00:07:32.05 and mass spectroscopy
00:07:34.00 and many other new methodologies
00:07:35.23 are transforming our ability
00:07:37.08 to understand
00:07:38.03 biological systems
00:07:39.17 and improve health.
00:07:41.00 That sense that
00:07:43.10 we are plagued by
00:07:46.01 opportunities that
00:07:49.27 can't be completely paid for
00:07:53.21 with current funding
00:07:54.16 and an event that
00:07:58.22 has compromised
00:08:00.16 the environment
00:08:02.01 in which we work.
00:08:02.18 We all started our work
00:08:03.14 at a time when
00:08:04.01 it was possible
00:08:05.02 to obtain funding
00:08:06.24 and feel pretty comfortable
00:08:08.05 about the way in which we worked,
00:08:10.09 and the competitive atmosphere
00:08:12.07 in which we now are obliged to work
00:08:14.02 has affected many
00:08:15.14 of the conditions that were
00:08:17.28 required for excellent science.
00:08:19.17 So as someone who
00:08:20.27 runs an institute that gives
00:08:22.02 out a lot of the grants
00:08:23.08 that support such research.
00:08:24.18 We all feel, at least,
00:08:27.13 we at the NIH,
00:08:30.27 and my colleagues in this interview,
00:08:33.18 are concerned about
00:08:35.23 trying to restore conditions
00:08:37.05 back to something
00:08:39.26 that resembles
00:08:40.07 a situation that
00:08:42.09 obtained when the
00:08:43.00 dollars were adequate
00:08:45.12 to the task.
00:08:46.10 So while we applaud
00:08:48.03 the efforts
00:08:49.04 to obtain more
00:08:50.21 money from Congress
00:08:51.29 to support our efforts,
00:08:52.17 we also feel
00:08:53.08 that there are things
00:08:54.10 that could be done
00:08:55.05 by well-intentioned people
00:08:57.06 to improve those atmospherics.
00:08:59.13 We've just concluded
00:09:00.06 a two-day meeting
00:09:01.28 with people we invited from
00:09:03.19 many sectors of
00:09:05.24 our enterprise
00:09:06.26 have debated
00:09:07.24 the issues for a couple of days
00:09:09.24 and recognized
00:09:11.02 that there is a threat
00:09:13.11 to the productivity
00:09:14.09 of our community,
00:09:16.20 especially amongst
00:09:17.18 young investigators
00:09:18.25 and we are now
00:09:19.24 going to spend
00:09:20.27 the next several months
00:09:22.00 thinking about how to take
00:09:23.05 advantage
00:09:23.24 of these new ideas
00:09:25.09 and develop
00:09:27.24 a broader consensus
00:09:28.15 by hearing from
00:09:29.02 yet more constituencies
00:09:30.06 and establish
00:09:32.03 a firmer dialogue
00:09:33.04 with many components
00:09:34.14 of the research world.
00:09:36.05 Tilghman: You know, the four of us
00:09:37.13 were the beneficiaries
00:09:39.06 of a grand vision
00:09:40.23 for scientific research
00:09:43.11 in the 20th century,
00:09:44.20 that was penned
00:09:46.08 by Vannevar Bush
00:09:48.02 back in the late 1940s
00:09:48.28 called
00:09:49.23 "Science: The Endless Frontier".
00:09:51.17 It laid out basically
00:09:53.00 the blue print
00:09:54.24 that we have followed
00:09:55.20 ever since,
00:09:56.18 where we united
00:09:57.10 the scientific research
00:09:59.19 with the training
00:10:00.18 of the next generation
00:10:02.00 of scientists.
00:10:02.21 And I think we feel that there...
00:10:05.06 that this is the moment
00:10:06.17 where perhaps
00:10:07.19 there needs to be a renewal
00:10:09.24 of that great vision
00:10:11.28 and that contract with America.
00:10:15.28 As someone who
00:10:17.05 was away from science
00:10:18.13 for the last 12 years,
00:10:20.11 and has just come back in,
00:10:22.07 I am stunned
00:10:23.13 by the discoveries
00:10:25.00 that have happened in just that
00:10:26.04 short period of time
00:10:27.14 where I was not paying
00:10:28.20 close attention.
00:10:30.02 That is the source
00:10:31.01 of my optimism
00:10:32.13 for the future.
00:10:32.26 I think that there are
00:10:34.03 so many promising
00:10:35.04 ways to answer
00:10:38.00 entirely new questions.
00:10:39.02 And ... but I think
00:10:40.23 we need an ecosystem
00:10:44.01 for biomedical science
00:10:45.20 that supports
00:10:46.28 the most creative
00:10:47.22 and the most innovative science,
00:10:49.21 and I think we have allowed
00:10:52.06 the vision of Vannevar Bush
00:10:55.08 to deteriorate
00:10:55.15 to a certain extent,
00:10:57.14 and what we as a community,
00:10:59.15 because this will only happen
00:11:00.15 if the community
00:11:01.08 comes together,
00:11:02.00 we as a community
00:11:03.09 need to really rethink
00:11:06.02 what the 21st
00:11:06.12 century version of
00:11:08.14 "The Endless Frontier"
00:11:09.15 is going to look like.
00:11:10.11 Varmus: We would urge
00:11:11.02 all of you who
00:11:11.16 are watching this video
00:11:12.08 to go to the National
00:11:14.01 Academy website
00:11:14.27 that carries our article
00:11:18.01 in open access form
00:11:19.14 and provides
00:11:20.20 authoring tools
00:11:21.21 for you to tell us
00:11:22.13 what you think
00:11:23.02 about what we had
00:11:23.28 to say there,
00:11:24.11 and what you think about
00:11:25.06 the conditions
00:11:26.15 for doing science
00:11:27.11 in this remarkably
00:11:29.04 propitious time
00:11:31.08 for achieving new discoveries
00:11:34.01 and making progress
00:11:34.07 against disease
00:11:34.29 even under the conditions
00:11:37.11 of fiscal restraint
00:11:39.00 that are currently upon us.
00:11:39.22

This Talk
Speakers: Harold Varmus, Shirley Tilghman, Marc Kirschner, Bruce Alberts
Audience:
  • Researcher
Recorded: August 2014
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These leaders in biomedical research have turned their attention to problems that are confronting the practice and sustainability of the basic research enterprise in the United States. Their concerns and ideas for addressing these challenges have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (April 22, 2014). In the talk, Alberts, Kirschner, Tilghman and Varmus discuss the genesis of this article, the core issues that require attention, and the need to involve the greater scientific community in the process of ensuring the vitality of the biomedical research enterprise.

Speaker Bio

Harold Varmus

Varmus was recently appointed as Director of the National Cancer Institute. He was previously President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Director of the National Institutes of Health. In 1989, while on faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, Varmus and J. M. Bishop won the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for their… Continue Reading

Shirley Tilghman

Shirley Tilghman

Shirley Tilghman is the President Emerita and Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. Dr. Tilghman is a strong visionary and leader in academic research and higher-level education. As President of Princeton University for 13 years (2001-2013), she implemented policies and initiatives that supported better training of Princeton students and increased diversity in the faculty… Continue Reading

Marc Kirschner

Marc Kirschner is the founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. Prior to that, he Chaired the Department of Cell Biology at the same institution for ten years. Before moving to Harvard he was a Professor at the University of California in San Francisco for fifteen years. Prior to his… Continue Reading

Bruce Alberts

Bruce Alberts is currently the Chancellor’s Leadership Chair in Biochemistry and Biophysics for Science and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, and served as Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine (2008-2013), President of the National Academy of Sciences (1993-2005), and United States Science Envoy (2009-2011). Alberts, who has dedicated his career to promoting science education and international… Continue Reading

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