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5.

Facing the credit crunch. Politics sends mixed messages for science in the wake of the global financial crisis

Hunter P 《EMBO reports》2010,11(12):924-926

The global response to the credit crunch has varied from belt tightening to spending sprees. Philip Hunter investigates how various countries react to the financial crisis in terms of supporting scientific research.The overall state of biomedical research in the wake of the global financial crisis remains unclear amid growing concern that competition for science funding is compromising the pursuit of research. Such concerns pre-date the credit crunch, but there is a feeling that an increasing amount of time and energy is being wasted in the ongoing scramble for grants, in the face of mounting pressure from funding agencies demanding value for money. Another problem is balancing funding between different fields; while the biomedical sciences have generally fared well, they are increasingly dependent on basic research in physics and chemistry that are in greater jeopardy. This has led to calls for rebalancing funding, in order to ensure the long-term viability of all fields in an increasingly multidisciplinary and collaborative research world.For countries that are cutting funding—such as Spain, Italy and the UK—the immediate priority is to preserve the fundamental research base and avoid a significant drain of expertise, either to rival countries or away from science altogether. This has highlighted the plight of postdoctoral researchers who have traditionally been the first to suffer from funding cuts, partly because they have little immediate impact on on a country''s scientific competitiveness. Postdocs have been the first to go whenever budgets have been cut, according to Richard Frankel, a physicist at California Polytechnic State University in Saint Luis Obispo, who investigates magnetotaxis in bacteria. “In the short term there will be little effect but the long-term effects can be devastating,” he said.…there is a feeling that an increasing amount of time and energy is being wasted in the ongoing scramble for grants, in the face of mounting pressure from funding agencies…According to Peter Stadler, head of a bioinformatics group at the University of Leipzig in Germany, such cuts tend to cause the long-term erosion of a country''s science skills base. “Short-term cuts in science funding translate totally into a brain drain, since they predominantly affect young researchers who are paid from the soft money that is drying up first,” said Stadler. “They either leave science, an irreversible step, or move abroad but do not come back later, because the medium-term effect of cuts is a reduction in career opportunities and fiercer competition giving those already in the system a big advantage.”Even when young researchers are not directly affected, the prevailing culture of short-term funding—which requires ongoing grant applications—can be disruptive, according to Xavier Salvatella, principal investigator in the Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Barcelona, Spain. “I do not think the situation is dramatic but too much time is indeed spent writing proposals,” he commented. “Because success rates are decreasing, the time devoted to raise funds to run the lab necessarily needs to increase.”At the University of Adelaide in Australia, Andrew Somogyi, professor of pharmacology, thinks that the situation is serious: “[M]y postdocs would spend about half their time applying for grants.” Somogyi pointed out that the success rate has been declining in Australia, as it has in some other countries. “For ARC [Australian Research Council] the success rate is now close to 20%, which means many excellent projects don''t get funding because the assessment is now so fine cut,” he said.Similar developments have taken place in the USA at both the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—which provides US$16 billion funding per year and the American Cancer Society (ACS), the country''s largest private non-profit funder of cancer research, with a much smaller pot of US$120 million per year. The NIH funded 21% of research proposals submitted to it in 2009, compared with 32% a decade earlier, while the ACS approves only 15% of grant applications, down several percentage points over the past few years.While the NIH is prevented by federal law from allowing observers in to its grant review meetings, the ACS did allow a reporter from Nature to attend one of its sessions on the condition that the names of referees and the applications themselves were not revealed (). The general finding was that while the review process works well when around 30% of proposals are successful, it tends to break down as the success rate drops, as more arbitrary decisions are made and the risk of strong pitches being rejected increases. This can also discourage the best people from being reviewers because the process becomes more tiring and time-consuming.Even when young researchers are not directly affected, the prevailing culture of short-term funding—which requires ongoing grant applications—can be disruptive…In some countries, funding shortfalls are also leading to the loss of permanent jobs, for example in the UK where finance minister George Osborne announced on October 20 that the science budget would be frozen at £4.6 billion, rather than cut as had been expected. Even so, combined with the cut in funding for universities that was announced on the same day, this raises the prospect of reductions in academic staff numbers, which could affect research projects. This follows several years of increasing funding for UK science. Such uncertainty is damaging, according to Cornelius Gross, deputy head of the mouse biology unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Monterotondo, Italy. “Large fluctuations in funding have been shown to cause damage beyond their direct magnitude as can be seen in the US where the Clinton boom was inevitably followed by a slowdown that led to rapid and extreme tightening of budgets,” he said.Some countries are aware of these dangers and have acted to protect budgets and, in some cases, even increase spending. A report by the OECD argued that countries and companies that boosted research and development spending during the ‘creative destruction'' of an economic downturn tended to gain ground on their competitors and emerge from the crisis in a relatively stronger position (OECD, 2009). This was part of the rationale of the US stimulus package, which was intended to provide an immediate lift to the economy and has been followed by a slight increase in funding. The NIH''s budget is set to increase by $1 billion, or 3% from 2010 to 2011, reaching just over $32 billion. This looks like a real-term increase, since inflation in the USA is now between 1 and 2%. However, there are fears that budgets will soon be cut; even now the small increase at the Federal level is being offset by cuts in state support, according to Mike Seibert, research fellow at the US Department of Energy''s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “The stimulus funds are disappearing in the US, and the overall budget for science may be facing a correction at the national level as economic, budget, and national debt issues are addressed,” he said. “The states in most cases are suffering their own budget crises and will be cutting back on anything that is not nailed down.”…countries and companies that boosted research and development spending during the ‘creative destruction'' of an economic downturn tended to gain ground on their competitors…In Germany, the overall funding situation is also confused by a split between the Federal and 16 state governments, each of which has its own budget for science. In contrast to many other countries though, both federal and state governments have responded boldly to the credit crisis by increasing the total budget for the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)—Germany''s largest research funding agency—to €2.3 billion in 2011. Moreover, total funding for research and education from the BMBF (Federal Ministry for Education and Research) is expected to increase by another 7% from €10.9 billion in 2010 to €11.64 billion, although the overall federal budget is set to shrink by 3.8% under Germany''s austerity measures (). There have also been increases in funding from non-government sources, such as the Fraunhofer Society, Europe''s largest application-oriented research organization, which has an annual budget of €1.6 billion.The German line has been strongly applauded by the European Union, which since 2007 has channelled its funding for cutting-edge research through the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC''s current budget of €7.5 billion, which runs until 2013, was set in 2007 and negotiations for the next period have not yet begun, but the ERC''s executive agency director Jack Metthey has indicated that it will be increased: “The Commission will firmly sustain in the negotiations the view that research and innovation, central to the Europe 2020 Strategy agreed by the Member States, should be a top budgetary priority.” Metthey also implied that governments cutting funding, as the UK had been planning to do, were making a false economy that would gain only in the short term. “Situations vary at the national level but the European Commission believes that governments should maintain and even increase research and innovation investments during difficult times, because these are pro-growth, anti-crisis investments,” he said.Many other countries have to cope with flat or declining science budgets; some are therefore exploring ways in which to do more with less. In Japan, for instance, money has been concentrated on larger projects and fewer scientists, with the effect of intensifying the grant application process. Since 2002, the total Japanese government budget for science and technology has remained flat at around ¥3,500 billion—or €27 billion at current exchange rates—with a 1% annual decline in university support but increased funding for projects considered to be of high value to the economy. This culminated in March 2010 with the launch of the ¥100 billion (€880 million) programme for World Leading Innovative Research and Development on Science and Technology.But such attempts to make funding more competitive or focus it on specific areas could have unintended side effects on innovation and risk taking. One side effect can be favouring scientists who may be less creative but good at attracting grants, according to Roger Butlin, evolutionary biologist at the University of Sheffield in the UK. “Some productive staff are being targeted because they do not bring in grants, so money is taking precedence over output,” said Butlin. “This is very dangerous if it results in loss of good theoreticians or data specialists, especially as the latter will be a critical group in the coming years.”“Scientists are usually very energetic when they can pursue their own ideas and less so when the research target is too narrowly prescribed”There have been attempts to provide funding for young scientists based entirely on merit, such as the ERC ‘Starting Grant'' for top young researchers, whose budget was increased by 25% to €661 million for 2011. Although they are welcome, such schemes could also backfire unless they are supported by measures to continue supporting the scientists after these early career grants expire, according to Gross. “There are moves to introduce significant funding for young investigators to encourage independence, so called anti-brain-drain grants,” he said. “These are dangerous if provided without later independent positions for these people and a national merit-based funding agency to support their future work.”Such schemes might work better if they are incorporated into longer-term funding programmes that provide some security as well as freedom to expand a project and explore promising side avenues. Butlin cited the Canadian ‘Discovery Grant'' scheme as an example worth adopting elsewhere; it supports ongoing programmes with long-term goals, giving researchers freedom to pursue new lines of investigation, provided that they fit within the overall objective of the project.To some extent the system of ‘open calls''—supported by some European funding agencies—has the same objective, although it might not provide long-term funding. The idea is to allow scientists to manoeuvre within a broad objective, rather than confining them to specific lines of research or ‘thematic calls'', which tend to be highly focused. “The majority of funding should be distributed through open calls, rather than thematic calls,” said Thomas Höfer from the Modeling Research Group at the German Cancer Research Center & BioQuant Center in Heidelberg. “Scientists are usually very energetic when they can pursue their own ideas and less so when the research target is too narrowly prescribed. In my experience as a reviewer at both the national and EU level, open calls are also better at funding high-quality research whereas too narrow thematic calls often result in less coherent proposals.”“Cutting science, and education, is the national equivalent of a farmer eating his ‘seed corn'', and will lead to developing nation status within a generation”Common threads seems to be emerging from the different themes and opinions about funding: budgets should be consistent over time and spread fairly among all disciplines, rather than focused on targeted objectives. They should also be spread across the working lifetime of a scientist rather than being shot in a scatter-gun approach at young researchers. Finally, policies should put a greater emphasis on long-term support for the best scientists and projects, chosen for their merit. Above all, funding policy should reflect the fundamental importance of science to economies, as Seibert concluded: “Cutting science, and education, is the national equivalent of a farmer eating his ‘seed corn'', and will lead to developing nation status within a generation.” 相似文献

6.

Brain drain,brain gain or brain sharing?: New studies of the migration routes of scientists show that international mobility benefits all parties including countries that are net exporters of researchers

Philip Hunter 《EMBO reports》2013,14(4):315-318

Scientific migration has long been seen in terms of brain drain and brain gain. Recent studies show that the reality is more complex and that even exporters of skilled scientists gain in the long term.Scientists have always been ‘sans frontières'', driven by the need to acquire new knowledge and skills and to cooperate with colleagues irrespective of national borders or political divides. In fact, the migration of scientists between countries at all career stages has increased steadily over time. In a related but distinct trend, the incidence of co-authorship reflecting greater international collaboration has similarly been on the upswing. In the USA, a haven for researchers ever since the exodus of European scientists during the Second World War and to some extent before, the number of foreign citizens gaining a PhD has risen from 17% in the 1960s to nearly 40% in 2010 [1]. Almost 60% of postdocs now working in the USA are doing so on a foreign visa [2]. Similarly, in Europe, 43% of postdoctoral researchers in the life sciences are working in a country that is not their place of birth [3]. Until recently, this movement has been more between the EU member states than with countries outside, but growing efforts try to reach out beyond Europe''s borders—the EU–US Science and Technology Agreement, for instance, signed in 1998 has increased cooperation and regular meetings.At one time, migration in particular was regarded as little more than a form of trade, in which an individual country either has a surplus or a deficitRecent studies looking at scientific mobility reflect the growing awareness of how migration between countries and international collaboration confer an overall benefit for research. At one time, migration in particular was regarded as little more than a form of trade, in which an individual country either has a surplus or a deficit. Such mobility has therefore long been encouraged in the USA, which has been a net importer of scientific talent with significant benefits to its economy. However, countries that have been net exporters of talent have viewed migration as a negative phenomenon, such as in the UK where the term ‘brain drain'' was used to describe the emigration of scientists and other professionals during the 1960s and 1970s.The causes of the brain drain were attributed to non-competitive pay rates, poor resources and often a lack of high-calibre people in a particular research field. In response to the perceived lack of skilled people, various European countries began to invest more in research and actively encourage immigration to improve their science talent base, with considerable success in many cases according to the so-called GlobSci study []. The study is based on the analysis of 17,000 researchers in four fields—biology, chemistry, Earth and environmental sciences, and material sciences—across 16 countries. Although the USA used to be the leading destination for foreign researchers, it now has an incidence of foreign-born researchers of 38.4%, which puts it in fourth place just ahead of Sweden at 37.6%. Switzerland leads the pack at 56.7%, with Canada second at 46.9% and Australia third at 44.5%. Of the three main European economies, the UK is at 32.9%, Germany 23.2% and France 17.3%. Down at the bottom are Japan at 5%, Italy at 3% and India at just 0.8%. In Japan, this reflects a linguistic barrier; for Italy, it is thought to be due to the lack of resources coupled with a poor reputation tarnished by nepotism; whilst in India, cultural factors allied to low pay are probably responsible.Beyond the raw numbers, GlobSci and several other studies have drilled deeper to identify the economic benefits of scientific migration, as well as the factors that encourage or inhibit it. There have also been efforts to sift the different levels of mobility, rather than erroneously lumping in a six-month sabbatical or a trip lasting two weeks with permanent emigration. Indeed, the discussion around scientific migration has long lacked reliable information about the various aspects of migration, which has left policy-makers unable to take account of cross-border movement and collaboration in their decision-making. According to Paula Stephen, Professor of Economics at Georgia State University in the USA and one of three authors of the GlobSci study, it was this lack of consistent data that motivated her, Giuseppe Scellato, an assistant professor at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy and Chiara Franzoni, an assistant professor at the Politecnico di Milano, to do the GlobSci survey.The GlobSci study, one of the largest and most advanced migration studies, is based on bibliometric methods that are accepted as representative of migration data. The methodology involved downloading the bibliographic data of scientific articles in selected journals in 2009 and retrieving the e-mail addresses of the corresponding authors. They were sent a questionnaire to fill in to obtain background information about the co-authors.However, according to Grit Laudel, a sociologist at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, further work is needed to improve the granularity of the data to distinguish better between the categories of migration, analyse mobility within individual target disciplines and distinguish different levels of skill. Laudel points out, however, that studies still fail to distinguish between the causes of migration or eventual return to a home country, such as family reasons, financial incentives, the influence of leading people in the field and the resources available at the institution concerned. She also commented that studies need to filter cases of migration by duration, ranging from short stays, through career phases lasting perhaps two years, to permanent migration. Another point that is not captured is the disproportionate impact of the movement of leading members of a field. “The movements of elite members of a certain research field are of particular interest to science policy,” Laudel explained. “Losing [sic] them might have a large impact on the future of a certain field in a certain country.” But, she added, it remains difficult using current methods to filter out the key people, unless crude measures of definition are used such as number of citations.Laudel also commented that GlobSci has further to go to identify movement within the specialized global communities working on particular areas of research, rather than just targeting four broad disciplines. “The biggest problem is that the disciplines are not the right unit to study mobility,” said Laudel. “Researchers work and move in smaller communities within specialties. Biology and the environmental sciences for example contain very different fields with very different practices.”The other large-scale study of scientific migration is being conducted on an ongoing basis by Elsevier (http://www.researchtrends.com/issue-31-november-2012/international-scientific-migration-analysis-generates-new-insights/) and also uses bibliometric methods based on Scopus, Elsevier''s own bibliographic database, which contains 20,500 titles. “Our analysis is based on authors'' profiles,” said Gali Halevi, Senior Research Analyst and Programme Director at Elsevier. “An author profile in Scopus contains a researcher affiliation history and enables us to track their movement from country to country throughout their careers. It has its many limitations and challenges, but these are relatively minor when dealing with large numbers.”…migration stimulates the quality of research by exchanging ideas, beyond any net gain of talent, so that even an exporter of people can benefitThe Elsevier study is similar in scale to GlobSci, covers 17 countries and has reached similar conclusions. One of the most important findings is how migration stimulates the quality of research by exchanging ideas beyond any net gain of talent, so that even an exporter of people can benefit. “The most important issue is the effect of migration and collaboration upon research performance,” said Halevi, who suggested that individuals themselves probably gained from migration and ultimately achieved more in their careers than if they had stayed at home. “A case study conducted some years ago on the performance of researchers at one of the Dutch universities, Leiden University, revealed that those who after attainment of their PhD in the Netherlands conducted their post-doc training at prestigious foreign universities performed better than those who remained in the Netherlands,” Halevi explained.“Our method also enables policy-makers at the national level to track researchers who started their career in a country, but who moved abroad and continued their careers in foreign institutions. This information can play an important role in programmes aimed to invite researchers who went abroad to return to their home country.” He added that Elsevier would be able to drill down into sub-disciplines, in the way that Laudel has suggested, to analyse how migration affects each field. “We do expect to have more to offer decision-makers when we identify migration by discipline. For example, if we see that most of the researchers who leave the USA are stem cell researchers who go, let''s say, to China to do their research, that''s something policy-makers can learn from. By analysing the disciplinary movement we will also be able to identify strengths and weakness in the research infrastructure—where we are lacking and where we are strong based on the draw for researchers.”According to Stephen, the GlobSci study has already shown that migration delivers overall benefits by stimulating research networks and knowledge exchange. “Scientists who migrate are more likely to have international collaborations, and some of these collaborations are with scientists in the home country, so the home country benefits in this way even if they do not return,” she said, noting that 40% of the migrant scientists surveyed in GlobSci have retained research links with their country of origin.But the biggest gainers from migration could be the labs that attract people from different backgrounds and disciplines to create a dynamic team. This seems to be the case at the neuroscience lab run by husband and wife Yuh Nung Jan and Lily Jan at the University of California, San Francisco, which has spawned many publications and 92 primary investigators out of 128 former lab members. The Jans were themselves migrants from Taiwan in the 1970s, and, on setting up the lab, initially hired home-born scientists in the early 1980s. But they have increasingly hired a wider variety of foreign researchers, from Germans to Indians to Canadians. The crucial point is mobility, according to Yuh Nung Jan, rather than the origin of the scientists, because the mix of nationalities brings dynamism, collaborative links and a wider talent pool on which to draw. “Mobility of scientists is very important, both for my lab and the success of US science,” he said. “On the one hand, we have been very fortunate to have a continuous stream of wonderfully talented students and postdocs, both American-origin and foreign-born, coming through our lab. [...] On the other hand, most of them went on to become principal investigators, namely faculty members or group leaders, all over the world, and their research groups have made substantial contributions to science.” But Jan also emphasized that an international team provides benefits that are perhaps not measurable. “Having a very international lab enriches the experiences, both scientifically and culturally, for all of us.”One benefit that might be measurable is the extent to which cultural diversity within a lab enhances the level of collaboration. However, the Elsevier study has shown that whilst migration and collaboration, measured by co-authorship between institutions and across borders, are related both conceptually and statistically, they are distinct aspects of globalization that are influenced by different factors. “Our study of 17 countries has shown that there is a difference between co-authorship and migration trends,” Halevi said. “From the data available, it is apparent that common language and geographical proximity drive international migration more strongly than it drives co-authorships. In addition, it seems that the effect of political tensions is smaller on migration than it is on co-authorship. For example, there is migration from Iran to the USA, despite the political tensions between the two countries. However, there is less co-authorship between the two. When you think about it, that makes sense. Authors are bound by the institutions they work for and are subject to guidelines and restrictions. However, migrating is often a personal decision and as such not bound by politics.”But the biggest gainers from migration could be the labs that attract people from different backgrounds and disciplines to create a dynamic teamHalevi also noted the impact of language and geography on migration, which is why Japan failed to attract many foreign scientists according to the GlobSci study. In addition, some countries tend to have more temporary migration, whereby researchers move to a different country to complete an academic degree or residency but return to continue their career and subsequent work. “This type of migration supports the development of the country''s professional skills levels and infrastructure, and there are rising numbers of such exchanges,” Halevi said.Another aspect of globalization relating to collaboration, rather than migration, is the link between basic and applied research. There was a view, promoted for example by the UK''s prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, that a country could afford to neglect fundamental research and let others do that, to concentrate on technology transfer and applied work of more immediate apparent economic benefit. This view has since been totally refuted, according to Daniel Calto, Director of Solution Services Institutional Markets, Academic and Government at Elsevier. “There have been a variety of economic studies that have shown fairly conclusively that both basic and applied research have strong net positive payouts for national economies which invest in them,” he said. Thatcher''s view failed to take account of the stimulating effect of basic research and its interplay with applied development and technology transfer.“Most fundamental discoveries continue to be made where basic science activity is strongest, and having a strong basic science core is a fairly reliable proxy for the overall level of innovation in an economy,” Calto said. “If one looks at the densest and most productive technology and innovation nodes globally, including Silicon Valley, Route 128 in Massachusetts, the biomedical complexes in Boston and Maryland, the biology/genetics core in Orange County/San Diego, Cambridge''s ‘Silicon Fen'' in the UK, London''s innovation hub, the computer sciences corridor in Tel Aviv, or newer R&D nodes like Beijing, Bangalore and Berlin, almost without exception there is a strong core of leading universities doing fundamental basic science research in those areas.”Moreover, a strong basic research core also helps to attract the best scientists, which comes back to the migration question. Calto is therefore convinced that his data is telling him that ‘brain circulation'', as it should now be called, rather than ‘brain drain'', is a great stimulus for global scientific progress. “My interpretation is that our data indicate pretty clearly that scholars who circulate outside of their own countries are more productive than those who do not, whether they have a short-term stay of less than two years or a longer one,” he said. “This holds true regardless of the country analysed.” 相似文献

7.

Crop shortages

Howard Wolinsky 《EMBO reports》2010,11(7):508-510

A lack of breeders to apply the knowledge from plant science is jeopardizing public breeding programmes and the training of future plant scientistsIn the midst of an economic downturn, many college and university students in the USA face an uncertain future. There is one crop of graduates, though, who need not worry about unemployment: plant breeders. “Our students start with six-digit salaries once they leave and they have three or four offers. We have people coming to molecular biology and they can''t find jobs. People coming to plant breeding, they have as many jobs as they want,” said Edward Buckler, a geneticist with the US Department of Agriculture''s Agricultural Research Service Institute for Genomic Diversity at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY, USA).The lure of Big Ag depletes universities and research institutes of plant breeders […] and jeopardizes the training of future generations of plant scientists and breedersThe secret behind the success of qualified breeders on the job market is that they can join ‘Big Ag''—big agriculture—that is, major seed companies. Roger Boerma, coordinator of academic research for the Center for Applied Genetic Technologies at the University of Georgia (Athens, GA, USA), said that most of his graduate and postdoctoral students find jobs at companies such as Pioneer, Monsanto and Syngenta, rather than working in the orchards and fields of academic research. According to Todd Wehner, a professor and cucurbit breeder at the Department of Horticultural Science, North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC, USA), the best-paying jobs—US$100,000 plus good benefits and research conditions—are at seed companies that deal with the main crops (Guner & Wehner, 2003). By contrast, university positions typically start at US$75,000 and tenure track.As a result, Wehner said, public crop breeding in the USA has begun to disappear. “To be clear, there is no shortage of plant breeders,” he said. “There is a shortage of plant breeders in the public sector.” The lure of Big Ag depletes universities and research institutes of plant breeders—who, after all, are the ones who create new plant varieties for agriculture—and jeopardizes the training of future generations of plant scientists and breeders. Moreover, there is an increasing demand for breeders to address the challenge of creating environmentally sustainable ways to grow more food for an increasing human population on Earth.At the same time, basic plant research is making rapid progress. The genomes of most of the main crop plants and many vegetables have been sequenced, which has enabled researchers to better understand the molecular details of how plants fend off pests and pathogens, or withstand drought and flooding. This research has also generated molecular markers—short regions of DNA that are linked to, for example, better resistance to fungi or other pathogens. So-called marker-assisted breeding based on this information is now able to create new plant varieties more effectively than would be possible with the classical strategy of crossing, selection and backcrossing.However, applying the genomic knowledge requires both breeders and plant scientists with a better understanding of each other''s expertise. As David Baulcombe, professor of botany at the University of Cambridge, UK, commented, “I think the important gap is actually in making sure that the fundamental scientists working on genomics understand breeding, and equally that those people doing breeding understand the potential of genomics. This is part of the translational gap. There''s incomplete understanding on both sides.”…applying the genomic knowledge requires both breeders and plant scientists with a better understanding of each other''s expertiseIn the genomic age, plant breeding has an image problem: like other hands-on agricultural work, it is dirty and unglamorous. “A research project in agriculture in the twenty-first century resembles agriculture for farmers in the eighteenth century,” Wehner said. “Harvesting in the fields in the summer might be considered one of the worst jobs, but not to me. I''m harvesting cucumbers just like everybody else. I don''t mind working at 105 degrees, with 95% humidity and insects biting my ankles. I actually like that. I like that better than office work.”For most students, however, genomics is the more appealing option as a cutting-edge and glamorous research field. “The exciting photographs that you always see are people holding up glass test tubes and working in front of big computer screens,” Wehner explained.In addition, Wehner said that federal and state governments have given greater priority and funding to molecular genetics than to plant breeding. “The reason we''ve gone away from plant breeding of course is that faculty can get competitive grants for large amounts of money to do things that are more in the area of molecular genetics,” he explained. “Plant breeders have switched over to molecular genetics because they can get money there and they can''t get money in plant breeding.”“The frontiers of science shifted from agriculture to genetics, especially the genetics of corn, wheat and rice,” agreed Richard Flavell, former Director of the John Innes Centre (Norwich, UK) and now Chief Scientific Officer of Ceres (Thousand Oaks, CA, USA). “As university departments have chased their money, chased the bright students, they have [focused on] programmes that pull in research dollars on the frontiers, and plant breeding has been left behind as something of a Cinderella subject.”In the genomic age, plant breeding has an image problem: like other hands-on agricultural work, it is dirty and unglamorousIn a sense, public plant breeding has become a victim of its own success. Wehner explained that over the past century, the protection of intellectual property has created a profitable market for private corporations to the detriment of public programmes. “It started out where they could protect seed-propagated crops,” he said. “The companies began to hire plant breeders and develop their own varieties. And that started the whole agricultural business, which is now huge.”As a result, Wehner said, the private sector can now outmanoeuvre public breeders at will. “[Seed companies] have huge teams that can go much faster than I can go. They have winter nurseries and big greenhouses and lots of pathologists and molecular geneticists and they have large databases and seed technologists and sales reps and catalogue artists and all those things. They can do much faster cucumber breeding than I can. They can beat me in any area that they choose to focus on.”He said that seed corporations turn only to public breeders when they are looking for rare seeds obtained on expeditions around the world or special knowledge. These crops and the breeders and other scientists who work on them receive far less financial support from government than do the more profitable crops, such as corn and soybean. In effect, these crops are in an analogous position to orphan drugs that receive little attention because the patients who need them represent a small economic market.The dwindling support for public breeding programmes is also a result of larger political developments. Since the 1980s, when British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and US President Ronald Regan championed the private sector in all things, government has consistently withdrawn support for public research programmes wherever the private sector can profit. “Plant breeding programmes are expensive. My programme costs about US$500,000 a year to run for my crops, watermelon and cucumber. Universities don''t want to spend that money if they don''t have to, especially if it''s already being done by the private sector,” Wehner said.“Over the last 30 years or so, food supplies and food security have fallen off the agenda of policymakers”…“Over the last 30 years or so, food supplies and food security have fallen off the agenda of policymakers,” Baulcombe explained. “Applied research in academic institutions is disappearing, and so the opportunities for linking the achievements of basic research with applications, at least in the public sector, are disappearing. You''ve got these two areas of the work going in opposite directions.”There''s another problem for plant breeding in the publish-or-perish world of academia. According to Ian Graham, Director of the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products at York University in the UK, potential academics in the plant sciences are turned off by plant breeding as a discipline because it is difficult to publish the research in high-impact journals.Graham, who is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to breed new varieties of Artemisia—the plant that produces the anti-malarial compound artemisinin—said this could change. “Now with the new [genomic] technologies, the whole subject of plant breeding has come back into the limelight. We can start thinking seriously about not just the conventional crops […] but all the marginal crops as well that we can really start employing these technologies on and doing exciting science and linking phenotypes to genes and phenotypes to the underlying biology,” he said. “It takes us back again closer to the science. That will bring more people into plant breeding.”…potential academics in the plant sciences are turned off by plant breeding as a discipline because it is difficult to publish the research in high-impact journalsBuckler, who specializes in functional genomic approaches to dissect complex traits in maize, wheat and Arabidopsis, said that public breeding still moves at a slower pace. “The seed companies are trying to figure out how to move genomics from gene discovery all the way to the breeding side. And it''s moving forward,” he said. “There have been some real intellectual questions that people are trying to overcome as to how fast to integrate genomics. I think it''s starting to occur also with a lot of the public breeders. A lot of it has been that the cost of genotyping, especially for specialty crops, was too high to develop marker systems that would really accelerate breeding.”Things might be about to change on the cost side as well. Buckler said that decreasing costs for sequencing and genotyping will give public breeding a boost. Using today''s genomic tools, researchers and plant breeders could match the achievements of the last century in maize breeding within three years. He said that comparable gains could be made in specialty crops, the forte of public breeding. “Right now, most of the simulations suggest that we can accelerate it about threefold,” Buckler said. “Maybe as our knowledge increases, maybe we can approach a 15-fold rate increase.”Indeed, the increasing knowledge from basic research could well contribute to significant advances in the coming years. “We''ve messed around with genes in a rather blind, sort of non-predictive process,” said Scott Jackson, a plant genomics expert at Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN, USA), who headed the team that decoded the soybean genome (). “Having a full genome sequence, having all the genes underlying all the traits in whatever plant organism you''re looking at, makes it less blind. You can determine which genes affect the trait and it has the potential to make it a more predictive process where you can take specific genes in combinations and you can predict what the outcome might be. I think that''s where the real revolution in plant breeding is going to come.”Nevertheless, the main problem that could hold back this revolution is a lack of trained people in academia and the private sector. Ted Crosbie, Head of Plant Breeding at Monsanto (St Louis, MO, USA), commented at the national Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee meeting in 2008 that “[w]e, in the plant breeding industry, face a number of challenges. More plant breeders are reaching retirement age at a time when the need for plant breeders has never been greater […] We need to renew our nation''s capacity for plant breeding.”“…with the new [genomic] technologies, the whole subject of plant breeding has come back into the limelight”Dry bean breeder James Kelly, a professor of crop and soil sciences at Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI, USA), said while there has been a disconnect between public breeders and genomics researchers, new federal grants are designed to increase collaboration.In the meantime, developing countries such as India and China have been filling the gap. “China is putting a huge amount of effort into agriculture. They actually know the importance of food. They have plant breeders all over the place,” Wehner said. “The US is starting to fall behind. And now, agricultural companies are looking around wondering—where are we going to get our plant breeders?”To address the problem, major agriculture companies have begun to fund fellowships to train new plant breeders. Thus far, Buckler said, these efforts have had only a small impact. He noted that 500 new PhDs a year are needed just in maize breeding. “It''s not uncommon for the big companies like Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta to spend money on training, on endowing chairs at universities,” Flavell said. “It''s good PR, but they''re serious about the need for breeders.”The US government has also taken some measures to alleviate the problem. Congress decided to establish the US National Institute of Food and Agriculture (Washington, DC, USA) under the auspices of the US Department of Agriculture to make more efficient use of research money, advance the application of plant science and attract new students to plant breeding (see the interview with Roger Beachy in this issue, pp 504–507). Another approach is to use distance education to train breeders, such as technicians who want to advance their careers, in certificate programmes rather than master''s or doctorate programmes.“If [breeding] is not done in universities in the public sector, where is it done?”…“If [breeding] is not done in universities in the public sector, where is it done?” Flavell asked about the future of public breeding. “I can wax lyrical and perhaps be perceived as being over the top, but if we''re going to manage this planet on getting more food out of less land, this has to be almost one of the highest things that has got to be taken care of by government.” Wehner added, “The public in the developed world thinks food magically appears in grocery stores. There is no civilization without agriculture. Without plant breeders to work on improving our crops, civilization is at risk.” 相似文献

8.

Funding in the firing line

Wolinsky H 《EMBO reports》2011,12(8):772-774

With large charities such as the Wellcome Trust or the Gates Foundation committed to funding research, is there a risk that politicians could cut public funding for science?Towards the end of 2010, with the British economy reeling from the combined effects of the global recession, the burst bubble of property speculation and a banking crisis, the country came close to cutting its national science and research budget by up to 25%. UK Business Secretary Vince Cable argued, “there is no justification for taxpayers'' money being used to support research which is neither commercially useful nor theoretically outstanding” (BBC, 2010). The outcry from UK scientists was both passionate and reasoned until, in the end, the British budget slashers blinked and the UK government backed down. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced in October that the government would freeze science and research funding at £4.6 billion per annum for four years, although even this represents about a 10% cut in real terms, because of inflation.“there is no justification for taxpayers'' money being used to support research which is neither commercially useful nor theoretically outstanding”There has been a collective sigh of relief. Sir John Savill, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council (UK), said: “The worst projections for cuts to the science budget have not been realised. It''s clear that the government has listened to and acted on the evidence showing investment in science is vital to securing a healthy, sustainable and prosperous future.”Yet Britain is unusual compared with its counterparts elsewhere in the European Union (EU) and the USA, because private charities, such as the Wellcome Trust (London, UK) and Cancer Research UK (London, UK), already have budgets that rival those of their government counterparts. It was this fact, coupled with UK Prime Minister David Cameron''s idea of the ‘big society''—a vision of smaller government, increased government–private partnerships and a bigger role for non-profit organizations, such as single-disease-focused charities—that led the British government to contemplate reducing its contribution to research, relying on the private sector to pick up the slack.Jonathan Grant, president of RAND Europe (London, UK)—a not-for-profit research institute that advises on policy and decision-making—commented: “There was a strong backlash and [the UK Government] pulled back from that position [to cut funding]. But that''s the first time I''ve really ever seen it floated as a political idea; that government doesn''t need to fund cancer research because we''ve got all these not-for-profits funding it.”“…that''s the first time I''ve really ever seen it floated as a political idea; that government doesn''t need to fund cancer research because we''ve got all these not-for-profits funding it”But the UK was not alone in mooting the idea that research budgets might have to suffer under the financial crisis. Some had worried that declining government funding of research would spread across the developed world, although the worst of these fears have not been realized.Peter Gruss, President of the Max Planck Society (Munich, Germany), explained that his organization receives 85% of its more-than €1.5 billion budget from the public purses of the German federal government, German state ministries and the EU, and that not all governments have backed away from their commitment to research. In fact, during the crisis, the German and US governments boosted their funding of research with the goal of helping the economic recovery. In 2009, German Chancellor Angela Merkel''s government, through negotiation with the German state science ministries, approved a windfall of €18 billion in new science funding, to be spread over the next decade. Similarly, US President Barack Obama''s administration boosted spending on research with a temporary stimulus package for science, through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.Even so, Harry Greenberg, Senior Associate Dean for Research at Stanford University (California, USA) pointed out that until the US government injected stimulus funding, the budget at the National Institutes of Health (NIH; Bethesda, Maryland, USA) had essentially “been flat as a pancake for five or six years, and that means that it''s actually gone down and it''s having an effect on people being able to sustain their research mission.”Similarly, Gruss said that the research community should remain vigilant. “I think one could phrase it as there is a danger. If you look at Great Britain, there is the Wellcome Trust, a very strong funding organization for life sciences and medical-oriented, health-oriented research. I think it''s in the back of the minds of the politicians that there is a gigantic foundation that supports that [kind of research]. I don''t think one can deny that. There is an atmosphere that people like the Gates family [Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation] invests in health-related issues, particularly in the poorer countries [and that] maybe that is something that suffices.”The money available for research from private foundations and charities is growing in both size and scope. According to Iain Mattaj, Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL; Heidelberg, Germany), this growth might not be a bad thing. As he pointed out, private funding often complements government funding, with charities such as the Wellcome Trust going out of their way to leverage government spending without reducing government contributions. “My feeling is that the reason that the UK government is freezing research funding has all to do with economics and nothing to do with the fact that there are potentially private funders,” he said. “Several very large charities in particular are putting a lot of money into health research. The Gates Foundation is the biggest that has just come on the scene, but the Howard Hughes Medical Institute [HHMI; Chevy Chase, Maryland, USA] and the Wellcome Trust are very big, essentially private charities which have their own agendas.”…charities such as the Wellcome Trust [go] out of their way to leverage government spending without reducing government contributionscontributions Open in a separate window© CorbisBut, as he explained, these charities actually contribute to the overall health research budget, rather than substituting funds from one area to another. In fact, they often team up to tackle difficult research questions in partnership with each other and with government. Two-thirds of the €140 million annual budget of EMBL comes from the European states that agree to fund it, with additional contributions from private sources such as the Wellcome Trust and public sources such as the NIH.Yet over the years, as priorities have changed, the focus of those partnerships and the willingness to spend money on certain research themes or approaches has shifted, both within governments and in the private sector. Belief in the success of US President Richard Nixon''s famous ‘war on cancer'', for example, has waned over the years, although the fight and the funding continues. “I don''t want to use the word political, because of course the decisions are sometimes political, but actually it was a social priority to fight cancer. It was a social priority to fight AIDS,” Mattaj commented. “For the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation, which are fighting tropical diseases, they see that as a social necessity, rather than a personal interest if you like.”Nevertheless, Mattaj is not surprised that there is an inclination to reduce research spending in the UK and many smaller countries battered by the economic downturn. “Most countries have to reduce public spending, and research is public spending. It may be less badly hit than other aspects of public spending. [As such] it''s much better off than many other aspects of public spending.”A shift away from government funding to private funding, especially from disease-focused charities, worries some that less funding will be available for basic, curiosity-driven research—a move from pure research to ‘cure'' research. Moreover, charities are often just as vulnerable to economic downturns, so relying on them is not a guarantee of funding in harsh economic times. Indeed, greater reliance on private funding would be a return to the era of ‘gentlemen scientists'' and their benefactors (Sidebar A).

Sidebar A | Gentlemen scientists

Greater reliance on private funding would return science to a bygone age of gentlemen scientists relying on the largesse of their wealthy sponsors. In 1831, for example, naturalist Charles Darwin''s (1809–1882) passage on the HMS Beagle was paid for by his father, albeit reluctantly. According to Laura Snyder, an expert on Victorian science and culture at St John''s University (New York, USA), by the time Darwin returned to England in 1836, the funding game had changed and government and private scientific societies had begun to have a bigger role. When Sir John Frederick William Herschel (1791–1871), an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, experimental photographer and inventor, journeyed to Cape Colony in 1833, the British government offered to give him a free ride aboard an Admiralty ship. “Herschel turned them down because he wanted to be free to do whatever he wanted once he got to South Africa, and he didn''t want to feel beholden to government to do what they wanted him to do,” Snyder explained, drawing from her new book The Philosophical Breakfast Club, which covers the creation of the modern concept of science.Charles Babbage (1791–1871), the mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer, was a member of the same circle as Herschel and William Whewell (1794–1866), a polymath, geologist, astronomer and theologian, who coined the word ''scientist''. Although he was wealthy, having inherited £100,000 in 1827—valued at about £13.3 million in 2008—Babbage felt that government should help pay for his research that served the public interest.“Babbage was asking the government constantly for money to build his difference engine,” Snyder said. Babbage griped about feeling like a tradesman begging to be paid. “It annoyed him. He felt that the government should just have said, ''We will support the engine, whatever it is that you need, just tell us and we''ll write you a check''. But that''s not what the government was about to do.”Instead, the British government expected Babbage to report on his progress before it loosened its purse strings. Snyder explained, “What the government was doing was a little bit more like grants today, in the sense that you have to justify getting more money and you have to account for spending the money. Babbage just wanted an open pocketbook at his disposal.”In the end the government donated £17,000, and Babbage never completed the machine.Janet Rowley, a geneticist at the University of Chicago, is worried that the change in funding will make it more difficult to obtain money for the kind of research that led to her discovery in the 1970s of the first chromosomal translocations that cause cancer. She calls such work ‘fishing expeditions''. She said that the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (White Plains, New York, USA), for example—a non-profit funder of research—has modified its emphasis: “They have now said that they are going to put most of their resources into translational work and trying to take ideas that are close to clinical application, but need what are called incubator funds to ramp up from a laboratory to small-scale industrial production to increase the amount of compound or whatever is required to do studies on more patients.”This echoes Vince Cable''s view that taxpayers should not have to spend money on research that is not of direct economic, technological or health benefit to them. But if neither charities nor governments are willing to fund basic research, then who will pay the bill?…if neither charities nor governments are willing to fund basic research, then who will pay the bill?Iain Mattaj believes that the line between pure research and cure research is actually too blurred to make these kinds of funding distinctions. “In my view, it''s very much a continuum. I think many people who do basic research are actually very interested in the applications of their research. That''s just not their expertise,” he said. “I think many people who are at the basic end of research are more than happy to see things that they find out contributing towards things that are useful for society.”Jack Dixon, Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at HHMI, also thinks that the line is blurry: “This divide between basic research and translational research is somewhat arbitrary, somewhat artificial in nature. I think every scientist I know who makes important, basic discoveries likes to [...] see their efforts translate into things that help humankind. Our focus at the Hughes has always been on basic things, but we love to see them translated into interesting products.” Even so, HHMI spends less than US $1 billion annually on research, which is overshadowed by the $30 billion spent by the NIH and the relatively huge budgets of the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK. “We''re a small player in terms of the total research funding in the US, so I just don''t see the NIH pulling back on supporting research,” Dixon said.By way of example, Brian Druker, Professor of Medicine at the Oregon Health & Science University (Portland, Oregon, USA) and a HHMI scientist, picked up on Rowley''s work with cancer-causing chromosomal translocations and developed the blockbuster anti-cancer drug, imatinib, marketed by Novartis. “Brian Druker is one of our poster boys in terms of the work he''s done and how that is translated into helping people live longer lives that have this disease,” Dixon commented.There is a similar view at Stanford. The distinction between basic and applied is “in the eye of the beholder,” Greenberg said. “Basic discovery is the grist for the mill that leads to translational research and new breakthroughs. It''s always been a little difficult to convey, but at least here at Stanford, that''s number one. Number two, many of our very basic researchers enjoy thinking about the translational or clinical implications of their basic findings and some of them want to be part of doing it. They want some benefit for mankind other than pure knowledge.”“Basic discovery is the grist for the mill that leads to translational research and new breakthroughs”If it had not backed down from the massive cuts to the research budget that were proposed, the intention of the UK Government to cut funding for basic, rather than applied, research might have proven difficult to implement. Identifying which research will be of no value to society is like trying to decide which child will grow up to be Prime Minister. Nevertheless, most would agree that governments have a duty to get value-for-money for the taxpayer, but defining the value of research in purely economic or translational terms is both short-sighted and near impossible. Even so, science is feeling the economic downturn and budgets are tighter than they have been for a long time. As Greenberg concluded, “It''s human nature when everybody is feeling the pinch that you think [yours] is bigger than the next guy''s, but I would be hard pressed to say who is getting pinched, at least in the biomedical agenda, more than who else.” 相似文献

9.

Will we wake up to biodiversity?: The International Year of Biodiversity has failed to raise awareness or halt decline as economic crises and political interests have sidelined the environment

Wolinsky H 《EMBO reports》2011,12(12):1226-1229

Looking back on the International Year of Biodiversity, some conservationists hope that it has raised awareness, if nothing else. Even so, many scientists remain pessimistic about our efforts to halt biodiversity decline.The United Nations'' (UN) International Year of Biodiversity in 2010 was supposed to see the adoption of measures that would slow global environmental decline and the continuing loss of endangered species and habitats. Even before, in 2002, most UN members had committed to halting the decline in biodiversity, which is a measure of the health of ecosystems. But the results of these international efforts have been funereal. Moreover, the current global economic crisis, coupled with growing anti-science attitudes in the USA, are adding to the concern of scientists about whether there is the political will to address the loss of biodiversity and whether habitat loss and extinction rates are reaching a point of no return.“There is not a single report received last year that claimed to have stopped or reduced the loss of biodiversity”Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity under the UN Environment Programme based in Montreal, Canada, said that of the 175 national reports submitted as part of the International Year of Biodiversity to his agency last year, none reported any progress. “There is not a single report received last year that claimed to have stopped or reduced the loss of biodiversity,” he said. “These reports confirm that the rate of loss of biodiversity today is unprecedented and the rate is 1,000 higher than the rate of natural extinction on species, and [his agency''s Global Biodiversity Outlook 2010; UN, 2010a] predicts that if business is allowed to continue then major ecosystems, the ocean, the fish, the forests, will reach the tipping point, meaning that there will be irreversible and irreparable damage done to the ecosystems.”The UN campaign traces its roots to the European Union (EU) commitment in 2001 to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010. The 2010 goal was incorporated into the UN Millennium Development Goals because of the severe impact of biodiversity loss on human well-being. However, the EU last year conceded in a report that it missed its 2010 target, too. The EU''s Biodiversity Action Plan, launched in 2006, shows that Europe''s biodiversity “remains under severe threat from the excessive demands we are making on our environment, such as changes in land use, pollution, invasive species and climate change.” Yet, EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik has seen some positive signs: “We have learned some very important lessons and managed to raise biodiversity to the top of the political agenda. But we need everyone on board and not just in Europe. The threat around the world is even greater than in the EU,” he wrote last year (EC, 2010).Despite the initiative''s poor report card, Djoghlaf was upbeat about the International Year of Biodiversity. “It was a success because it was celebrated everywhere,” he said. “In Switzerland, they conducted a survey before and after the International Year of Biodiversity and they concluded that at the end of the year, 67% of all the Swiss people are now aware of biodiversity. When the year started it was 40%. People are more and more aware. In addition, biodiversity has entered the top of the political agenda.”In October 2010, delegates from 193 countries attended the UN Convention on Biodiversity in Nagoya, Japan, and adopted 20 strategic goals to be achieved by 2020 (UN, 2010b). The so-called Aichi Biodiversity Targets include increased public awareness of the values of biodiversity and the steps that individuals can take to conserve and act sustainably; the halving or halting of the rate of loss of all natural habitats, including forests; and the conservation of 17% of terrestrial and inland water, and 10% of coastal and marine areas through effective and equitable management, resulting in ecologically representative and well-connected systems. By contrast, 13% of land areas and 1% of marine areas were protected in 2010.However, the Convention on Biological Diversity is not enforceable. Anne Larigauderie, Executive Director of DIVERSITAS (Paris, France), which promotes research on biodiversity science, said that it is up to the individual countries to adopt enforceable legislation. “In principle, countries have committed. Now it depends on what individual countries are going to do with the agreement,” she said. “I would say that things are generally going in the right direction and it''s too early to tell whether or not it''s going to have an impact in terms of responding and in terms of the biodiversity itself.”Researchers, however, have been disappointed by The International Year of Biodiversity. Conservation biologist Stuart Butchart, of Birdlife International in Cambridge, UK—a partnership of non-governmental environmental organizations and colleagues from other environmental groups—compiled a list of 31 indicators to measure progress towards the 2010 goal of the International Year of Biodiversity. He and his collaborators reported in Science () that these indicators, including species population trends, extinction risks and habitat conditions, showed declines with no significant rate reductions. At the same time, indicators of pressure on biodiversity, such as resource consumption, invasive alien species, nitrogen pollution, over-exploitation and climate change impacts showed increases. “Despite some local successes and increasing responses (including extent and biodiversity coverage of protected areas, sustainable forest management, policy responses to invasive alien species and biodiversity-related aid), the rate of biodiversity loss does not appear to be slowing,” the researchers wrote.wrote.Open in a separate window© Thomas Kitchin & Victoria Hurst/Wave/CorbisButchart pointed out that even if the International Year of Biodiversity had an impact on raising awareness and reducing biodiversity loss, detecting the change would take time. He said that the International Year of Biodiversity fell short of increasing awareness in parts of government not dealing with the environment, including ministries of transport, tourism, treasury and finance. It also seems probable that the campaign had little impact on the business sector, which affects development projects with a direct impact on biodiversity. “People can''t even seem to get together on global climate change, which is a whole lot more obvious and right there,” Peter Raven, president emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St Louis, USA, explained. “Biodiversity always seems to be a sort of mysterious background thing that isn''t quite there.”“People can''t even seem to get together on global climate change, which is a whole lot more obvious and right there…”Illka Hanski, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Helsinki in Finland, said that studies such as Butchart''s “indicate that nothing really happened in 2010. Biodiversity decline continued and has been declining over the past 10 years.”Other researchers are more positive, although with reservations. Conservation biologist Thomas Eugene Lovejoy III, Heinz Center Biodiversity Chair and former president of the Center in Washington, DC, USA—a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to advancing sound environmental policy—said that economic trends affect biodiversity and that biodiversity efforts might actually be benefiting from the current global economic crisis. For example, the decline in the housing markets in the USA and Europe has reduced the demand on lumber for new construction and has led to a reduction in deforestation. “Generally speaking, when there is an economic downturn, some of the things that are pressuring biodiversity actually abate somewhat. That''s the good news. The bad news is that the ability to marshal resources to do some things proactively gets harder,” he said.Chris Thomas, a conservation biologist at the University of York in the UK, who studies ecosystems and species in the context of climate change, said that economic depressions do slow the rate of damage to the environment. “But it also takes eyes off the ball of environmental issues. It''s not clear whether these downturns, when you look over a period of a decade, make much difference or not.” Hanski agreed: “[B]ecause there is less economic activity, there may be less use of resources and such. But I don''t think this is a way to solve our problems. It won''t lead to any stable situation. It just leads to a situation where economic policies become more and more dependent on measures that try actually just to increase the growth as soon as possible.”…biodiversity efforts might actually be benefiting from the current global economic crisisRaven said that in bad times, major interests such as those involved in raising cattle, growing soybeans and clearing habitat for oil palms have reduced political clout because there is less money available for investment. But he said economic downturns do not slow poor people scrounging for sustenance in natural habitats.To overcome this attitude of neglect, Lovejoy thinks there ought to be a new type of ‘economics'' that demonstrates the benefits of biodiversity and brings the “natural world into the normal calculus.” Researchers are already making progress in this direction. Thomas said that the valuation of nature is one of the most active areas of research. “People have very different opinions as to how much of it can be truly valued. But it is a rapidly developing field,” he said. “Once you''ve decided how much something is worth, then you''ve got to ask what are the financial or other mechanisms by which the true value of this resource can be appreciated.”Hanski said that the main problem is the short-term view of economic forecasts. “Rapid use of natural resources because of short-term calculation may actually lead to a sort of exploitation rather than conservation or preservation.” He added that the emphasis on economic growth in rich societies in North America and Europe is frustrating. “We have become much richer than in 1970 when there actually was talk of zero growth in serious terms. So now we are richer and we are becoming more and more dependent on continued growth, the opposite of what we should be aiming at. It''s a problem with our society and economics clearly, but I can''t be very optimistic about the biodiversity or other environmental issues in this kind of situation.” He added that biodiversity is still taking a backseat to economics: “There is a very long way to go right now with the economic situation in Europe, it''s clear that these sorts of [biodiversity] issues are not the ones which are currently being debated by the heads of states.”The economic downturn, which has led to reduced government and private funding and declines in endowments, has also hurt organizations dedicated to preserving biodiversity. Butchart said that some of the main US conservation organizations, including the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Federation, have experienced staff cuts up to 30%. “Organizations have had to tighten their belts and reign in programmes just to stay afloat, so it''s definitely impacted the degree to which we could work effectively,” he said. “Most of the big international conservation organizations have had to lay off large numbers of staff.”…a new type of ‘economics'' that demonstrates the benefits of biodiversity and brings the “natural world into the normal calculus”Cary Fowler, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust in Rome, Italy, a public–private partnership to fund key crop collections for food security, also feels the extra challenges of the global economic crisis. “We invest our money conservatively like a foundation would in order to generate income that can reliably pay the bills in these seed banks year after year. So I''m always nervous and I have the computer on at the moment looking at what''s happening with the sovereign debt crisis here in Europe. It''s not good,” he said. “Governments are not being very generous with contributions to this area. Donors will rarely give a reason [for cutting funding].”The political situation in the USA, the world''s largest economy, is also not boding well for conservation of and research into biodiversity. The political extremism of the Republican Party during the run up to the 2012 presidential election has worried many involved in biodiversity issues. Republican contender Texas Governor Rick Perry has been described as ‘anti-science'' for his denial of man-made climate change, a switch from the position of 2008 Republican candidate John McCain. Perry was also reported to describe evolution as a “theory that''s out there, and it''s got some gaps in it” at a campaign event in New Hampshire earlier in the year.“Most of the big international conservation organizations have had to lay off large numbers of staff”Raven said this attitude is putting the USA at a disadvantage. “It drives us to an anti-intellectualism and a lack of real verification for anything which is really serious in terms of our general level of scientific education and our ability to act intelligently,” he said.Still, Larigauderie said that although the USA has not signed the conventions on biodiversity, she has seen US observers attend the meetings, especially under the Obama administration. “They just can''t speak,” she said. Meanwhile, Lovejoy said that biodiversity could get lost in the “unbelievable polarisation affecting US politics. I have worked out of Washington for 36 years now—I''ve never seen anything like this: an unwillingness to actually listen to the other side.”Raven said it is vital for the USA to commit to preserving biodiversity nationally and internationally. “It''s extremely important because our progress towards sustainability for the future will depend on our ability to handle biodiversity in large part. We''re already using about half of all the total photosynthetic productivity on land worldwide and that in turn means we''re cutting our options back badly. The US is syphoning money by selling debt and of course promoting instability all over the world,” he explained. “It''s clear that there is no solution to it other than a level population, more moderate consumption levels and new technologies altogether.”The EU and the UN have also changed the time horizon for halting the decline in biodiversity. As part of the Nagoya meeting, the UN announced the UN Decade for Biodiversity. The strategic objectives include a supporting framework for the implementation of the Biodiversity Strategic Plan 2011–2020 and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, as well as guidance to regional and international organizations, and more public awareness of biodiversity issues.But Butchart remains sceptical. “I suspect ‘decades of whatever'' have even less impact than years,” he said. “2008 was the International Year of the Potato. I don''t know how much impact that had on your life and awareness. I think there is greater awareness and greater potential to make significant progress in addressing biodiversity loss now than there was 10 years ago, but the scale of the challenge is still immense.”“…our progress towards sustainability for the future will depend on our ability to handle biodiversity in large part”Hanski has similar doubts. “I believe it''s inevitable that a very large fraction of the species on Earth will go extinct in the next hundred years. I can''t see any change to that.” But he is optimistic that some positive change can be made. “Being pessimistic doesn''t help. The nations still can make a difference.” He said he has observed ecotourism playing a role in saving some species in Madagascar, where he does some of his research.“We''re not going to fundamentally be able to wipe life off the planet,” Thomas said. “We will wipe ourselves off the planet virtually certainly before we wipe life out on Earth. However, from the point of view of humanity as a culture, and in terms of the resources we might be able to get from biodiversity indirectly or directly, if we start losing things then it takes things millions of years to ‘re-evolve'' something that does an equivalent job. From a human perspective, when we wipe lots of things out, they''re effectively permanently lost. Of course it would be fascinating and I would love to be able to come back to the planet in 10 million years and see what it looks like, assuming humans are not here and other stuff will be.”Djoghlaf, by contrast, is more optimistic about our chances: “I believe in the human survival aspect. When humankind realises that the current pattern of production and consumption and the current way that it is dealing with nature is unsustainable, we will wake up.” 相似文献

10.

Nothing but the truth

Paige Brown 《EMBO reports》2012,13(11):964-967

Many scientists blame the media for sensationalising scientific findings, but new research suggests that things can go awry at all levels, from the scientific report to the press officer to the journalist.Everything gives you cancer, at least if you believe what you read in the news or see on TV. Fortunately, everything also cures cancer, from red wine to silver nanoparticles. Of course the truth lies somewhere in between, and scientists might point out that these claims are at worst dangerous sensationalism and at best misjudged journalism. These kinds of media story, which inflate the risks and benefits of research, have led to a mistrust of the press among some scientists. But are journalists solely at fault when science reporting goes wrong, as many scientists believe [1]? New research suggests it is time to lay to rest the myth that the press alone is to blame. The truth is far more nuanced and science reporting can go wrong at many stages, from the researchers to the press officers to the diverse producers of news.Many science communication researchers suggest that science in the media is not as distorted as scientists believe, although they do admit that science reporting tends to under-represent risks and over-emphasize benefits []. “I think there is a lot less of this [misreported science] than some scientists presume. I actually think that there is a bit of laziness in the narrative around science and the media,” said Fiona Fox, Director of the UK Science Media Centre (London, UK), an independent press office that serves as a liaison between scientists and journalists. “My bottom line is that, certainly in the UK, a vast majority of journalists report science accurately in a measured way, and it''s certainly not a terrible story. Having said that, lots of things do go wrong for a number of reasons.”Fox said that the centre sees everything from fantastic press releases to those that completely misrepresent and sensationalize scientific findings. They have applauded news stories that beautifully reported the caveats and limitations of a particular scientific study, but they have also cringed as a radio talk show pitted a massive and influential body of research against a single non-scientist sceptic.“You ask, is it the press releases, is it the universities, is it the journalists? The truth is that it''s all three,” Fox said. “But even admitting that is admitting more complexity. So anyone who says that scientists and university press officers deliver perfectly accurate science and the media misrepresent it […] that really is not the whole story.”Scientists and scientific institutions today invest more time and effort into communicating with the media than they did a decade ago, especially given the modern emphasis on communicating scientific results to the public [3]. Today, there are considerable pressures on scientists to reach out and even ‘sell their work'' to public relations officers and journalists. “For every story that a journalist has hyped and sensationalized, there will be another example of that coming directly from a press release that we [scientists] hyped and sensationalized,” Fox said. “And for every time that that was a science press officer, there will also be a science press officer who will tell you, ‘I did a much more nuanced press release, but the academic wanted me to over claim for it''.”Although science public relations has helped to put scientific issues on the public agenda, there are also dangers inherent in the process of translation from original research to press release to media story. Previous research in the area of science communication has focused on conflicting scientific and media values, and the effects of science media on audiences. However, studies have raised awareness of the role of press releases in distorting information from the lab bench to published news [].In a 2011 study of genetic research claims made in press releases and mainstream print media, science communication researcher Jean Brechman, who works at the US advertising and marketing research firm Gallup & Robinson, found evidence that scientific knowledge gets distorted as it is “filtered and translated for mass communication” with “slippages and inconsistencies” occurring along the way, such that the end message does not accurately represent the original science []. Although Brechman and colleagues found a concerning point of distortion in the transition between press release and news article, they also observed a misrepresentation of the original science in a significant portion of the press releases themselves.In a previous study, Brechman and his colleagues had also concluded that “errors commonly attributed to science journalists, such as lack of qualifying details and use of oversimplified language, originate in press releases.” Even more worrisome, as Fox told a Nature commentary author in 2009, public relations departments are increasingly filling the need of the media for quick content [].Fox believes that a common characteristic of misrepresented science in press releases and the media is the over-claiming of preliminary studies. As such, the growing prevalence of rapid, short-format publications that publicize early results might be exacerbating the problem. Research has also revealed that over-emphasis on the beneficial effects of experimental medical treatments seen in press releases and news coverage, often called ‘spin'', can stem from bias in the abstract of the original scientific article itself []. Such findings warrant a closer examination of the language used in scientific articles and abstracts, as the wording and ‘spin'' of conclusions drawn by researchers in their peer-reviewed publications might have significant impacts on subsequent media coverage.Of course, some stories about scientific discoveries are just not easy to tell owing to their complexity. They are “messy, complicated, open to interpretation and ripe for misreporting,” as Fox wrote in a post on her blog On Science and the Media (fionafox.blogspot.com). They do not fit the single-page blog post or the short press release. Some scientific experiments and the peer-reviewed articles and media stories that flow from them are inherently full of caveats, contexts and conflicting results and cannot be communicated in a short format [].In a 2012 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, Marco Bertamini at the University of Liverpool (UK) and Marcus R. Munafo at the University of Bristol (UK) suggested that a shift toward “bite-size” publications in areas of science such as psychology might be promoting more single-study models of research, fewer efforts to replicate initial findings, curtailed detailing of previous relevant work and bias toward “false alarm” or false-positive results []. The authors pointed out that larger, multi-experiment studies are typically published in longer papers with larger sample sizes and tend to be more accurate. They also suggested that this culture of brief, single-study reports based on small data sets will lead to the contamination of the scientific literature with false-positive findings. Unfortunately, false science far more easily enters the literature than leaves it [8].One famous example is that of Andrew Wakefield, whose 1998 publication in The Lancet claimed to link autism with the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination. It took years of work by many scientists, and the aid of an exposé by British investigative reporter Brian Deer, to finally force retraction of the paper. However, significant damage had already been done and many parents continue to avoid immunizing their children out of fear. Deer claims that scientific journals were a large part of the problem: “[D]uring the many years in which I investigated the MMR vaccine controversy, the worst and most inexcusable reporting on the subject, apart from the original Wakefield claims in the Lancet, was published in Nature and republished in Scientific American,” he said. “There is an enormous amount of hypocrisy among those who accuse the media of misreporting science.”What factors are promoting this shift to bite-size science? One is certainly the increasing pressure and competition to publish many papers in high-impact journals, which prefer short articles with new, ground-breaking findings.“Bibliometrics is playing a larger role in academia in deciding who gets a job and who gets promoted,” Bertamini said. “In general, if things are measured by citations, there is pressure to publish as much and as often as possible, and also to focus on what is surprising; thus, we can see how this may lead to an inflation in the number of papers but also an increase in publication bias.”Bertamini points to the real possibility that measured effects emerging from a group of small samples can be much larger than the real effect in the total population. “This variability is bad enough, but it is even worse when you consider that what is more likely to be written up and accepted for publication are exactly the larger differences,” he explained.Alongside the endless pressure to publish, the nature of the peer-reviewed publication process itself prioritizes exciting and statistically impressive results. Fluke scientific discoveries and surprising results are often considered newsworthy, even if they end up being false-positives. The bite-size article aggravates this problem in what Bertamini fears is a growing similarity between academic writing and media reporting: “The general media, including blogs and newspapers, will of course focus on what is curious, funny, controversial, and so on. Academic papers must not do the same, and the quality control system is there to prevent that.”The real danger is that, with more than one million scientific papers published every year, journalists can tend to rely on only a few influential journals such as Science and Nature for science news [3]. Although the influence and reliability of these prestigious journals is well established, the risk that journalists and other media producers might be propagating the exciting yet preliminary results published in their pages is undeniable.Fox has personal experience of the consequences of hype surrounding surprising but preliminary science. Her sister has chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), a debilitating medical condition with no known test or cure. When Science published an article in 2009 linking CFS with a viral agent, Fox was naturally both curious and sceptical []. “I thought even if I knew that this was an incredibly significant finding, the fact that nobody had ever found a biological link before also meant that it would have to be replicated before patients could get excited,” Fox explained. “And of course what happened was all the UK journalists were desperate to splash it on the front page because it was so surprising and so significant and could completely revolutionize the approach to CFS, the treatment and potential cure.”Fox observed that while some journalists placed the caveats of the study deep within their stories, others left them out completely. “I gather in the USA it was massive, it was front page news and patients were going online to try and find a test for this particular virus. But in the end, nobody could replicate it, literally nobody. A Dutch group tried, Imperial College London, lots of groups, but nobody could replicate it. And in the end, the paper has been withdrawn from Science.”For Fox, the fact that the paper was withdrawn, incidentally due to a finding of contamination in the samples, was less interesting than the way that the paper was reported by journalists. “We would want any journal press officer to literally in the first paragraph be highlighting the fact that this was such a surprising result that it shouldn''t be splashed on the front page,” she said. Of course to the journalist, waiting for the study to be replicated is anathema in a culture that values exciting and new findings. “To the scientific community, the fact that it is surprising and new means that we should calm down and wait until it is proved,” Fox warned.So, the media must also take its share of the blame when it comes to distorting science news. Indeed, research analysing science coverage in the media has shown that stories tend to exaggerate preliminary findings, use sensationalist terms, avoid complex issues, fail to mention financial conflicts of interest, ignore statistical limitations and transform inherent uncertainties into controversy [3,10].One concerning development within journalism is the ‘balanced treatment'' of controversial science, also called ‘false balance'' by many science communicators. This balanced treatment has helped supporters of pseudoscientific notions gain equal ground with scientific experts in media stories on issues such as climate change and biotechnology [11].“Almost every time the issue of creationism or intelligent design comes up, many newspapers and other media feel that they need to present ‘both sides'', even though one is clearly nonsensical, and indeed harmful to public education,” commented Massimo Pigliucci, author of Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk [12].Fox also criticizes false balance on issues such as global climate change. “On that one you can''t blame the scientific community, you can''t blame science press officers,” she said. “That is a real clashing of values. One of the values that most journalists have bred into them is about balance and impartiality, balancing the views of one person with an opponent when it''s controversial. So on issues like climate change, where there is a big controversy, their instinct as a journalist will be to make sure that if they have a climate scientist on the radio or on TV or quoted in the newspaper, they pick up the phone and make sure that they have a climate skeptic.” However, balanced viewpoints should not threaten years of rigorous scientific research embodied in a peer-reviewed publication. “We are not saying generally that we [scientists] want special treatment from journalists,” Fox said, “but we are saying that this whole principle of balance, which applies quite well in politics, doesn''t cross over to science…”Bertamini believes the situation could be made worse if publication standards are relaxed in favour of promoting a more public and open review process. “If today you were to research the issue of human contribution to global warming you would find a consensus in the scientific literature. Yet you would find no such consensus in the general media. In part this is due to the existence of powerful and well-funded lobbies that fill the media with unfounded skepticism. Now imagine if these lobbies had more access to publish their views in the scientific literature, maybe in the form of post publication feedback. This would be a dangerous consequence of blurring the line that separates scientific writing and the broader media.”In an age in which the way science is presented in the news can have significant impacts for audiences, especially when it comes to health news, what can science communicators and journalists do to keep audiences reading without having to distort, hype, trivialize, dramatize or otherwise misrepresent science?Pigliucci believes that many different sources—press releases, blogs, newspapers and investigative science journalism pieces—can cross-check reported science and challenge its accuracy, if necessary. “There are examples of bloggers pointing out technical problems with published scientific papers,” Pigliucci said. “Unfortunately, as we all know, the game can be played the other way around too, with plenty of bloggers, ‘twitterers'' and others actually obfuscating and muddling things even more.” Pigliucci hopes to see a cultural change take place in science reporting, one that emphasizes “more reflective shouting, less shouting of talking points,” he said.Fox believes that journalists still need to cover scientific developments more responsibly, especially given that scientists are increasingly reaching out to press officers and the public. Journalists can inform, intrigue and entertain whilst maintaining accurate representations of the original science, but need to understand that preliminary results must be replicated and validated before being splashed on the front page. They should also strive to interview experts who do not have financial ties or competing interests in the research, and they should put scientific stories in the context of a broader process of nonlinear discovery. According to Pigliucci, journalists can and should be educating themselves on the research process and the science of logical conclusion-making, giving themselves the tools to provide critical and investigative coverage when needed. At the same time, scientists should undertake proper media training so that they are comfortable communicating their work to journalists or press officers.“I don''t think there is any fundamental flaw in how we communicate science, but there is a systemic flaw in the sense that we simply do not educate people about logical fallacies and cognitive biases,” Pigliucci said, advising that scientists and communicators alike should be intimately familiar with the subjects of philosophy and psychology. “As for bunk science, it has always been with us, and it probably always will be, because human beings are naturally prone to all sorts of biases and fallacious reasoning. As Carl Sagan once put it, science (and reason) is like a candle in the dark. It needs constant protection and a lot of thankless work to keep it alive.” 相似文献

11.

The power of words

Samuel Caddick 《EMBO reports》2008,9(12):1174-1176

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12.

The science of progress and the progress of science

Philip Hunter 《EMBO reports》2013,14(7):601-604

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13.

Stem-cell battles. Stem-cell research in the USA is facing new legal and political challenges

Wolinsky H 《EMBO reports》2010,11(12):921-924

The US still leads the world in stem-cell research, yet US scientists are facing yet another political and legal battle for federal funding to support research using human embryonic stem cells.Disputes over stem-cell research have been standard operating procedure since James Thompson and John Gearhart created the first human embryonic cell (hESC) lines. Their work triggered an intense and ongoing debate about the morality, legality and politics of using hESCs for biomedical research. “Stem-cell policy has caused craziness all over the world. It is a never-ending, irresolvable battle about the moral status [of embryos],” commented Timothy Caulfield, research director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. “We''re getting to an interesting time in history where science is playing a bigger and bigger part in our lives, and it''s becoming more controversial because it''s becoming more powerful. We need to make some interesting choices about how we decide what kind of scientific inquiry can go forward and what can''t go forward.”“Stem-cell policy has caused craziness all over the world…[i]t is a never-ending, irresolvable battle about the moral status [of embryos]”The most contested battleground for stem-cell research has been the USA, since President George W. Bush banned federal funding for research that uses hESCs. His successor, Barack Obama, eventually reversed the ban, but a pending lawsuit and the November congressional elections have once again thrown the field into jeopardy.Three days after the election, the deans of US medical schools, chiefs of US hospitals and heads of leading scientific organizations sent letters to both the House of Representatives and the Senate urging them to pass the Stem Cell Research Advancement Act when they come back into session. The implication was to pass legislation now, while the Democrats were still the majority. Republicans, boosted in the election by the emerging fiscally conservative Tea Party movement, will be the majority in the House from January, changing the political climate. The Republicans also cut into the Democratic majority in the Senate.Policies and laws to regulate stem-cell research vary between countries. Italy, for example, does not allow the destruction of an embryo to generate stem-cell lines, but it does allow research on such cells if they are imported. Nevertheless, the Italian government deliberately excluded funding for projects using hESCs from its 2009 call for proposals for stem-cell research. In the face of legislative vacuums, this October, Science Foundation Ireland and the Health Research Board in Ireland decided to not consider grant applications for projects involving hESC lines. The UK is at the other end of the scale; it has legalized both research with and the generation of stem-cell lines, albeit under the strict regulation by the independent Human Fertility and Embryology Authority. As Caulfield commented, the UK is “ironically viewed as one of the most permissive [on stem-cell policy], but is perceived as one of the most bureaucratic.”Somewhere in the middle is Germany, where scientists are allowed to use several approved cell lines, but any research that leads to the destruction of an embryo is illegal. Josephine Johnston, director of research operations at the Hastings Center in Garrison, NY, USA—a bioethics centre—said: “In Germany you can do research on embryonic stem-cells, but you can''t take the cells out of the embryo. So, they import their cells from outside of Germany and to me, that''s basically outsourcing the bit that you find difficult as a nation. It doesn''t make a lot of sense ethically.”Despite the public debates and lack of federal support, Johnson noted that the USA continues to lead the world in the field. “[Opposition] hasn''t killed stem-cell research in the United States, but it definitely is a headache,” she said. In October, physicians at the Shepherd Center, a spinal cord and brain injury rehabilitation hospital and clinical research centre in Atlanta, GA, USA, began to treat the first patient with hESCs. This is part of a clinical trial to test a stem-cell-based therapy for spinal cord injury, which was developed by the US biotechnology company Geron from surplus embryos from in vitro fertilization.Nevertheless, the debate in the USA, where various branches of government—executive, legislative and legal—weigh in on the legal system, is becoming confusing. “We''re never going to have consensus [on the moral status of fetuses] and any time that stem-cell research becomes tied to that debate, there''s going to be policy uncertainty,” Caulfield said. “That''s what''s happened again in the United States.”Johnson commented that what makes the USA different is the rules about federally funded and non-federally funded research. “It isn''t much discussed within the United States, but it''s a really dramatic difference to an outsider,” she said. She pointed out that, by contrast, in other countries the rules for stem-cell research apply across the board.The election of Barack Obama as US President triggered the latest bout of uncertainty. The science community welcomed him with open arms; after all, he supports doubling the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over the next ten years and dismantled the policies of his predecessor that barred it from funding projects beyond the 60 extant hESC lines—only 21 of which were viable. Obama also called on Congress to provide legal backing and funding for the research.The executive order had unforeseen consequences for researchers working with embryonic or adult stem cells. Sean Morrison, Director of the University of Michigan''s Centre for Stem Cell Biology (Ann Arbor, MI, USA), said he thought that Obama''s executive order had swung open the door on federal support forever. “Everybody had that impression,” he said.Leonard I. Zon, Director of the Stem Cell Program at Children''s Hospital Boston (MA, USA), was so confident in Obama''s political will that his laboratory stopped its practice of labelling liquid nitrogen containers as P (Presidential) and NP (non-Presidential) to avoid legal hassles. His lab also stopped purchasing and storing separate pipettes and culture dishes funded by the NIH and private sources such as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI; Chevy Chase, MD, USA).But some researchers who focused on adult cells felt that the NIH was now biased in favour of embryonic cells. Backed by pro-life and religious groups, two scientists—James Sherley of the Boston Biomedical Research Institute and Theresa Deisher of AVM Biotechnology (Seattle, WA)—questioned the legality of the new NIH rules and filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius. Deisher had founded her company to “[w]ork to provide safe, effective and affordable alternative vaccines and stem-cell therapies that are not tainted by embryonic or electively aborted fetal materials” (www.avmbiotech.com).…the debate in the USA, where various branches of government—executive, legislative and legal—weigh in on the legal system, is becoming confusingSherley argued in an Australian newspaper in October 2006 that the science behind embryonic stem-cell research is flawed and rejected arguments that the research will make available new cures for terrible diseases (Sherley, 2006). In court, the researchers also argued that they were irreparably disadvantaged in competing for government grants by their work on adult stem cells.Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the District Court of the District of Columbia initially ruled that the plaintiffs had no grounds on which to sue. However, the US District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned his decision and found that “[b]ecause the Guidelines have intensified the competition for a share in a fixed amount” of NIH funding. With the case back in his court, Lamberth reversed his decision on August 23 this year, granting a preliminary injunction to block the new NIH guidelines on embryonic stem-cell work. This injunction is detailed in the 1995 Dickey-Wicker Amendment, an appropriation bill rider, which prohibits the HHS from funding “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.” By allowing the destruction of embryos, Lamberth argued, the NIH rules violate the law.This triggered another wave of uncertainty as dozens of labs faced a freeze of federal funding. Morrison commented that an abrupt end to funding does not normally occur in biomedical research in the USA. “We normally have years of warning when grants are going to end so we can make a plan about how we can have smooth transitions from one funding source to another,” he said. Morrison—whose team has been researching Hirschsprung disease, a congenital enlargement of the colon—said his lab potentially faced a loss of US$ 250,000 overnight. “I e-mailed the people in my lab and said, ‘We may have just lost this funding and if so, then the project is over''”.Morrison explained that the positions of two people in his lab were affected by the cut, along with a third person whose job was partly funded by the grant. “Even though it''s only somewhere between 10–15% of the funding in my lab, it''s still a lot of money,” he said. “It''s not like we have hundreds of thousands of dollars of discretionary funds lying around in case a problem like that comes up.” Zon noted that his lab, which experienced an increase in the pace of discovery since Obama had signed his order, reverted to its Bush-era practices.On September 27 this year, a federal appeals court for the District of Columbia extended Lamberth''s stay to enable the government to pursue its appeal. The NIH was allowed to distribute US$78 million earmarked for 44 scientists during the appeal. The court said the matter should be expedited, but it could, over the years ahead, make its way to the US Supreme Court.The White House welcomed the decision of the appeals court in favour of the NIH. “President Obama made expansion of stem-cell research and the pursuit of groundbreaking treatments and cures a top priority when he took office. We''re heartened that the court will allow [the] NIH and their grantees to continue moving forward while the appeal is resolved,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. The White House might have been glad of some good news, while it wrestles with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and the rise of the Tea Party movement.Even without a formal position on the matter, the Tea Party has had an impact on stem-cell research through its electoral victoriesTimothy Kamp, whose lab at the University of Wisconsin (Madison, WI, USA) researches embryonic stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes, said that he finds the Tea Party movement confusing. “It''s hard for me to know what a uniform platform is for the Tea Party. I''ve heard a few comments from folks in the Tea Party who have opposed stem-cell research,” he said.However, the position of the Tea Party on the topic of stem-cell research could prove to be of vital importance. The Tea Party took its name from the Boston Tea Party—a famous protest in 1773 in which American colonists protested against the passing of the British Tea Act, for its attempt to extract yet more taxes from the new colony. Protesters dressed up as Native Americans and threw tea into the Boston harbour. Contemporary Tea Party members tend to have a longer list of complaints, but generally want to reduce the size of government and cut taxes. Their increasing popularity in the USA and the success of many Tea Party-backed Republican candidates for the upcoming congressional election could jeopardize Obama''s plans to pass new laws to regulate federal funding for stem-cell research.Even without a formal position on the matter, the Tea Party has had an impact on stem-cell research through its electoral victories. Perhaps their most high-profile candidate was the telegenic Christine O''Donnell, a Republican Senatorial candidate from Delaware. The Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life women''s group, has described O''Donnell as one of “the brightest new stars” opposing abortion (www.lifenews.com/state5255.html). Although O''Donnell was eventually defeated in the 2 November congressional election, by winning the Republican primary in August, she knocked out nine-term Congressman and former Delaware governor Mike Castle, a moderate Republican known for his willingness to work with Democrats to pass legislation to protect stem-cell research.In the past, Castle and Diane DeGette, a Democratic representative from Colorado, co-sponsored the Stem Cell Research Advancement Act to expand federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. They aimed to support Obama''s executive order and “ensure a lasting ethical framework overseeing stem cell research at the National Institutes of Health”.Morrison described Castle as “one of the great public servants in this country—no matter what political affiliation you have. For him to lose to somebody with such a chequered background and such shaky positions on things like evolution and other issues is a tragedy for the country.” Another stem-cell research advocate, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican-turned-Democrat, was also defeated in the primary. He had introduced legislation in September to codify Obama''s order. Specter, a cancer survivor, said his legislation is aimed at removing the “great uncertainty in the research community”.According to Sarah Binder, a political scientist at George Washington University in Washington, DC, the chances of passing legislation to codify the Obama executive order are decreasing: “As the Republican Party becomes more conservative and as moderates can''t get nominated in that party, it does lead you to wonder whether it''s possible to make anything happen [with the new Congress] in January.”There are a variety of opinions about how the outcome of the November elections will influence stem-cell policies. Binder said that a number of prominent Republicans have strongly promoted stem-cell research, including the Reagan family. “This hasn''t been a purely Democratic initiative,” she said. “The question is whether the Republican party has moved sufficiently to the right to preclude action on stem cells.” Historically there was “massive” Republican support for funding bills in 2006 and 2007 that were ultimately vetoed by Bush, she noted.…the debate about public funding for stem-cell research is only part of the picture, given the role of private business and states“Rightward shifts in the House and Senate do not bode well for legislative efforts to entrench federal support for stem-cell research,” Binder said. “First, if a large number of Republicans continue to oppose such funding, a conservative House majority is unlikely to pursue the issue. Second, Republican campaign commitments to reduce federal spending could hit the NIH and its support for stem-cell research hard.”Binder added that “a lingering unknown” is how the topic will be framed: “If it gets framed as a pro-choice versus pro-life initiative, that''s quite difficult for Congress to overcome in a bipartisan way. If it is framed as a question of medical research and medical breakthroughs and scientific advancement, it won''t fall purely on partisan lines. If members of Congress talk about their personal experiences, such as having a parent affected by Parkinson''s, then you could see even pro-life members voting in favour of a more expansive interpretation of stem-cell funding.”Johnson said that Congress could alter the wording of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment when passing the NIH budget for 2011 to remove the conflict. “You don''t have to get rid of the amendment completely, but you could rephrase it,” she said. She also commented that the public essentially supports embryonic stem-cell research. “The polls and surveys show the American public is morally behind there being some limited form of embryonic stem-cell research funded by federal money. They don''t favour cloning. There is not a huge amount of support for creating embryos from scratch for research. But there seems to be pretty wide support among the general public for the kind of embryonic stem-cell research that the NIH is currently funding.”In the end, however, the debate about public funding for stem-cell research is only part of the picture, given the role of private business and states. Glenn McGee, a professor at the Center for Practical Bioethics in Kansas City, MO, USA, and editor of the American Journal of Bioethics, commented that perhaps too much emphasis is being put on federal funding. He said that funding from states such as California and from industry—which are not restricted—has become a more important force than NIH funding. “We''re a little bit delusional if we think that this is a moment where the country is making a big decision about what''s going to happen with stem cells,” he said. “I think that ship has sailed.” 相似文献

14.

The roads and bridges of science. Research infrastructures are key components of Europe's future research, but their funding is not guaranteed

Breithaupt H 《EMBO reports》2011,12(7):641-643

Research infrastructures are a crucial component of modern biological research, but the EU has not yet figured out how to fund and maintain them.The development of recombinant gene technology in the 1970s heralded a new era of application-oriented research for molecular biology, with a huge economic impact. During the decades that have followed, biological research and development have become a major enterprise, with an increasing demand for sophisticated technologies, databases, tissue banks and other tools that range from microscopes and DNA sequencers to bioinformatics services and mutant collections. Biology has followed in the footsteps of physics and astronomy, which share costly instrumentation such as particle accelerators, observatories and satellites. A key difference is that biological research infrastructures are often distributed across several sites and are less costly to establish. Nevertheless, they are expensive to operate and maintain, and need long-term financial support.There is no doubt among scientists that research infrastructures are essential for biomedicine and the life sciencesThe European Union (EU) regards biomedical research as an important component of its future economic and social development as part of its ''Innovation Union'' strategy (EC, 2010), but the necessary creation and operation of research infrastructures is not keeping pace. European biologists have been highlighting the problem for years (), to the effect that some pan-European infrastructures for biomedical research and the life sciences have been created, such as the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI; Hinxton, UK). The European Commission (EC) also established the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) in 2002, to define the infrastructures required for international research (ESFRI, 2006, 2011). However, most of the planned projects for the biomedical and life sciences (ESFRI, 2011)

Project	Construction costs (million €)	Operation costs (million €)
Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure (BBMRI)	170	3
European Advanced Translational Research Infrastructure in Medicine (EATRIS)	20–100	3–8
European Clinical Research Infrastructures Network (ECRIN)	0	3.5
European Life Science Infrastructure for Biological Information (ELIXIR)	470	100
European Marine Biology Resource Centre (EMBRC)	100	60
European Infrastructure of Open Screening Platforms for Chemical Biology (EU-OPENSCREEN)	40	40
European Biomedical Imaging Infrastructure (Euro-Bioimaging)	600	160
European Research Infrastructure on Highly Pathogenic Agents (ERINHA)	174	24
European Infrastructure for Phenotyping and Archiving of Model Mammalian Genomes (Infrafrontier)	180	80
An Integrated Structural Biology Infrastructure for Europe (INSTRUCT)	300	25
Infrastructure for Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems (ANAEE)	210	12
Infrastructure for Systems Biology-Europe (ISBE)	300	100
Microbial Resource Research Infrastructure (MIRRI)	190	10.5

Open in a separate windowAs part of the ongoing discussion about the EC''s next framework programme for research, a hearing took place on 5 May at the European Parliament (EP) in Brussels, Belgium, to discuss the long-term future of biomedical research infrastructures in Europe. A few members of the EP and their staff, and scientists and representatives from the EC, debated models of how to develop and support global research infrastructure projects. Predictably, the most important questions were about who would pay the bills. “We need conditions to provide stable funding and support, particularly in economically difficult times,” said Antonio Correia de Campos, MEP and vice chairman of the EP''s Science and Technology Options Assessment....well-funded research infrastructures with sophisticated equipment and experienced staff generate a huge return on investmentThere is no doubt among scientists that research infrastructures are essential for biomedicine and the life sciences. Janet Thornton, Director of the EBI, explained that centrally managed infrastructures have a crucial role at all levels, from basic to translational research to product development. Ivan Baines, Chief Operating Officer at the Max Planck Institutes in Dresden, Germany, and Miami, USA, stressed that infrastructures make research more efficient by giving scientists access to sophisticated services, tools and technology that no research institute or university would be able to afford alone. Globally shared research infrastructures are therefore more cost-efficient because they reduce redundancy and enable more-efficient use of data and tools—a clear ''economy of scale'' effect. In general, as Baines commented, well-funded research infrastructures with sophisticated equipment and experienced staff generate a huge return on investment.Not surprisingly, research infrastructures are set to play a central role in the EU''s Innovation Union. The overall rationale is to create a European research landscape clustered around shared research infrastructures in order to meet major challenges, such as tackling global climate change, the health issues of an ageing population, clean and sustainable energy and water production, sustainable food supplies and the risk of disease pandemics. Moreover, the infrastructures themselves would be linked to each other to share data and expertise so as to form a network of pan-European institutions and facilities that support scientists at every step of their research. The proposed Euro-Bioimaging project, for example, would include research institutes, universities and commercial partners that provide state-of-the-art imaging technology to the scientific community and promote standardization, best practice and coordination of research, in addition to researching and developing new imaging technologies.In their 2006 roadmap, the ESFRI recommended creating six biomedical research infrastructures—a number expanded to 10 in their 2008 roadmap (ESFRI, 2006). In addition, the roadmap proposes the creation of e-infrastructures to connect and support increasingly diverse and distributed sites. Just two days before the hearing, the ESFRI published its 2010 roadmap, which lists three more projects and strongly reiterates the important role for pan-European research infrastructures (ESFRI, 2011).What the 2010 roadmap does not say is who is going to pay. Initial funding from the EC runs out in 2011 and has been earmarked to support the preparatory phase, but not the creation of infrastructure projects, let alone their maintenance and operation. The main problem is that most EU member states alone cannot fund and support even a medium-sized research infrastructure. Unlike the US federal government, which, with the sheer size of its budget, can finance globally shared research institutes or facilities such as the NIH, NASA and the Public Library of Science, even the largest EU member states would be overwhelmed by such costly enterprises.Hervé Pero from the EC''s Directorate Generale for Research and Executive Secretary of the ESFRI identified the major problems for internationally shared research infrastructures: insufficient funding, complex management of diverse and distributed enterprises, insufficient policy tools including validation, legal issues and guaranteeing access for all scientists from the 27 EU member states. Moreover, some national governments are reluctant to finance globally used research institutions that do not directly provide tangible benefits to their economies. “Sometimes it is easy to convince a research minister because he''s a scientist; it''s not so easy to convince financial ministers,” Pero said.The EC therefore proposes to use funding models already used by CERN and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, in which interested parties—states, philanthrophists, charities or funding organizations—commit to supporting research infrastructure such as databases, bioinformatics services, tissue banks or microscope facilities. “Member states are the key partners for this initiative,” de Campo said. The EC would organize and coordinate support, and create the legal and political framework. The ambitious aim, according to the ESFRI, is that by 2015 the most important research infrastructures should be up and running and freely accessible to the scientific community.It is not clear, however, whether and to what extent EU member states will fund pan-European infrastructures: the UK, Finland and Poland, among others, have earmarked some money for the establishment of ELIXIR—the infrastructure for biological information—and other projects, but this is far from what is needed and does not address the problem of long-term operation and maintenance, particularly in these difficult economic times. Moreover, coordinating support for the 13 projects recommended by the ESFRI remains a major challenge. “It is unprecedented to coordinate all these activities across 27 countries,” Baines remarked.“In times of global challenges, the best answer for the EU is to pull together and not go for nationalistic solutions”Mere coordination by the EC to organize support from individual member states might, therefore, not be enough. Bernd Pulverer, head of publications for EMBO, who moderated the hearing, enquired whether a European agency similar to the European Research Council (ERC), which funds basic research, would be a solution to the problem of guaranteeing long-term stability. Pero agreed that an agency that identifies needs and funds the establishment, maintenance and operation of pan-European infrastructures would be a viable solution, but he was not optimistic. “It would be the way forward to create a body at the EU level to coordinate funds and actions. Unfortunately, the time is not right,” he said. Given the economic crisis, various member states are not keen to contribute more money to the EU. Moreover, the ERC has not existed for long enough to convince the EP and ministers that additional funding for another agency for research would benefit the whole EU. Nevertheless, the EC is aware of the problem of long-term financial support, and has therefore included research infrastructures in its proposal for the next research framework.Some MEPs at the hearing share the concerns of scientists about the viability of long-term funding. Vittorio Prodi expressed concern over nationalistic reflexes that would be an impediment to international research. Instead, he said the EU should focus on the added value of pan-European research infrastructures and their potential for development. Even so, economic and other factors may well force the EU to take a more proactive role. “In times of global challenges, the best answer for the EU is to pull together and not go for nationalistic solutions,” Prodi said, “[and to] give the EU directly the resources that are needed.” 相似文献

15.

Tapping the crowds for research funding

Katrin Weigmann 《EMBO reports》2013,14(12):1043-1046

Scientists are exploring crowdfunding as a potential new source of cash for their research.One day early in 2011, Jarrett Byrnes and Jai Ranganathan, both ecologists at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, had a great idea about an alternative way to fund research projects. Byrnes was sitting in his office when Ranganathan came in to tell him about a proposal he had seen on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com) to erect in Detroit a statue of RoboCop, the robot-human hero of a US science fiction action film. “The RoboCop project seemed a little esoteric, but the proposers had done a fabulous job at communicating why it was both interesting and important,” Byrnes said. It took the internet by storm and raised more than US$65,000 from almost 3,000 backers.If this could be done for RoboCop, Byrnes and Ranganathan wondered whether it could be done for science as well. They asked friends and fellow scientists whether they would be interested in crowdfunding a research project and, after receiving substantial positive feedback, launched #SciFund Challenge in November 2011 with 59 research proposals. #SciFund Challenge helps researchers put together a crowdfunding proposal, supports their outreach activities and launches coordinated campaigns on the crowdfunding website of their partner RocketHub (www.rockethub.com). “We thought we would do it all at the same time so we could help each other out,” explained Byrnes, who is now chief networking officer for #SciFund Challenge.Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project by raising many small contributions from a large number of individuals, typically via the internet. An artist, film-maker or musician would put together an online profile of their project and choose a platform such as Kickstarter, RocketHub or Indiegogo for its presentation. If people like the project, they can pledge money to it. Backers are usually charged only if the project succeeds in reaching its funding goal before the deadline. Kickstarter is one of the largest crowdfunding portals and focuses on creative projects; in 2012, more than 2 million backers pledged more than US$320 million to Kickstarter projects (http://www.kickstarter.com/year/2012?ref=what_is_kickstarter#overall_stats).Creative projects always work towards a concrete product—an exhibition, a DVD or a computer game—which is not necessarily the case for science, particularly basic researchThe challenge for Byrnes and others is whether crowdfunding works for science. Creative projects always work towards a concrete product—an exhibition, a DVD or a computer game—which is not necessarily the case for science, particularly basic research. Would people donate money for the pursuit of knowledge? In a time of economic crisis and budget cuts, many scientists are eager to give it a try. Crowdfunding of science has exploded in recent years, with funding goals becoming increasingly ambitious; some projects have attracted US$10,000–20,000 or even more. New platforms, such as Petridish, FundaGeek or Microryza, specifically cater to research projects []. The academic system is starting to adapt too: the University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA, has made a deal with the crowdfunding site Indiegogo that allows backers to make money donated via the site tax deductible [].Kristina Killgrove, now assistant professor in the department of anthropology, University of West Florida, USA, became interested in crowdfunding when traditional ways of funding research were not available to her. “At the time, I did not have a permanent faculty job. I was an adjunct instructor, with a contract for only one semester, so there was no good way for me to apply for a grant through regular channels, like our National Science Foundation,” she explained. Her proposal to study the DNA of ancient Roman skeletons to learn more about the geographical origins and heritage of the lower classes and slaves in the Roman Empire was part of the first round of #SciFund Challenge projects and attracted donors interested in ancient Rome and in DNA analysis. She exceeded her financial target of $6,000 in less than 2 weeks and eventually raised more than $10,000 from 170 funders.Ethan Perlstein had also reached an academic deadlock when he first turned to crowdfunding. His independent postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University, USA, came to an end in late 2012 and his future was unclear. Grants for basic research came in his experience from the government or foundations, and he had never questioned that premise. “But as I felt my own existential crisis emerging—I might not get an academic job—I started to think about crowdfunding more seriously. I searched for other scientists who had tried it,” Perlstein said.“It is time to experiment with the way we experiment,” Perlstein''s crowdfunding video proclaims. Indeed, he approached crowdfunding in a scientific way. He analysed various successful projects in search for some general principles. “I wanted a protocol,” he said. “I wanted to do as much as I could beforehand to increase the likelihood of success.” Together with his colleagues, David Sulzer, professor in the departments of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia Medical School, New York, NY, USA, and lead experimentalist Daniel Korostyshevsky, he asked for $25,000 to study the distribution of amphetamines within mouse brain cells to elucidate the mechanism by which these drugs increase dopamine levels at synapses. The crowdfunding experiment worked and their project was fully funded.Creation of a good website with a convincing video is a crucial step towards success. “When crafting your project, it is important to try to put yourselves in the shoes of the audience,” recommended Cindy Wu, who founded San-Francisco-based science crowdfunding company, Microryza, with Denny Luan when they were in graduate school. “You as a scientist find your work absolutely fascinating. Communicating this passion to a broader audience is absolutely key,” said Byrnes. However, recruitment of people to the website is at least as important as the site itself. Many successful crowdfunders build their campaign on existing social networks to channel potential funders to their own website []. “Building an audience for your work, having people aware of you and what you are doing, is of paramount importance,” Byrnes explained, and added that crowdfunding can be as time consuming as grant applications. “But it''s a different kind of time. I find it actually quite satisfying,” he said.“Be scientific about it,” Perlstein advised. How many donors are needed to reach a funding goal? How many page views would be required accordingly, assuming a certain conversion rate? “If you approach a crowdfunding campaign methodically, it doesn''t guarantee success, but at least you implement best practices.” Perlstein is now an independent scientist renting laboratory space from the Molecular Sciences Institute, a non-profit research facility in Berkeley, CA, USA. “Academia and I were in a long-term relationship for over a decade but we broke up,” he explained. With federal and state funding flat or on a downwards trend, he sees his future in fundraising from patrons, venture philanthropists or disease foundations in addition to crowdfunding. Yet Perlstein remains an exception. Most scientists do not use crowdfunding as an alternative to normal funding opportunities, but rather as a supplement. A typical crowdfunding project nowadays would raise a few thousand dollars, which is enough to fund a student''s work for a summer or to buy some equipment [].A typical crowdfunding project nowadays would raise a few thousand dollars, which is enough to fund a student''s work for a summer or to buy some equipmentCrowdfunding is also ideal to get new ideas off the ground, which was a key incentive to found Microryza. Cindy Wu''s experience with the academic funding system in graduate school taught her how difficult it was to get small grants for seed ideas. Together with her colleague Denny Luan she interviewed 100 scientists on the topic. “Every single person said there is always a seed idea they want to work on but it is difficult to get funding for early stage research,” she said. The two students concluded that crowdfunding would be able to fill that gap and a few months later set up Microryza. “Crowdfunding is a fantastic way to begin a project and collect preliminary data on something that might be a little risky but very exciting,” Byrnes said. “When you then write up a proposal for a larger governmentally funded grant you have evidence that you are doing outreach work and that you are bringing the results of your work to a broader audience.”Crowdfunded projects cover a wide range of research from ecology, medicine, physics and chemistry to engineering and economics. Some projects are pure basic science, such as investigating polo kinase in yeast (http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3753-cancer-yeast-has-answers), whereas others are applied, for instance developing a new method to clean up ocean oil spills (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cesarminoru/protei-open-hardware-oil-spill-cleaning-sailing-ro). Project creators may be students, professors or independent scientists, and research is carried out in universities, companies or hired laboratory space or outsourced to core facilities. Some projects aim to touch people''s heartstrings, such as saving butterflies (http://www.rockethub.com/projects/11903did-you-know-butterflies-have-std) and others address politically relevant topics, such as gun policy and safety (https://www.microryza.com/projects/gun-control-research-project).Some proposals have immediate relevance, such as the excavation of a triceratops skeleton to display it in the Seattle museum (https://www.microryza.com/projects/bring-a-triceratops-to-seattle). Backers can follow the project and see that the promise has been kept. For many projects in basic research, however, progress is much more abstract even if there are long-term goals, such as a cure for cancer, conservation strategies to save butterflies or so on. But will a non-scientist be able to evaluate the relevance of a particular project for such long-term goals? Will interested donors be able to judge whether these goals are within reach? Indeed, science crowdfunding has drawn criticism for its lack of peer review and has been accused of pushing scientists into overselling their research [,4,5]. “There is a risk that it provides opportunities for scientists who are less than scrupulous to deceive the general public,” commented Stephen Curry, professor of structural biology at Imperial College, London, UK.…science crowdfunding has drawn criticism for its lack of peer review and has been accused of pushing scientists into overselling their researchMany scientific crowdfunding sites have systems in place to check the credibility of research proposals. “At #SciFund Challenge we have what we like to call a gentle peer review. If an undergraduate is promising to overthrow they theory of gravity we will have some questions about that,” explained Byrnes. Microryza would also not let any project pass. The team checks the proposal creator''s identity and evaluates whether the proposal addresses a scientific question and the project goals are within the capabilities of the researcher. “We plan to have some sort of crowd-sourced peer review sometime in the future,” said Wu. Other platforms, such as FundaGeek, have discussion forums where potential donors are encouraged to debate the merits of a proposal. As crowdfunding does not involve spending large amounts of public money, it might be an ideal way to try out new forms of peer review. According to Curry, however, there are important aspects of academic peer review that cannot be provided by these systems. “The advantage of grant committees considering many applications in competition with one another is that it allows the best ones to be selected. Details of prior work and expected feasibility are necessary to judge a project,” he said.Crowdfunding is selling science to the crowd, and, just like in any outreach activity, there might be cases of conveying projects too optimistically or overstating their impact. Yet, a main advantage of crowdfunding is that it allows donors to stay involved in projects and that it encourages direct interaction between scientists and non-scientists []. If a crowdfunding project does not live up to its promises, the donors will find out. “Microryza is really about sharing the discovery process directly with the donors,” Wu explained. “Every time something happens in the lab scientists post an update and an email goes out to all donors.” Perlstein also maintains close contact with his backers, having met many of them in person. “If we accept their money we are going to give them front row seats to the science,” he said. Research is a labour-intensive, slow process that includes technical difficulties and reconsideration of hypotheses, a fact that might come as a surprise to non-scientists. “We are actually doing a service here to enlighten the non-scientists that this is the rhythm of basic science,” said Perlstein.Crowdfunding of science has exploded in recent years, with funding goals becoming increasingly ambitious; some projects have attracted US$10,000–20,000 or even moreCrowdfunding is by no means a gold mine, with most research projects raising only a few thousand dollars. Byrnes, however, is optimistic that it will grow and inspire a larger crowd to get involved. “Now you see $10 million projects in gaming technology and the arts. That took some years to happen. We will get there, but we still have a lot to learn. I think science crowdfunding is still in the early growth phase,” he said. As crowdfunding increases, scientists will find themselves confronted with some questions. The open sharing of the scientific process with a broader public is a key aspect of crowdfunded projects. In many cases, scientists make the primary record of a research project publicly available. What does this entail when it comes to publications or patents? “Most journals don''t have a policy on open notebooks,” acknowledged Wu. Filing of patents could also become difficult if scientists have already made all their work and results public.Crowdfunding also enables projects to be undertaken outside the academic system where rules and regulations are less well defined. uBiome, a citizen science start-up, draws on crowds not only for funding but also for providing data. The company collected more than US$300,000 through Indiegogo to sequence the microbiome of its donors (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubiome-sequencing-your-microbiome). Whereas academic biomedical research involving humans has to be reviewed by an independent ethics committee, this requirement would not apply to the uBiome project. “[P]rojects that don''t want federal money, FDA approval, or to publish in traditional journals require no ethical review at all as far as we know,” Jessica Richman and Zachary Apte, cofounders of uBiome, wrote in an invited guest blog on Scientific American (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/07/22/crowdfunding-and-irbs-the-case-of-ubiome/). The researchers worked with an independent institutional review board to provide ethics oversight. Some crowdfunding websites, such as Microryza, make sure their researchers have approval from an institutional review board. Greater consistency is needed, however, to ensure that research is carried out according to ethics standards.Crowdfunding is not going to substitute public funding … rather, it would coexist as a more democratic form of philanthropyCrowdfunding is not a one-size-fits-all revenue stream for science. It might be easier to get support for ‘catchy'' topics than for investigation of molecular interactions or protein structures. Crowdfunding is not going to substitute public funding either; rather, it would coexist as a more democratic form of philanthropy. But for those who embrace it, crowdfunding can be a rewarding experience. “I had a lot of fun being part of #SciFund—I got to meet a lot of other interesting scientists, I raised some money, and I learned a bit about working with journalists and science writers to get my ideas and results disseminated to the public,” Killgrove said. Crowdfunding provides an opportunity for public engagement, raises public awareness, and gives scientists an incentive to communicate their research to a broader public. “In many cases, scientists do not receive any real incentive for doing outreach work” Byrnes said. “Crowdfunding can be seen as a means to reward them for their effort.” 相似文献

16.

Alternatives to Animal Experiments in Medical Research

J. L. Gowans 《BMJ (Clinical research ed.)》1974,1(5907):557-559

In laboratory work which involves the large-scale routine assay of biologically-active substances the sponsors of “alternative” (in vitro) methods and the scientists have a common aim: a reduction in the use of living animals. In vitro methods are usually more accurate, easier to perform, and cheaper. Animals are no longer required for the production of certain antiviral vaccines.Those engaged in medical research where new knowledge is being sought also need no incentive to develop in vitro methods because they make refined analysis possible. Nevertheless, such in vitro methods are usually not alternatives in the sense that they substitute for animals; they complement experiments on animals. A legal requirement “that no experiment on a living animal may be performed if the purpose of the experiment can be achieved by alternative means not involving an experiment on a living animal” would be unenforceable. 相似文献

17.

The separation of church and science

Melissa Suran 《EMBO reports》2010,11(8):586-589

相似文献

18.

Gene patents and capital investment

Howard Wolinsky 《EMBO reports》2013,14(10):871-873

Will the US Supreme Court''s ruling that genes can no longer be patented in the USA boost venture capital investment into biotech and medical startup companies?Three years ago, Noubar Afeyan, managing partner and CEO of Flagship Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, was working with a biotech start-up company developing techniques for BRCA gene testing for breast cancer risk that avoided the patents held by Myriad Genetics, a molecular diagnostics company in Salt Lake City (Utah, USA) and the only operator in the field. However, despite the promise of the start-up''s techniques, investors were put off by Myriad''s extensive patent portfolio and fiercely defensive tactics: “A lot of investors were simply not willing to take that chance, even though our technology was superior in many ways and patentably different,” Afeyan said. The effort to launch the start-up ultimately failed.…it is also not clear how the Supreme Court''s ruling will affect the […] industry at large, now that one of the most contested patents for a human gene has been ruled invalidAfeyan believes the prospects for such start-ups improved on the morning of 13 June 2013 when the US Supreme Court ruled in an unanimous vote that Myriad''s fundamental patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes themselves are invalid, opening up the field to new competitors. The court''s ruling, however, validated Myriad''s patents for BRCA cDNA and methods-of-use.The court''s decision comes at a time when venture capital investment into the life sciences is projected to decline in the years ahead. Some believe that the court''s decision sets a precedent and could provide a boost for products, diagnostics and other tests under development that would have been legally difficult in the light of existing patents on human and other DNA sequences.The US Patent Office issued the original patents for the BRCA 1 and BRCA2 genes in 1997 and 1998 for the US National Institute of Environmental Health Services, the University of Utah and Myriad Genetics. One year earlier, Myriad had launched its first diagnostic test for breast cancer risk based on the two genes and has since aggressively defended it against both private and public competitors in court. Many universities and hospitals were originally offering the test for a lower cost, but Myriad forced them to stop and eventually monopolized BRCA-based diagnostics for breast cancer risk in the USA and several other countries.“Myriad did not create anything,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the Supreme Court''s decision. “To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act of invention.” Even so, the court did uphold Myriad''s patents on the methodology of its test. Ron Rogers, a spokesman for the biotech firm, said the Supreme Court had “affirmed the patent eligibility of synthetic DNA and underscored the importance and applicability of method-of-use patents for gene-based diagnostic tests. Before the Supreme Court case we had 24 patents and 520 claims. After the Supreme Court decision, we still have 24 patents. […] [T]he number of our patent claims was reduced to 515. In the Supreme Court case itself, only nine of our 520 patent claims were at issue. Of the nine, the Supreme Court ruled that five were not patent-eligible and they ruled that four were patent-eligible. We still have strong intellectual property protection surrounding our BRCA test and the Supreme Court''s decision doesn''t change that.”Within hours of the ruling, capitalism kicked into high gear. Two companies, Ambry Genetics in Alieso Viejo, California, and Gene by Gene Ltd in Houston, Texas, USA, announced that they were launching tests for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes for less than the US$3,100 Myriad has been charging privately insured patients and US$2,795 for patients covered by Medicare—the government health plan for the elderly and disabled. Several other companies and universities also announced they would be offering BRCA testing.Entrepreneur Bennett Greenspan, a managing partner of Gene by Gene, explained that his company had been poised to offer BRCA testing if the Supreme Court ruled against Myriad. He said, “We had written a press release with our PR firm a month before the release of the Supreme Court with the intention that if the Supreme Court overruled the patent or invalidated the patent that we would launch right away and if they didn''t, we would just tear up the press release.” His company had previously offered BRCA gene testing in Israel based on guidelines from the European Union.Myriad Genetics has not given up defending its patents, however. On 9 and 10 July 2013, it slapped Ambry and Gene by Gene with lawsuits in the US District Court in Salt Lake City for allegedly infringing on patents covering synthetic DNA and methods-of-use related to the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Rogers commented that the testing processes used by the firms “infringes 10 patents covering synthetic primers, probes and arrays, as well as methods of testing, related to the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.”On 6 August 2013, Ambry countersued Myriad, arguing that the company “continues a practice of using overreaching practices to wrongfully monopolize the diagnostic testing of humans'' BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes in the United States and to attempt to injure any competitor […] Due to Myriad''s anticompetitive conduct, customers must pay significantly higher prices for Myriad''s products in the relevant market, often nearly twice as high as the price of Ambry''s products and those of other competitors” [1].Just as the courts will have to clarify whether the competitors in this case infringe on Myriad''s patents, it is also not clear how the Supreme Court''s ruling will affect the biotech and diagnostics industry at large, now that one of the most contested patents for a human gene has been ruled invalid. In recent years, venture capital investment into the life sciences has been in decline. The National Venture Capital Association and the Medical Innovation & Competitiveness Coalition reported from a survey that, “An estimated funding loss of half a billion dollars over the next three years will cost America jobs at a time when we desperately need employment growth” [2]. The survey of 156 venture capital firms found that 39% of respondents said they had reduced investment in the life sciences during the previous three years, and the same proportion intended to do so in the next three years. “[US Food and Drug Administration] FDA regulatory challenges were identified as having the highest impact on these investment decisions,” the report states, adding that many investors intended to shift their focus from the US towards Europe and the Asia/Pacific region.Another report from the same groups explains how public policy involving the FDA and other players in “the medical innovation ecosystem”—including the US patent system, public agencies, tax policy, securities regulation, immigration laws and private groups such as insurers—affect the decisions of investors to commit to funding medical innovation [3].Some investors think that the court decision about the patentability of human DNA will increase confidence and help to attract investors back to the life sciencesSome investors think that the court decision about the patentability of human DNA will increase confidence and help to attract investors back to the life sciences. “The clarity is helpful because for the longest time people didn''t do things because of ambiguity about whether those patents would be enforceable,” Afeyan said. “It''s one thing to not do something because of a patent, it''s another to not do something because you know that they have patents but you''re not sure what it''s going to stop you from doing because it hasn''t been really fully fleshed out. Now I think it is reasonably well fleshed out and I think you will see more innovation in the space.”Others also appreciate the clarification from the Supreme Court about what is a patentable invention in regard to human genes and DNA. “The Myriad decision was a very solid reading of the underlying purpose of our patent law, which is to reward novel invention,” commented Patrick Chung, a partner with New Enterprise Associates, a venture capital firm in Menlo Park, California, which invested in 23andMe, a personal genomics company based in Mountain View (California, USA), and who serves on the 23andMe board.But not everyone agrees that the Supreme Court''s decision has provided clarity. “You could spin it and say that it was beneficial to create some certainty, but at the end of the day, what the Court did was reduce the scope of what you''re allowed to get patent claims on,” said Michael Schuster, a patent lawyer and Intellectual Property Partner and Co-Chair of the Life Sciences Group at Fenwick & West LLP in San Francisco, California, USA. “It''s going to be a continuing dance between companies, smart patent lawyers, and the courts to try to minimize the impact of this decision.”Kevin Noonan, a molecular biologist and patent lawyer with McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP in Chicago, Illinois, USA, commented that he does not expect the Supreme Court decision will have much of an impact on venture investments or anything else. “This case comes at a time fortunately when biotechnology is mature enough so that the more pernicious effects of the decision are not going to be quite as harmful as they would if this had happened ten, 15 or 20 years ago,” he said. “We''re now in the ‘post-genomic'' era; since the late ‘90s and turn of the century, the genomic and genetic data from the Human Genome Project have been on publicly available databases. As a consequence, if a company didn''t apply for a patent before the gene was disclosed publicly, it certainly is not able to apply for a patent now. The days of obtaining these sequences and trying to patent them are behind us.”Noonan also noted that the Myriad Genetics patents were due to expire in 2014–2015 anyway. “Patents are meaningless if you can''t enforce them. And when they expire, you can no longer enforce them. So it really isn''t an impediment to genetic testing now,” he explained. “What the case illustrates is a disconnect between scientists and lawyers. That''s an old battle.”George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) and Director of the Personal Genome Project, maintains that the Supreme Court decision will have minimal influence on the involvement of venture capitalists in biotech. “I think it''s a non-issue. It''s basically addressing something that was already dead. That particular method of patenting or trying to patent components of nature without modification was never really a viable strategy and in a particular case of genes, most of the patents in the realm of bio-technology have added value to genes and that''s what they depend on to protect their patent portfolio—not the concept of the gene itself,” he said. “I don''t know of any investor who is freaked out by this at all. Presumably there are some, because the stock oscillates. But you can get stock to oscillate with all kinds of nonsense. But I think the sober, long-term investors who create companies that keep innovating are not impacted.”Church suggests that the biggest concern for Myriad now is whole-gene sequencing, rather than the Supreme Court''s decision. “Myriad should be worrying about the new technology, and I''m sure they''ve already considered this. The new technology allows you to sequence hundreds of genes or the whole genome for basically the price they''ve been charging all along for two genes. And from what I understand, they are expanding their collection to many genes, taking advantage of next generation sequencing as other companies have already,” he said.Whatever its consequences in the US, the Supreme Court''s decision will have little impact on other parts of the world, notably Europe, where Myriad also holds patents on the BRCA genes in several countries. Gert Matthijs, Head of the Laboratory for Molecular Diagnostics at the Centre for Human Genetics in Leuven, Belgium, says that even though the US Supreme Court has invalidated the principle of patenting genes in America, the concept remains in Europe and is supported by the European Parliament and the European Patent Convention. “Legally, nothing has changed in Europe,” he commented. “But there is some authority from the US Supreme Court even if it''s not legal authority in Europe. Much of what has been used as arguments in the Supreme Court discussions has been written down by the genetics community in Europe back in 2008 in the recommendations on behalf of the European Society for Human Genetics. The Supreme Court decision is something that most of us in Europe would agree upon only because people have been pushing towards protecting the biotech industry that the pendulum was so way out in Europe.”Benjamin Jackson, Senior Director of legal affairs at Myriad Genetics, commented that Myriad holds several patents in Europe that are not likely to be affected by the Supreme Court''s ruling. “The patent situation both generally and for Myriad is a lot clearer in Europe. The European Union Biotech Directive very clearly says that isolated DNA is patentable even if it shares the same sequence as natural DNA,” he said. “Right now, it''s pretty uncontroversial, or at least it''s well settled law basically in Europe that isolated DNA is patentable.” However, while the Directive states that “biological material which is isolated from its natural environment or produced by means of a technical process” might be patentable “even if it previously occurred in nature”, the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich, Germany, requires that the subject matter is an inventive step and not just an obvious development of existing technology and that the industrial application and usefulness must be disclosed in the application.Myriad has opened a headquarters in Zurich and a lab in Munich during the past year, hoping to make inroads in Europe. In some EU countries, Myriad offers its BRCA test as part of cancer diagnosis. In other countries, BRCA testing is conducted at a fraction of what Myriad charges in the USA, either because institutions ignore the patents that are not enforced in their jurisdictions, or because these countries, such as Belgium, were not included in the patent granted by the European Patent Office. Moreover, in various countries BRCA testing is only available through the healthcare system and only as part of a more extensive diagnosis of cancer risk. In addition, as Matthijs commented, “[t]he healthcare system in Europe is very heterogeneous and that''s also of course a big impediment for a big laboratory to try and conquer Europe because you have to go through different reimbursement policies in different countries and that''s not easy.”Ultimately, it seems the Supreme Court''s decision might turn out to have little impact on biotech firms in either the USA or Europe. Technological advances, in particular new sequencing technologies, might render the issue of patenting individual genes increasingly irrelevant. 相似文献

19.

Reading the tea leaves of Congress. With a new Republican majority in the House of Representatives, scientific research in the USA might face budget cuts

Suran M 《EMBO reports》2011,12(5):404-407

The increasing influence of the Tea Party in Congress and politics has potential repercussions for public funding of scientific research in the USAIn 2009, Barack Obama became the 44th President of the USA, amid hopes that he would fix the problems created or left unresolved by his predecessor. However, despite his positive mantra, “Yes we can,” the situation was going to get worse: the country was spiralling towards an economic recession, a collapsing residential real-estate market and the loss of millions of jobs. Now, the deficit lingers around US$14 trillion (US Department of the Treasury, 2011). In response to these hardships and the presence of a perceived ‘socialist'' president in office, a new political movement started brewing that would challenge both the Democrats and the Republicans—the two parties that have dominated US politics for generations. Known as the Tea Party, this movement has been gaining national momentum in its denouncement of the status quo of the government, especially in relation to federal spending, including the support of scientific research.The name is a play on the Boston Tea Party, at which more than 100 American colonists dumped 45 tonnes of tea into Boston Harbour (Massachusetts, USA) in 1773 to protest against the British taxation of imported tea. Whereas the 18th century Boston Tea Party formed to protest against a specific tax, the Tea Party of the 21st century protests against taxes and ‘big'' government in general.Many view Tea Party followers as modern muckrakers, but supporters claim their movement is fundamentally about upholding the US Constitution. Tea Party Patriots, a non-partisan organization, considers itself to be the official home of the Tea Party movement. Fuelled by the values of fiscal responsibility, limited government and free markets, Tea Party Patriots believe, these three principles are granted by the Constitution, although not necessarily upheld by the administration.“If you read the Constitution, the limits of government involvement in society [are] pretty well-defined and our government has gone farther and farther beyond the specific limits of the Constitution,” said Mark Meckler, one of the co-founders of Tea Party Patriots. “Our Constitution is not designed as an empowering document, but as a limiting document… [and] was intended to be used as a weapon by the people against the government to keep it in the box.” Tea Partiers tend to be especially critical when it comes to spending tax dollars on bank bailouts and health care, but anything goes when it comes to cutting back on public spending—even science. “We believe everything needs to be on the table since the government is virtually bankrupt,” Meckler said. “We need to cut the waste, cut the abuse [and] get rid of the departments that shouldn''t exist.”Tea Partiers tend to be especially critical when it comes to spending tax dollars on bank bailouts and health care, but anything goes when […]cutting […] public spending—even scienceOn 19 February 2011, the US House of Representatives, which is currently controlled by the Republicans, passed a federal-spending bill for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year budget. Among other cuts, the bill called for billions of dollars to be slashed from the budgets of federal science agencies. If the bill is signed into law, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will have $1.6 billion cut from its budget—a 5.2% decrease—and the Department of Energy (DOE) will experience an 18% cut in funding for its Office of Science. Other agencies targeted include the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Science Foundation (NSF; Anon, 2011; ). Although the US Senate, which has a Democratic majority, must consider the bill before any definite amendments to the budget are made, it is likely that there will be some cuts to science funding.Although the House is in favour of science-related cuts, President Obama supports spending more on science education, basic research and clean-energy research. He has also proposed an 11.8% increase in the budget of the DOE, as well as an 8% increase in the NSF budget (Office of Management and Budget, 2011).The House is in favour of science-related cuts, but President Obama is in favour of spending more on science education, basic science and clean-energy researchJoann Roskoski, acting assistant director of the Biology Directorate at the NSF, said her institute is strongly in favour of President Obama''s budget proposal. “President Obama is a very strong supporter of fundamental research and STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] education because he perceives it as investing in the future of the country,” she said. “These are just difficult budgetary times and we''ll just have to wait and see what happens. As they say, the president proposes and Congress disposes.”Karl Scheidt, a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois, USA), has four grants from federal agencies. “A couple of my grants expire this year, which is happening at the worst, worst possible time,” explained Scheidt, whose grants are funded by the NIH and the NSF. He added that although many politicians either do not understand or believe in the fundamentals of science, they still preach to the masses about what they ‘think'' they know. “I think it''s an absolute travesty that many people don''t understand science and that many of the Republicans who don''t fully understand science perpetuate incorrect assumptions and scientific falsehoods when speaking in public,” he said. “It makes the US less competitive and puts us collectively at a disadvantage relative to other nations if we don''t succeed in scientific education and innovative research in the future.”Although the Tea Party is not technically associated with the Republican Party, all Tea-Party representatives and senators ran as Republican candidates in the last election. While only one-third of seats in the Senate are on the ballot every two years for a six-year term, all House seats are for a two-year term. In the most recent Senatorial election, 50% of Tea Party-backed candidates won; 10 in total. 140 candidates for seats in the House of Representatives were backed by the Tea Party—all of whom were Republicans—but only 40 won. Nevertheless, with around 100 new Republicans in office, a House controlled by a Republican majority and most Congress-based Republicans in agreement with Tea Party ideals, the Tea Party actually has a lot of sway on the voting floor.Of course, as a fundamentally grass-roots movement, their influence is not limited to the halls of power. Since just before the November election last year, Tea Party-backed politicians have received more scrutiny and media exposure, meaning more people have listened to their arguments against spending on science. In fact, Republican politicians associated with the Tea Party have made critical and sometimes erroneous comments about science. Representative Michelle Bachman, for example, claimed that because carbon dioxide is a natural gas, it is not harmful to our atmosphere (Johnson, 2009). Representative Jack Kingston denounced the theory of evolution and stated that he did not come from a monkey (The Huffington Post, 2011). When asked how old he believes the Earth to be, Senator Rand Paul refused to answer (Binckes, 2010). He also introduced a bill to cut the NSF budget by 62%, and targeted the budget of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.Scheidt believes part of the challenge is that many scientists do not properly articulate the importance of their work to the public, and there is limited representation on behalf of science in Washington. “It''s difficult sometimes to advocate for and explain the critical importance of basic research and for the most part, Congress may not always appreciate the basic fundamental mission of organizations like the NIH,” Scheidt said. “Arlen Specter was one of the few people who could form coalitions with his colleagues on both sides of the aisle and communicate why scientific research is critical. Why discovering new ways to perform transplants and creating new medicines are so important to everyone.”…part of the challenge is that many scientists do not properly articulate the importance of their work to the public, and there is limited representation on behalf of science in WashingtonSpecter, a former senator, was Republican until 2009 when he decided to switch political parties. During the last Democratic primary, he lost the Pennsylvania Senate nomination after serving in Congress for more than four decades. The Democratic nominee, Joe Sestak, eventually lost the coveted seat to Pat Toomey, a Tea Party Republican who sponsored an amendment denying NIH funding for some grants while he was a House member. Toomey is also against funding climate science and clean-energy research with federal dollars.Specter was considered a strong supporter of biomedical research, especially cancer research. He was the catalyst that pushed through a great deal of pro-science legislation, such as adding approximately $10 billion to NIH funding as part of the stimulus package in 2009, and doubling NIH funding in the 1990s. As scientific research was so important to him, he served on the US Senate Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies and on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Specter was a popular political champion of science not only because of all he had accomplished, but also because so few scientists are elected to office.Among those Democrats who lost their seats to Tea Party Republicans was Congressman Bill Foster. Foster, who once worked for the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab)—which is funded by the DOE—represented Batavia, Ilinois, which is also where Fermilab has its headquarters. “The new representative in the district where Fermilab resides is Randy Hultgren, a Republican, who has been very supportive of the laboratory since he''s been elected,” said Cindy Conger, Chief Financial Officer at Fermilab. “He''s very interested in us and very interested […] in us having adequate funding.”However, Fermilab is suffering financially. “We will […] have some level of layoffs,” Conger said. “Inadequate federal funding could result in more layoffs or not being able to run our machines for part of the year. These are the things we are contemplating doing in the event of a significant budget cut. Nothing is off the table [but] we will do everything we can to run the [Tevatron] accelerator.”But Fermilab''s desperate appeal for $35 million per year for the next three fiscal years was denied by the Obama administration and not included in the 2012 White House budget request. As a result, the most powerful proton–antiproton accelerator in the USA, the Tevatron, is shutting down indefinitely near the end of this year.Another pro-science Republican is former Congressman John Porter, who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He encouraged the federal funding of science while serving as chair of the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, as well as on the House Committee on Appropriations and Related Agencies. Like Scheidt, Porter said a problem is that not many members of Congress really understand science or what goes into scientific research.“Many members of Congress don''t realize that the money appropriated for the funding of scientific research through NIH, NSF […] is sent out to research institutes in their districts and states where the research is conducted,” said Porter, who retired from Congress in 2001 after serving for more than 20 years. “They simply haven''t been exposed to it and that''s the fault of the science community, which has a great responsibility to educate about the mechanisms on how we fund scientific research.”Today, Porter is vice-chair of the Foundation for the NIH and also chairs Research!America, a non-profit organization which aims to further medical, health and scientific research as higher national priorities. He also noted that industry would not fund scientific research in the way the government does because there would essentially be no profits. Therefore, federal funding remains essential.“Let''s take away the phones, iPads and everything else [those against the federal funding of science] depend on and see what''s left,” Porter said. “The US is the world leader in science, technology and research and the way we got there and the way we have created the technology that makes life easier […] is a result of making investments in that area.”For now, Scheidt said the best approach is to educate as many people as possible to understand that scientific research is a necessity, not a luxury. “We unfortunately have a very uneducated population in regard to science and it''s not 100% their fault,” he said. “However, if people took a real interest in science and paid as much attention to stem-cell or drug-discovery research as they did to the Grammy Awards or People magazine I think they would appreciate what''s going on in the science world.”…the best approach is to educate as many people as possible to understand that scientific research is a necessity, not a luxuryInstead, the USA is lagging behind its competitors when it comes to STEM education. According to the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the USA is ranked 17th on science and 25th on maths out of 34 countries (US Department of Education, 2010). “We''re in a cluster now, we''re no longer the leading country,” said D. Martin Watterson, a molecular biologist who sits on NIH peer-review committees to evaluate grant proposals. The reason, according to Watterson, is that the first things to be cut after a budget decrease are training grants for continuing education efforts. Moreover, the USA already lacks highly trained workers in the field of science. “In some disciplines, employers now look to other places in Europe and Asia to find those trained personnel,” Watterson said.Ultimately, most people at least want a final budget to be passed so that there is sufficient time to plan ahead. However, Georgetown University political science professor Clyde Wilcox thinks that a compromise is not so simple. “The problem is that it''s a three-way poker game. People are going to sit down and they''re going to be bargaining, negotiating and bluffing each other,” he said. “The House Republicans just want to cut the programs that they don''t like, so they''re not cutting any Republican programs for the most part.”As a result, institutions such as the EPA find themselves being targeted by the Republicans. Although there is not a filibuster-proof majority of Democrats in the Senate, they still are a majority and will try to preserve science funding. Wilcox said that it is not necessarily a good thing to continue negotiating if nothing gets done and the country is dependent on continuing resolutions.Although there is not a filibuster-proof majority of Democrats in the Senate, they still are a majority and will try to preserve science funding“What the real problem is, when push comes to shove, someone has to blink,” he said. “I don''t think there will be deep cuts in science for a number of reasons, one is science is consistent with the Democratic ideology of education and the Republican ideology of investment. And then, we don''t really spend that much on science anyway so you couldn''t come remotely close to balancing the budget even if you eliminated everything.”Although during his time in Congress representatives of both parties were not as polarized as they are today, Porter believes the reason they are now is because of the political climate. “The president has made [science] a very important issue on his agenda and unfortunately, there are many Republicans today that say if he''s for it, I''m against it,” Porter said. In fact, several government officials ignored repeated requests or declined to comment for this article.“It''s time for everybody from both parties to stand up for the country, put the party aside and find solutions to our problems,” Porter commented. “The American people didn''t just elect us to yell at each other, they elected us to do a job. You have to choose priorities and to me the most important priority is to have our children lead better lives, to have all human beings live longer, healthier, happier lives and to have our economy grow and prosper and our standard of living maintained—the only way to do that is to invest where we lead the world and that''s in science.” 相似文献

20.

The puzzle of sympatry. Recent evidence supports the notion of sympatric speciation--the rise of new species in the same location--but the reasons for this phenomenon remain elusive

Wolinsky H 《EMBO reports》2010,11(11):830-833

Sympatric speciation—the rise of new species in the absence of geographical barriers—remains a puzzle for evolutionary biologists. Though the evidence for sympatric speciation itself is mounting, an underlying genetic explanation remains elusive.For centuries, the greatest puzzle in biology was how to account for the sheer variety of life. In his 1859 landmark book, On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin (1809–1882) finally supplied an answer: his grand theory of evolution explained how the process of natural selection, acting on the substrate of genetic mutations, could gradually produce new organisms that are better adapted to their environment. It is easy to see how adaptation to a given environment can differentiate organisms that are geographically separated; different environmental conditions exert different selective pressures on organisms and, over time, the selection of mutations creates different species—a process that is known as allopatric speciation.It is more difficult to explain how new and different species can arise within the same environment. Although Darwin never used the term sympatric speciation for this process, he did describe the formation of new species in the absence of geographical separation. “I can bring a considerable catalogue of facts,” he argued, “showing that within the same area, varieties of the same animal can long remain distinct, from haunting different stations, from breeding at slightly different seasons, or from varieties of the same kind preferring to pair together” (Darwin, 1859).It is more difficult to explain how new and different species can arise within the same environmentIn the 1920s and 1930s, however, allopatric speciation and the role of geographical isolation became the focus of speciation research. Among those leading the charge was Ernst Mayr (1904–2005), a young evolutionary biologist, who would go on to influence generations of biologists with his later work in the field. William Baker, head of palm research at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in Richmond, UK, described Mayr as “one of the key figures to crush sympatric speciation.” Frank Sulloway, a Darwin Scholar at the Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, similarly asserted that Mayr''s scepticism about sympatry was central to his career.The debate about sympatric and allopatric speciation has livened up since Mayr''s death…Since Mayr''s death in 2005, however, several publications have challenged the notion that sympatric speciation is a rare exception to the rule of allopatry. These papers describe examples of both plants and animals that have undergone speciation in the same location, with no apparent geographical barriers to explain their separation. In these instances, a single ancestral population has diverged to the extent that the two new species cannot produce viable offspring, despite the fact that their ranges overlap. The debate about sympatric and allopatric speciation has livened up since Mayr''s death, as Mayr''s influence over the field has waned and as new tools and technologies in molecular biology have become available.Sulloway, who studied with Mayr at Harvard University, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, notes that Mayr''s background in natural history and years of fieldwork in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands contributed to his perception that the bulk of the data supported allopatry. “Ernst''s early career was in many ways built around that argument. It wasn''t the only important idea he had, but he was one of the strong proponents of it. When an intellectual stance exists where most people seem to have gotten it wrong, there is a tendency to sort of lay down the law,” Sulloway said.Sulloway also explained that Mayr “felt that botanists had basically led Darwin astray because there is so much evidence of polyploidy in plants and Darwin turned in large part to the study of botany and geographical distribution in drawing evidence in The Origin.” Indeed, polyploidization is common in plants and can lead to ‘instantaneous'' speciation without geographical barriers.In February 2006, the journal Nature simultaneously published two papers that described sympatric speciation in animals and plants, reopening the debate. Axel Meyer, a zoologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Konstanz, Germany, demonstrated with his colleagues that sympatric speciation has occurred in cichlid fish in Lake Apoyo, Nicaragua (). The researchers claimed that the ancestral fish only seeded the crater lake once; from this, new species have evolved that are distinct and reproductively isolated. Meyer''s paper was broadly supported, even by critics of sympatric speciation, perhaps because Mayr himself endorsed sympatric speciation among the cichlids in his 2001 book What Evolution Is. “[Mayr] told me that in the case of our crater lake cichlids, the onus of showing that it''s not sympatric speciation lies with the people who strongly believe in only allopatric speciation,” Meyer said.…several scientists involved in the debate think that molecular biology could help to eventually resolve the issueThe other paper in Nature—by Vincent Savolainen, a molecular systematist at Imperial College, London, UK, and colleagues—described the sympatric speciation of Howea palms on Lord Howe Island (Fig 1), a minute Pacific island paradise (). Savolainen''s research had originally focused on plant diversity in the gesneriad family—the best known example of which is the African violet—while he was in Brazil for the Geneva Botanical Garden, Switzerland. However, he realized that he would never be able prove the occurrence of sympatry within a continent. “It might happen on a continent,” he explained, “but people will always argue that maybe they were separated and got together after. […] I had to go to an isolated piece of the world and that''s why I started to look at islands.”Open in a separate window Figure 1Lord Howe Island. Photo: Ian Hutton.He eventually heard about Lord Howe Island, which is situated just off the east coast of Australia, has an area of 56 km² and is known for its abundance of endemic palms (Sidebar A). The palms, Savolainen said, were an ideal focus for sympatric research: “Palms are not the most diverse group of plants in the world, so we could make a phylogeny of all the related species of palms in the Indian Ocean, southeast Asia and so on.”…the next challenges will be to determine which genes are responsible for speciation, and whether sympatric speciation is common

Sidebar A | Research in paradise

Alexander Papadopulos is no Tarzan of the Apes, but he has spent a couple months over the past two years aloft in palm trees hugging rugged mountainsides on Lord Howe Island, a Pacific island paradise and UNESCO World Heritage site.Papadopulos—who is finishing his doctorate at Imperial College London, UK—said the views are breathtaking, but the work is hard and a bit treacherous as he moves from branch to branch. “At times, it can be quite hairy. Often you''re looking over a 600-, 700-metre drop without a huge amount to hold onto,” he said. “There''s such dense vegetation on most of the steep parts of the island. You''re actually climbing between trees. There are times when you''re completely unsupported.”Papadopulos typically spends around 10 hours a day in the field, carrying a backpack and utility belt with a digital camera, a trowel to collect soil samples, a first-aid kit, a field notebook, food and water, specimen bags, tags to label specimens, a GPS device and more. After several days in the field, he spends a day working in a well-equipped field lab and sleeping in the quarters that were built by the Lord Howe governing board to accommodate the scientists who visit the island on various projects. Papadopulos is studying Lord Howe''s flora, which includes more than 200 plant species, about half of which are indigenous.Vincent Savolainen said it takes a lot of planning to get materials to Lord Howe: the two-hour flight from Sydney is on a small plane, with only about a dozen passengers on board and limited space for equipment. Extra gear—from gardening equipment to silica gel and wood for boxes in which to dry wet specimens—arrives via other flights or by boat, to serve the needs of the various scientists on the team, including botanists, evolutionary biologists and ecologists.Savolainen praised the well-stocked researcher station for visiting scientists. It is run by the island board and situated near the palm nursery. It includes one room for the lab and another with bunks. “There is electricity and even email,” he said. Papadoupulos said only in the past year has the internet service been adequate to accommodate video calls back home.Ian Hutton, a Lord Howe-based naturalist and author, who has lived on the island since 1980, said the island authorities set limits on not only the number of residents—350—but also the number of visitors at one time—400—as well as banning cats, to protect birds such as the flightless wood hen. He praised the Imperial/Kew group: “They''re world leaders in their field. And they''re what I call ‘Gentlemen Botanists''. They''re very nice people, they engage the locals here. Sometimes researchers might come here, and they''re just interested in what they''re doing and they don''t want to share what they''re doing. Not so with these people. Savolainen said his research helps the locals: “The genetics that we do on the island are not only useful to understand big questions about evolution, but we also always provide feedback to help in its conservation efforts.”Yet, in Savolainen''s opinion, Mayr''s influential views made it difficult to obtain research funding. “Mayr was a powerful figure and he dismissed sympatric speciation in textbooks. People were not too keen to put money on this,” Savolainen explained. Eventually, the Leverhulme Trust (London, UK) gave Savolainen and Baker £70,000 between 2003–2005 to get the research moving. “It was enough to do the basic genetics and to send a research assistant for six months to the island to do a lot of natural history work,” Savolainen said. Once the initial results had been processed, the project received a further £337,000 from the British Natural Environment Research Council in 2008, and €2.5 million from the European Research Council in 2009.From the data collected on Lord Howe Island, Savolainen and his team constructed a dated phylogenetic tree showing that the two endemic species of the palm Howea (Arecaceae; Fig 2) are sister taxa. From their tree, the researchers were able to establish that the two species—one with a thatch of leaves and one with curly leaves—diverged long after the island was formed 6.9 million years ago. Even where they are found in close proximity, the two species cannot interbreed as they flower at different times.Open in a separate window Figure 2The two species of Howea palm. (A) Howea fosteriana (Kentia palm). (B) Howea belmoreana. Photos: William Baker, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, Richmond, UK.According to the researchers, the palm speciation probably occurred owing to the different soil types in which the plants grow. Baker explained that there are two soil types on Lord Howe—the older volcanic soil and the younger calcareous soils. The Kentia palm grows in both, whereas the curly variety is restricted to the volcanic soil. These soil types are closely intercalated—fingers and lenses of calcareous soils intrude into the volcanic soils in lowland Lord Howe Island. “You can step over a geological boundary and the palms in the forest can change completely, but they remain extremely close to each other,” Baker said. “What''s more, the palms are wind-pollinated, producing vast amounts of pollen that blows all over the place during the flowering season—people even get pollen allergies there because there is so much of the stuff.” According to Savolainen, that the two species have different flowering times is a “way of having isolation so that they don''t reproduce with each other […] this is a mechanism that evolved to allow other species to diverge in situ on a few square kilometres.”According to Baker, the absence of a causative link has not been demonstrated between the different soils and the altered flowering times, “but we have suggested that at the time of speciation, perhaps when calcareous soils first appeared, an environmental effect may have altered the flowering time of palms colonising the new soil, potentially causing non-random mating and kicking off speciation. This is just a hypothesis—we need to do a lot more fieldwork to get to the bottom of this,” he said. What is clear is that this is not allopatric speciation, as “the micro-scale differentiation in geology and soil type cannot create geographical isolation”, said Baker.…although molecular data will add to the debate, it will not settle it aloneThe results of the palm research caused something of a splash in evolutionary biology, although the study was not without its critics. Tod Stuessy, Chair of the Department of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany at the University of Vienna, Austria, has dealt with similar issues of divergence on Chile''s Juan Fernández Islands—also known as the Robinson Crusoe Islands—in the South Pacific. From his research, he points out that on old islands, large ecological areas that once separated species—and caused allopatric speciation—could have since disappeared, diluting the argument for sympatry. “There are a lot of cases [in the Juan Fernández Islands] where you have closely related species occurring in the same place on an island, even in the same valley. We never considered that they had sympatric origins because we were always impressed by how much the island had been modified through time,” Stuessy said. “What [the Lord Howe researchers] really didn''t consider was that Lord Howe Island could have changed a lot over time since the origins of the species in question.” It has also been argued that one of the palm species on Lord Howe Island might have evolved allopatrically on a now-sunken island in the same oceanic region.In their response to a letter from Stuessy, Savolainen and colleagues argued that erosion on the island has been mainly coastal and equal from all sides. “Consequently, Quaternary calcarenite deposits, which created divergent ecological selection pressures conducive to Howea species divergence, have formed evenly around the island; these are so closely intercalated with volcanic rocks that allopatric speciation due to ecogeographic isolation, as Stuessy proposes, is unrealistic” (Savolainen et al, 2006b). Their rebuttal has found support in the field. Evolutionary biologist Loren Rieseberg at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, said: “Basically, you have two sister species found on a very small island in the middle of the ocean. It''s hard to see how one could argue anything other than they evolved there. To me, it would be hard to come up with a better case.”Whatever the reality, several scientists involved in the debate think that molecular biology could help to eventually resolve the issue. Savolainen said that the next challenges will be to determine which genes are responsible for speciation, and whether sympatric speciation is common. New sequencing techniques should enable the team to obtain a complete genomic sequence for the palms. Savolainen said that next-generation sequencing is “a total revolution.” By using sequencing, he explained that the team, “want to basically dissect exactly what genes are involved and what has happened […] Is it very special on Lord Howe and for this palm, or is [sympatric speciation] a more general phenomenon? This is a big question now. I think now we''ve found places like Lord Howe and [have] tools like the next-gen sequencing, we can actually get the answer.”Determining whether sympatric speciation occurs in animal species will prove equally challenging, according to Meyer. His own lab, among others, is already looking for ‘speciation genes'', but this remains a tricky challenge. “Genetic models […] argue that two traits (one for ecological specialisation and another for mate choice, based on those ecological differences) need to become tightly linked on one chromosome (so that they don''t get separated, often by segregation or crossing over). The problem is that the genetic basis for most ecologically relevant traits are not known, so it would be very hard to look for them,” Meyer explained. “But, that is about to change […] because of next-generation sequencing and genomics more generally.”Many researchers who knew Mayr personally think he would have enjoyed the challenge to his viewsOthers are more cautious. “In some situations, such as on isolated oceanic islands, or in crater lakes, molecular phylogenetic information can provide strong evidence of sympatric speciation. It also is possible, in theory, to use molecular data to estimate the timing of gene flow, which could help settle the debate,” Rieseberg said. However, he cautioned that although molecular data will add to the debate, it will not settle it alone. “We will still need information from historical biogeography, natural history, phylogeny, and theory, etc. to move things forward.”Many researchers who knew Mayr personally think he would have enjoyed the challenge to his views. “I can only imagine that it would''ve been great fun to engage directly with him [on sympatry on Lord Howe],” Baker said. “It''s a shame that he wasn''t alive to comment on [our paper].” In fact, Mayr was not really as opposed to sympatric speciation as some think. “If one is of the opinion that Mayr opposed all forms of sympatric speciation, well then this looks like a big swing back the other way,” Sulloway commented. “But if one reads Mayr carefully, one sees that he was actually interested in potential exceptions and, as best he could, chronicled which ones he thought were the best candidates.”Mayr''s opinions aside, many biologists today have stronger feelings against sympatric speciation than he did himself in his later years, Meyer added. “I think that Ernst was more open to the idea of sympatric speciation later in his life. He got ‘softer'' on this during the last two of his ten decades of life that I knew him. I was close to him personally and I think that he was much less dogmatic than he is often made out to be […] So, I don''t think that he is spinning in his grave.” Mayr once told Sulloway that he liked to take strong stances, precisely so that other researchers would be motivated to try to prove him wrong. “If they eventually succeeded in doing so, Mayr felt that science was all the better for it.”? Open in a separate windowAlex Papadopulos and Ian Hutton doing fieldwork on a very precarious ridge on top of Mt. Gower. Photo: William Baker, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, Richmond, UK. 相似文献