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A Critical Time for the Life Sciences
Speaker after speaker at the Summit agreed: the life sciences are poised to usher
in a period of unprecedented health and prosperity. Basic scientific research into how
living things function is producing new understanding of how living systems work and
new ways of using biological processes to meet human needs. If current opportunities
are grasped, the life sciences can help produce enough food for a growing population,
cure chronic and acute diseases, meet future needs for energy, and manage the
preservation of earth’s biological heritage for future generations. From the perspective of
the life sciences, we live in the most exciting and promising period in human history. Yet
even though the potential is enormous, speakers emphasized that the benefits will be
achieved more quickly if financial and institutional barriers to newly emerging
capabilities are reduced.
The potential of the life sciences today has two roots. First, powerful tools are
allowing biologists to collect and analyze vastly more information about complex
systems, from single cells to global biogeochemical cycles, than has been possible before.
This information is helping to uncover not just the molecular mechanisms that underlie
biological processes but the ways that biological subsystems interact in whole organisms
and in terrestrial and marine ecosystems. In this way, ongoing research is helping to
unify biology by revealing the commonalities among organisms and by linking biological
processes at different levels of
organization. If current opportunities are grasped,
Second, a profound reorganization
within science is occurring. Important the life sciences can help produce
segments of the life sciences are merging
with the physical sciences and engineering enough food for a growing
to create “transdisciplinary” scientific
endeavors focused on pressing global population, cure chronic and acute
problems. This blending of disciplines is diseases, meet future needs for
leading to new insights into life processes
and creating new opportunities to translate energy, and manage the preservation
those insights into practical applications,
just as the synthesis of the physical and of earth’s biological heritage for
mathematical sciences with engineering in
the 20th century created the electronics and future generations.
information revolutions that have
transformed our lives.
Scientists, policymakers, and research administrators cannot predict which new
technologies and industries will emerge from the unification of biology and the
convergence of the life sciences, the physical sciences, and engineering. Yet steps can be
taken now, multiple speakers pointed out, to ensure that the great potential of the life
sciences bears fruit as quickly as possible, thereby giving rise to a steady stream of new
ideas and new applications of science. Public and private funders can support the high-
risk, transformational research that is commonly underfunded, especially during times of
stagnant budgets. They can support younger researchers, who face daunting challenges
in competing for scarce funds yet often have important insights that can spur progress.
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They can help break down the barriers among disciplines that continue to inhibit
transdisciplinary research. And they can foster educational programs that will produce
the transdisciplinary scientists and engineers of the future.
The Promise of the Biological Sciences
Investments in the life sciences pay off in three broad areas, observed
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) President Susan Hockfield. They improve
human health. They foster industries that boost the economy while addressing a wide
range of environmental, energy, health, and agricultural challenges. And they further
human understanding of some of the most fascinating systems in the universe.
Improving Human Health
The biological sciences have enabled most of the world’s population to enjoy
higher living standards and longer life spans than ever before, said National Academies
President Ralph Cicerone. New understanding of the links between disease and
sanitation, the role trace nutrients play in health, and the potential of vaccines and
antibiotics, among many other research results, have improved the lives of people
everywhere.
The progress made in combating heart disease is a prime example of the payoffs
from investment in the life sciences, said Hockfield. Over the past 30 years, the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) has invested about $4 per American per year in cardiovascular
research. That investment has helped reduce the rate of death from heart disease and
stroke by more than half. Knowledge of cholesterol metabolism led to the development
of the drugs known as statins, which have reduced heart attacks and strokes. The
development of drug-eluting stents has enabled physicians to open occluded blood
vessels. Study of receptors on the surface of nerve cells has led to new beta blockers that
are being used to treat hypertension and heart disease.
Similar advances have produced benefits throughout medicine, observed Thomas
Cech, President of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Harold Varmus, President
of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Greater understanding of the role of
tumor necrosis factor in inflammatory disease has led to antibody treatments that have
changed the lives of many people with rheumatoid arthritis. Materials science is
producing spare parts for bones, arteries, and other tissues and organs.
The Artificial Retina
The artificial retina is an implantable microelectronic device designed to restore
useful vision in people blinded by retinal diseases like macular degeneration. It is being
developed by six Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories, four universities,
and private industry. A camera mounted in eyeglasses sends a signal to a microprocessor
worn on a belt that converts the camera’s image to an electronic signal. This signal is fed
to an array of electrodes positioned on the retina of the eye. The electrodes are coated
with diamonds so they do not decay in the salty environment inside the eye, and they are
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springloaded so they do not destroy the cells inside the eye that convey images to the
brain.
The first model consisted of 16 electrodes and was implanted in six patients
between 2002 and 2004. A second, much smaller model consisting of 60 electrodes is
currently being tested in humans, and a third model containing more than 200 electrodes
is now being designed. “When you see a patient who has been blind for 30 to 40 years
recognize objects and be able to read large-scale newsprint, you begin to appreciate the
consequences of the convergence of the physical and life sciences,” said DOE’s
Raymond Orbach.
Basic research into retroviruses motivated by their role in some cancers built the base of
understanding that proved critical in first identifying the cause of the AIDS epidemic and
then developing drugs to control the disease. “If we as a country hadn’t made the
investment in the basic science, in the understanding of retroviruses, we would probably
still today have a rapidly expanding global AIDS epidemic,” Cech said.
Continued basic research into fundamental biological processes could yield a
wealth of new medical advances.
A Genetic Fountain of Youth?
Many biologists have assumed that living things inevitably age and die. But
recent research has shown that the rate of aging in many animals is at least partially under
genetic control, suggesting that many organisms may be able to live longer than they do
normally.
In the 1990s, Cynthia Kenyon and her colleagues at the University of California,
San Francisco, began looking for genes that might control aging in the tiny worm C.
elegans. They found a worm with a mutation in a gene called DAF-2, which encodes a
hormone receptor, that had a healthy life span twice that of normal worms. Mutants
found since then have lifespans up to ten times that of normal worms.
Kenyon and her colleagues also found that another gene called DAF-16 is needed
for DAF-2 mutations to extend the lifespan. DAF-16 encodes a protein that turns other
genes on and off. When another technique called RNA interference was used to regulate
these genes one by one, many turned out to have an effect on aging in C. elegans.
Furthermore, many of these genes may be involved in disease processes, since long-lived
mutants have a remarkable resistance to disease.
Similar genetic pathways have been identified in flies, mice, and humans. Study
of families and populations with unusual longevity also are beginning to turn up genetic
variants associated with long life. “It is looking as though these variants can affect
human lifespans, which means that we could potentially increase longevity and
youthfulness in humans by modulating components of this pathway,” said Kenyon.
Investigations of bacterial genetics could provide new treatments for infectious diseases,
including diseases caused by microbes that have evolved mechanisms to evade existing
treatments. Bioengineered stem cells could provide regulated insulin secretion in people
with diabetes, for example, or repair severed spinal cord nerves. Study of chronic
diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and mental illness, which now account for the bulk
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of health care costs, could lead to personalized treatments that reflect a disease’s unique
characteristics in each individual.
However, the translation of basic research findings to applications is not always
straightforward or quick, Cech observed. Even where understanding of biological
processes is extensive, vast amounts of work must be done, often by people in different
disciplines and sectors working collaboratively, to apply new knowledge in medicine.
From Discovery to Treatment
A combination of deep biological understanding and innovative biotechnology
has dramatically changed outcomes for many women with breast cancer.
In the 1980s, researchers discovered a gene in rats that is involved in the origin
and spread of cancer. The products of this gene could be blocked using a monoclonal
antibody – a special kind of protein made using the tools of biotechnology. Researchers
also discovered that this gene is related to a human gene called HER2 that encodes a
growth factor receptor on the surface of human cells.
Further research showed that women with breast cancer who had extra copies of
the HER2 receptor on tumor cells survived with the disease only about half as long, on
average, as did women with the normal number of receptors. In 1991 the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) received an application requesting that a monoclonal antibody
directed against the receptor called trastuzumab (or Herceptin) be studied in clinical
trials. In 2006, FDA approved the drug for use in patients undergoing breast cancer
treatment who test positive for elevated expression of the receptor.
That is not fast enough, said Susan Desmond-Hellmann, President of Product
Development for Genentech, Inc. The drug should have been available sooner, and far
more drugs similar to Herceptin need to be in the drug development pipeline than is the
case today.
Many questions remain unanswered about Herceptin. Why do some patients
relapse despite being treated with the antibody? Why does Herceptin cause cardiac
problems in some of the women who receive it? As Desmond-Hellmann said, “We need
more, more, more basic science.” Also, scientists from academia, industry, and
government need to be able to interact extensively to answer such questions. For
example, noninvasive ways approved by regulators to monitor and diagnose cancers
would catalyze the development of new drugs.
Fostering Industries to Counter Global Problems
The life sciences have applications in areas that range far beyond human health.
Life-science based approaches could contribute to advances in many industries, from
energy production and pollution remediation, to clean manufacturing and the production
of new biologically inspired materials. In fact, biological systems could provide the basis
for new products, services and industries that we cannot yet imagine. Microbes are
already producing biofuels and could, through further research, provide a major
component of future energy supplies. Marine and terrestrial organisms extract carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere, which suggests that biological systems could be used to
help manage climate change. Study of the complex systems encountered in biology is
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producing insights into similarly interconnected networks encountered in many other
areas of science – and vice versa.
Take agriculture as an example. The agricultural biotechnology industry is just a
little more than a decade old, said Robert Fraley, Executive Vice President and Chief
Technology Officer at Monsanto – the first bioengineered crop, a soybean seed with a
gene providing tolerance for a common herbicide, was launched in 1996. Yet
biotechnology crops are today being planted on 20 percent of the world’s farmland, and
the percentage is projected to double as new crops are introduced and countries like India
and China move toward full adoption of the technology. “This is the most rapidly
adopted new technology in the history of agriculture,” Fraley said.
The ability to introduce multiple genes into an ever-expanding array of crops has
not only increased yields but has produced significant environmental benefits. By
altering the characteristics of crops, agricultural biotechnology has made it possible for
farmers to use fewer pesticides and other chemicals. Fewer trips through the fields on
tractors mean less greenhouse gas emissions and reduced compaction of soils.
Furthermore, the revolution in agricultural biotechnology has just begun, Fraley said.
Within a few years, agricultural companies will be selling seeds with ten or more
introduced genes. Crops can be modified to improve human health; for example,
soybeans have been genetically modified to produce healthy rather than unhealthy fatty
acids. Future crops will need far less water, a crucial consideration as climate change
alters rainfall patterns and groundwater aquifers are depleted. As Fraley said, “As much
as we have seen happen in the last decade, it is really just the beginning.”
Advances in the underlying science of plant and animal breeding have been just
as dramatic as the advances in genetic engineering. Results from basic research have
allowed plant and animal breeders to produce organisms with desired combinations of
genetic traits. Say, for example, that a breeder wants to assemble 20 desirable genetic
traits in the same plant. Using traditional breeding methods, the odds of achieving
exactly that combination of traits in a single plant would have been one in a trillion –
essentially zero. Using the new techniques made possible through genetic research, the
odds are one in five. Over the last half century, plant breeders have been able to achieve
a nearly one percent annual increase in corn yields using traditional breeding techniques.
With the new techniques, yields are now going up by two to three percent annually. “We
can now pick traits and combinations of genes that it never would have been possible to
produce in the history of agriculture,” said Fraley. “That says a lot when you consider
that humans have been trying to do this for 8,000 years.”
Many other technologies derived from basic scientific research are boosting
agricultural yields. Automated gene sequencers test genetic markers in thousands of
individual seeds per day. Magnetic resonance imaging can look inside plants and animals
to characterize traits. Using tractors equipped with global positioning system devices,
farmers can put down a band of fertilizer, come back six months later, and plant seeds
exactly on that row, reducing the need for fertilizer, pesticides, and other agricultural
inputs.
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Fraley said that the global
agricultural system needs to adopt “Just as the basic biomedical research in the
the goal of doubling the current
yield of crops while reducing key future is not going to be done by the
inputs like pesticides, fertilizers,
and water by one third. “It is more pharmaceutical companies, [oil companies and
important than putting a man on
agribusinesses] aren't going to do the
the moon,” he said. Doubling
agricultural yields would “change fundamental research in photosynthesis and
the world.” Another billion people
will join the middle class over the plant development and plant hormones that is
next decade just in India and China
as economies continue to grow. going to lay the groundwork for a future
And all people need and deserve understanding of how plants work,” said Cech.
secure access to food supplies.
Continued progress will For the life sciences to have a dramatic effect
require both basic and applied
research, as scientists learn more on nutrition, the world’s food supply, and the
about the fundamental biology of
plants and collaborate with others renewable energy problem, “we need to keep
in putting that knowledge to work. reinvesting in understanding the biology.”
“Just as the basic biomedical
research in the future is not going to be done by the pharmaceutical companies, [oil
companies and agribusinesses] aren't going to do the fundamental research in photosynthesis
and plant development and plant hormones that is going to lay the groundwork for a future
understanding of how plants work,” said Cech. For the life sciences to have a dramatic
effect on nutrition, the world’s food supply, and the renewable energy problem, “we need to
keep reinvesting in understanding the biology.”
Answering Fundamental Questions
The life sciences can answer some of the most fundamental, interesting, and
difficult questions that human beings can ask. How did the great diversity of living
things come to be? How do cells function on a molecular level? What is the role of life
in changing the surface of the earth?
Consider this last question, The evolution of life “put earth under new
said James Collins, who is currently
on leave from Arizona State management,” Collins said. Understanding
University to serve as Assistant
Director for Biological Sciences at the future state of the planet will require
the National Science Foundation.
understanding the biological systems that
According to a recent estimate, of
the approximately 4,300 types of have shaped the planet.
minerals on the earth, about 3,000
are the products of biological
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processes. The evolution of life “put earth under new management,” Collins said.
Understanding the future state of the planet will require understanding the biological
systems that have shaped the planet.
Many of these biological systems are found in the oceans, which cover 70 percent
of the earth’s surface and have a crucial impact on weather, climate, and the composition
of the atmosphere. In the past decade, new tools have become available to explore the
microbial processes that drive the chemistry of the oceans, observed David Kingsbury,
Chief Program Officer for Science at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. These
technologies have revealed that a large proportion of the planet’s genetic diversity resides
in the oceans. In addition, many organisms in the oceans readily exchange genes,
creating evolutionary forces that can have global effects.
The oceans are currently under great stress, Kingsbury pointed out. Nutrient
runoff from agriculture is helping to create huge and expanding “dead zones” where
oxygen levels are too low to sustain life. Toxic algal blooms are occurring with higher
frequency in areas where they have not been seen in the past. Exploitation of ocean
resources is disrupting ecological balances that have formed over many millions of years.
Human-induced changes in the chemistry of the atmosphere are changing the chemistry
of the oceans, with potentially catastrophic consequences. “If we are not careful, we are
not going to have a sustainable planet to live on,” said Kingsbury. Only by
understanding the basic biological processes at work in the oceans can humans live
sustainably on earth.
The prospect of answering basic questions about the nature and history of life
attracts many students to the life sciences, especially when they see that putting that
knowledge to work can contribute to building a cleaner and healthier world, said several
speakers at the meeting. How did the first living organisms arise from the inanimate
compounds present on the earth? What biological mechanisms give rise to
consciousness? Have living things evolved on other planets in our solar system or
elsewhere in the universe? These are the kinds of questions that can spark the
imaginations and convictions of students and researchers alike.
The Rise of Transdisciplinary Science
The way that biological research is being done “is changing right in front of our
eyes,” according to Collins. Researchers from different fields of biology are working
together on projects that transcend divisions within the discipline. Similarly, life
scientists are increasingly working in partnerships with physical scientists and engineers
on problems that no one discipline could solve on its own.
The Unification of the Life Sciences
Since the emergence of biology as a profession in the 19th century, the discipline
has included two major intellectual strands, said Collins. One strand focused on
understanding life, as exemplified by Charles Darwin’s identification of natural selection
as the explanation for the diversity and distribution of living things. The other strand
focused on controlling life, as exemplified by the work of Jacques Loeb, a German
biologist who worked at the University of Berlin and the University of Chicago in the late
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19th and early 20th centuries, to understand and modify the physiological mechanisms
responsible for biological processes.
Over the course of the 20th century, these two streams of scholarship blended.
The effort to understand organisms led to the study of biological processes on
progressively smaller scales. As former NIH Director Elias Zerhouni put it, “Just as
physicists went from gross phenomena to atomic structure to subatomic particles, we
have gone from understanding organs and their general functions to trying to understand
molecular events.” This research led to the discovery that all organisms rely on
essentially the same basic molecular mechanisms, so investigations of one organism can
yield insights that apply throughout biology. It turn, new understandings of the
molecular constituents of organisms have made it possible to adapt biological
mechanisms for specific purposes.
Today, the ongoing unification of the life sciences is also evident in a contrasting
endeavor: the effort to build upward in scale from an understanding of molecular
mechanisms to an understanding of entire
organisms and ecosystems. Living things, from “The generation of data is not equal
bacteria to humans, consist of biological
to the generation of knowledge,” said
subsystems that are connected in complex,
interacting networks. Biologists now have a Zerhouni. Understanding the
fairly good understanding of many of these
complexity inherent in organisms is
subsystems, said Zerhouni. But they need to
develop ways of integrating their knowledge of another grand challenge that could
subsystems to understand the behavior of
inspire the best efforts of students
organisms and assemblies of organisms.
Computing, robotics, and other technologies and scientists.
allow life scientists to generate immense
amounts of data. But “the generation of data is
not equal to the generation of knowledge,” said
Zerhouni. Understanding the complexity
“We have to encourage young people
inherent in organisms is another grand challenge
that could inspire the best efforts of students and to take up this next challenge,”
scientists.
Hockfield said. “[We need] to grab
The Rise of Transdisciplinary Research the attention of kids from K to 12 to
say, ‘wow, this is cool stuff, I want to
To continue to make progress on basic
scientific questions and on the application of be doing science and engineering and
new knowledge to human needs, life scientists
math.”
are discovering that they must join in
partnerships with physical scientists and
engineers. This convergence of disciplines is “the defining intellectual movement of our
time,” according to Hockfield.
In crucial respects, the life sciences are undergoing a transition analogous to a
transition that the physical sciences underwent at the beginning of the 20th century. Basic
research in the physical sciences at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the
20th produced a deep understanding of the physical world. This fundamental scientific
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research revealed the structure and nature of matter. It demonstrated the nature of the
cosmos and our place within the cosmos. It was a triumph of knowledge for knowledge’s
sake.
This new understanding of the physical world also yielded what Hockfield called
a “parts list” for the physical world – a basic understanding of the constituents and
interactions of physical objects. Having this parts list enabled scientists and engineers to
incorporate the insights of physics into a wide array of practical applications. The
resulting convergence of the physical sciences and engineering spawned the electronics
industry, the computer industry, and the information industry. “If you contrast daily life
today with what it was like a century ago, you would be hard-pressed to name a set of
technologies and industries that have had a more transformative impact on our lives and
on how we do our work,” Hockfield said.
The biological sciences are poised on the brink of a comparable transformation.
The discovery of the structure of DNA in the middle of the 20th century drove a
worldwide effort to construct the parts list of biological organisms. The construction of
this list, which has been a tremendously exciting intellectual adventure in its own right, is
also having revolutionary practical outcomes, such as the biotechnology revolution in
medicine and agriculture and the application of knowledge from the life sciences to
energy and environmental issues.
From Genetics to Genomics to Metagenomics
The first large-scale transdisciplinary project centered on the life sciences was
the Human Genome Project (HGP). It drew on concepts and technologies from many
disciplines, including physics, engineering, computer science, and mathematics.
Many of the technologies needed for ultrafast genetic sequencing were not available
when the HGP started in 1990, and some biologists wondered if the data generated by
the project would ever have broad applications. In fact, the HGP greatly accelerated
the development of many new technologies, and the data and techniques generated by
the project have had revolutionary effects throughout biology. For example, said
Sloan-Kettering’s Harold Varmus, the availability of the human genome has
“completely changed our approach to cancer,” including diagnostics, classification,
prevention, and treatment.
The HGP marked the transition from genetics – the study of the DNA
sequences that constitute genes – to genomics – the study of the complete DNA
sequences of organisms. Now the continued development of sequencing technologies
is giving rise to metagenomics – in which the collective ‘genome’ of entire
communities of microorganisms is studied. Metagenomics reveals the characteristics
of organisms that cannot be cultured in the laboratory, and it helps show how
organisms relate to each other in natural environments. It also has revealed a range
and diversity of DNA sequences -- and even organisms -- previously unknown to
science.
In the past, biologists simply borrowed tools from the physical sciences and
engineering to solve problems within their own discipline. Today, biological and
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physical scientists and engineers are working as equal partners on problems. In the
process, they are forging a “strong and fruitful new synthesis,” said Hockfield.
This work represents a step beyond interdisciplinary research, in which
researchers from different disciplines contribute elements to a common problem, or
multidisciplinary research, where disciplines overlap. The convergence of the life
sciences, the physical sciences, and engineering has the potential to produce a
transdisciplinary science in which separate disciplines merge into something new. In
laboratories such as that of Stanford’s Lucy Shapiro (see sidebar), this convergence is
generating not just new results but new approaches to research. As Keith Yamomoto,
Professor and Executive Vice Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of
California, San Francisco, put it, “disciplines that were thought to be distinct begin to melt
together and be able to contribute different kinds of expertise and thought processes to
solving problems.”
A Wiring Diagram for Cells
Cellular systems can be represented in “wiring diagrams” analogous to those of
electronic circuits. But the components in the diagram are proteins, nucleic acids, and
other biologically active molecules while the wires are interactions among those
components.
Lucy Shapiro’s laboratory at the Stanford University School of Medicine chose a
simple organism -- a bacterium called Caulobacter crescentus -- and set out to understand
all the integrated processes that this organism needs to function as a living cell. Among
these processes are the biochemical circuits that control cell division and differentiation.
Four proteins serve as master regulators of these processes, Shapiro and her colleagues
have found. Rising and falling quantities of these proteins in in particular parts of the cell
produce “an exquisite coordination of events in a three-dimensional grid.”
Building these circuit diagrams has allowed researchers to identify nodes that
control cellular functions and are attractive targets for drugs designed to alter the
functioning of cells. Research in Shapiro’s lab, for example, has led to drug development
projects for two new antibiotics and an antifungal agent.
Shapiro’s lab members are about half biologists and half physicists and engineers.
Each has had to learn the language of the others so that they can work together. “You put
all these people together and amazing things happen,” Shapiro said. “Now we understand
in a completely different way how this bacterial cell works.”
Maximizing the Return on our Life Sciences Research Investment
In many places, life sciences research is already being done in new ways, but several
speakers emphasized that changes in how life sciences research is funded, how students are
educated, and how academic institutions are organized could speed the emergence of new
ideas and applications from the life sciences research community. The tremendous potential
of the life sciences demands new approaches not just by researchers but by the policymakers
and administrators who fund and oversee scientific research. While many steps can be taken
to strengthen the scientific enterprise, speakers at the meeting emphasized two in particular:
supporting high-risk, high-payoff science, and educational initiatives at all levels to prepare
the scientists and engineers of the future.
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Taking Risks
Stagnant funding for the life sciences over the past five years has had major
consequences for research. When funding is tight, science almost always becomes more
conservative. Funders focus on projects that have a high likelihood of succeeding, not on
projects that could have great payoffs but may be less likely to succeed. “Potentially
transformative or high-risk, high-reward research is discouraged,” said Cech.
At the same time, younger scientists tend to have a harder time getting research
grants––especially when funding is constrained. They have less of a track record, so their
proposals tend not to score as highly in reviews of their proposals. Also, because of the shift
in science toward work that combines disciplines, many projects tend not to fall neatly
within disciplinary boundaries, even though the panels set up to review proposals tend to be
organized by discipline. Today, the average age at which biologists get their first R01 grants
as independent investigators from NIH is 43. “I find this astonishing,” said Hockfield. “I
got my first NIH R01 when I was 30, and I was not considered to be a young receiver of an
award.”
According to Zerhouni, “The greatest risk in periods of tight economic times and
tight budgets is to stop taking risks.” Funding mechanisms need to cut across different
institutes within NIH and across federal agencies. While the principles of peer review need
to be maintained to ensure the quality of the research that is funded, several speakers
suggested that a new kind of proposal review mechanism may be needed that has a
multidisciplinary foundation. “Our funding agencies and not just our scientists need to be
collaborators,” said Hockfield.
Zerhouni suggested several ways that more adventurous science could be
encouraged. For example, a small percentage of support could be set aside at each research-
funding agency as a “venture budget.” These funds could be used to take advantage of fast-
emerging opportunities and to support small-scale projects to gauge the likelihood of
success for a larger project. Also, program officers could be given some authority to
override study sections to support innovative projects with the potential for important
advances, allowing researchers to spend their time doing science instead of writing grant
applications. Finally, it is important for federal agencies to have “flexible funding
mechanisms to support unconventional self-assemblies of scientists with ideas beyond the
typical framework of grants.”
Zerhouni – along with several other speakers - further asserted that federal agencies
need to find ways of supporting younger scientists. The panels that review grant proposals
could be organized in such a way that expectations are appropriate for the career stages of
applicants. Programs may also be needed that move promising young researchers from
initial, small-scale grants into mainstream funding mechanisms.
Steps in these directions have occurred in both the public and private sectors. NIH,
NSF, and the Department of Defense have new grant programs to support younger
researchers. Private philanthropies like the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation have instituted programs that essentially fund people
rather than projects. “We identify the best people that we see coming up and invest in
them,” said Kingsbury. “It has been incredibly powerful and transformative in our view.”
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been supporting small-scale explorations of
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promising but high-risk ideas. The federal government’s support of the life sciences would
benefit by incorporating more of this spirit of innovation, said Zerhouni.
At the same time, research administrators need the tools to do their jobs more
effectively. Today it can be difficult to determine what kinds of science are being funded
even within a single agency such as NIH. The diversity of funding sources is a strength
rather than a weakness of the U.S. research system, said Kingsbury, but program officers
need some way of knowing whether important research is being overlooked.
New policies also are needed to promote efforts designed to move discoveries from
the laboratory to the marketplace. For example, some work progresses best in an academic
environment and some progresses best in an industrial setting, said Hockfield. Researchers
from both settings need to be able to work together with clearly spelled out policies on
conflict of interest that facilitate research without compromising its integrity.
Producing the Scientists and Engineers of the Future
Fifty years ago, the challenge posed by the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik
helped generate a response in the Unites States that caused a generation of students to
become excited about science and engineering. The potential of the life sciences to
address major global problems could create a similar level of enthusiasm for science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects today, said Hockfield. “We
have to encourage young people to take up this next challenge,” she said. “[We need] to
grab the attention of kids from K to 12 to say, ‘wow, this is cool stuff, I want to be doing
science and engineering and math.’”
Education in STEM subjects needs to reflect the changing nature of science. The
disciplinary structure of university departments organizes knowledge in a coherent way
for teaching and research. But it also erects barriers to the kind of across-discipline
research and education needed to address many of today’s major challenges. Universities
need to find ways to reduce the institutional, physical, and attitudinal barriers between
departments, said several speakers at the meeting. Students throughout the sciences and
engineering need a “broad education,” said Hockfield, “so that the material they study
has a common element that equips them to cross talk.”
Education in the life sciences also needs to be more quantitative, more analytic,
and more computationally oriented, said Kingsbury. This emphasis needs to be in place
both at the molecular level and at the organismal and ecological levels so that data and
insights travel freely and quickly within the life sciences and between the life sciences
and other disciplines.
In addition, STEM education needs to reflect the changing nature of students.
Young people are growing up in a world saturated with information technologies. They
interact electronically with social networks, contribute to wikis and other distributed
collaborations, and receive information in ways different from those of previous
generations. Students themselves are more multidisciplinary than in the past and
recognize the importance of working on problems that transcend disciplinary boundaries.
Before graduate school, and even before college, the groundwork needs to be laid for the
integration of the life sciences, the physical sciences, and engineering. “We need to find
more and more ways, . . . starting at least at the high school level, to teach topics from a
multidisciplinary point of view,” said Cech. According to Varmus, changes at the
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precollege level require “high school teachers who are better paid and who approach
science not from textbooks but from experiential approaches.” College instructors also
need more funding and support to develop the kinds of innovative classes that combine
elements from different disciplines.
The life sciences have an intrinsic advantage in education because of the innate
interest students have in learning about things that are alive, said Cicerone. “That sense
of wonder and curiosity . . . is what drives so many students.”
Conclusion
One hundred years ago, the airplane and the tungsten filament light bulb were
five-year-old inventions. “No one could have predicted where those inventions would
have taken us,” said Yamamoto.
Today the life sciences are in a comparable position. It is impossible to predict
what new technologies and new industries will arise from today’s basic research. What
can be predicted is that the world will undergo dramatic changes in the next one hundred
years, and that the life sciences can help ensure that those changes produce a better life
for people everywhere.
While the potential for significant advances is enormous, many challenges need to
be to overcome. Achieving the promise of the life sciences articulated by the Summit
speakers will require investment, creative approaches to how life sciences research is
organized and funded, and attention to improving science education at all levels.
The Summit demonstrated that many of the ingredients for success are already in
place. Many policy-makers, university officials, and scientists have begun to implement
the changes that will allow the life sciences to transform America’s––and the world’s––
future. Expanding these initiatives to a broader set of funding agencies, universities, and
industrial entities will help ensure that the 21st century will be, as many have predicted,
the century of biology.
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