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OCR for page 264
264 THE LIFE SCIENCES
TABLE 19 Types of Research Conducted by Some Life Scientists a
DISCIPLINE OF ACADEMIC
ORIGINAL TRAINING
Basic
NONACADEMIC
Clinical Applied Basic
Clinical Applied
ALL BIOLOGISTS 9018 22 79 19 48
Ph.D. in
Agronomy 711 91 72 1 85
Fish and Wildlife 54 ~54 80 - 90
Forestry 75 78 71 90
Anatomy 996 1 100 - 11
Biochemistry 997 5 87 14 36
Microbiology 946 23 72 15 62
Animal Pathology 10010 - 100
Pharmacology 975 9 82 15 68
Physiology 975 14 86 15 47
Botany 991 8 89 2 48
Entomology 91< 1 54 77 l 73
Ecology 961 24 80 2 66
Plant Pathology 903 71 86 80
Zoology 99< 1 7 86 3 36
M.D. Only 7665 12 68 59 22
a All numbers represent the percentage of responding scientists in each class of employing institu-
tions who indicated their work was, in any degree, basic, applied, or clinical, and horizontal columns
are not additive since a respondent may indicate more than one type of research. The figures do not
reflect the proportions of their effort.
Source: Survey of Individual Life Scientists, National Academy of Sciences Committee on Research
in the Life Sciences.
it as applied, since he hopes to develop a new drug. Taking into considera-
tion these broad caveats, the data of Table 19 provide a useful description
of the world of biological research.
FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF RESEARCH IN THE LIFE SCIENCES
Research in the life sciences is a substantial national enterprise in which the
United States invested $2,264 million in fiscal year 1967*; of this, 30 per-
cent was provided by industry, 4.1 percent by foundations and other private
granting agencies, 1.2 percent by academic institutions from their own
resources, 0.3 percent by local and state governments, and 60.3 percent
* Basic Data Relating to the National Institutes of Healli' 1969, Associate Director
for Program Planning and Evaluation and the Division of Research Grants, National
Institutes of Health. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969, p. 4.
OCR for page 265
THE WORLD OF BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
by the federal government, principal patron of the endeavor. Table 20
summarizes federal expenditures for life science research in fiscal year 1968.
Research supported by industry was largely conducted in-house. In all,
biomedical research conducted within federal laboratories required the
expenditure of approximately $435 million. In part because of the pro-
prietary nature of industrial biomedical research, and largely because the
"principal investigator" in industrial and federal laboratories functions
with a large supporting organization for whose expenditures he is not
responsible, it was patently impossible to obtain, by questionnaire, mean-
ingful data concerning research expenditures from individual scientists in
these two sectors. Our data, therefore, are restricted to information pro-
vided by individual life scientists employed by academic institutions and
by academic department chairmen. Only the former are considered in
this chapter; the latter are discussed in the succeeding chapter. The col-
lected data, summarized in Tables 21, 22, and 23, indicate that in fiscal
year 1967 the 4,046 responding academic life scientists, each of whom was
principal investigator of one or more research grants or contracts, had
available to them, collectively, $162,883,000 in support of the direct costs
of research. The growth of this system is indicated by the fact that, in the
previous year, the same investigators had available $134,726,000 and, in
the prior year, $115,319,000. It is most unfortunate that we have no data
for the same group in fiscal years 1969 or 1970, and, hence, no realistic
data base with which to examine the consequences of the alterations in
federal funding of science that have occurred since our questionnaires
were distributed.
It will be seen that, using our categorizations of the life sciences, molecu-
lar biology and biochemistry commanded one fourth of all reported support,
a substantial fraction of which went to individuals with appointments in
clinical departments. Following, in rank order, were physiology (17 per-
cent) and disease mechanisms (14 percent). Only 1 percent of the total
support went to scientists who stated that they were studying morphological
problems and 2 percent, each, to those engaged in behavioral biology and
in the study of systematic biology and evolution, with other research areas
distributed in between.
The magnitude of support reported for the research area of disease
mechanisms is disturbing in that, proportionally, it is very significantly
under-represented. While the relative support per research area for all
other areas may be considered a reasonably fair indication of the fraction
of total national support that they command, this is surely not the case for
disease mechanisms, presumably due to the disproportionately low response
to our questionnaire by clinical investigators. Thus, it is highly doubtful
that the support of research directly concerned with disease mechanisms
265
OCR for page 266
266 THE LIFE SCIENCES
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THE WORED OF BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH 267
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OCR for page 271
THE WORLD OF BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
by the National Institutes of Health is only 15 percent of its extramural
research program, since half of its total extramural research support is
granted to clinical investigators.
Caution is necessary in interpreting these data, however, because of the
failure of the questionnaire to be sufficiently precise in guiding the respon-
dents. Although "disease," broadly taken, is the concern of clinicians and
pathologists, there are no aspects of the study of disease, other than access
to human patients, that are unique to their endeavors. In addressing him-
self to cardiac disease, the clinician may actually function as a physiologist
who studies vector cardiography or analyzes the composition of blood
obtained by catheterization of one of the cardiac chambers; or he may be
concerned with the etiology and pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and so
utilize the techniques and understanding of the biochemist or nutritionist.
Concerned with a hereditary disorder, he may consider himself a human
geneticist; if studying changes in the architectonics of the brain, he may
view himself as a morphologist or even a student of evolution. If engaged
in elucidation of the causative agent of an infectious disease, he may func-
tion, variously, as a cell biologist or a biochemist, while, if he is testing a
drug in the hope of finding a successful therapeutic procedure, he is, at
least for the time being, a pharmacologist. Accordingly, it is entirely pos-
sible that students of disease, its etiology, pathogenesis, incidence, or
therapy, may well have indicated that their current research area lies in
some category other than "disease mechanisms," thus unintentionally dis-
torting the interpretation that might be applied to these data.
The pattern of support from the National Science Foundation contrasts
with that from the National Institutes of Health. Both supported molecular
biology and biochemistry more heavily than any other category, but,
whereas the National Institutes of Health also contributed in a large way
to the study of physiology and disease mechanisms, the National Science.
Foundation was clearly the principal supporter of systematic biology. The
Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of the Interior, while
contributing only 4 percent and 1 percent, respectively, to the total support
of these life sciences, were particularly concerned with ecology. The prin-
cipal thrust of support by the National Aeronautics and Space Administra-
tion, which contributed only 1 percent of the reported federal total, was in
physiology, while only the Department of Agriculture and diverse industrial
contributors allocated as much as one seventh of their research funds to
studies involving nutrition.
Of interest is the fact that, whereas the voluntary societies were organ-
ized to combat the dread diseases, only 22 percent of their funds went to
scientists who classified their own research as bearing directly on disease
mechanisms, whereas one third of their support went to investigators in
OCR for page 272
272 THE LIFE SCIENCES
molecular biology and biochemistry, and one seventh each to studies of
physiology and cellular biology. Clearly, the administrators of these socie-
ties were sufficiently understanding of the problems involved in treating
and preventing these diseases to recognize the need for relevant basic
research.
Table 21 indicates clearly that indeed the federal government is the
principal patron of these areas of scientific endeavor. Three fourths of
all funds in direct support of research derived from the federal govern-
ment, while one sixth of such funds was provided out of the academic
institutions' own resources. The low figures quoted for support by state
and municipal agencies refer to direct granting activity, but the state
budgets for the public universities contributed in major degree to the
16 percent of all directly research-supporting funds that are stated to have
come from the institutions' own resources.
Particularly disappointing is the low order of contribution to research
support provided by industry, private foundations, voluntary societies, and
individual contributors shown in Table 21. This is the consequence not
so much of a low frequency of granting activity as it is of the relatively
small awards actually made by these sources, as shown in Tables 22 and
23. Thus, the average grant from industry was only $4,000, that from the
voluntary societies, $10,000, and that from private foundations, $13,000.
These figures are in contrast to grants from the National Science Founda-
tion ($14,000), the National Institutes of Health ($30,000), and the
federal average of $25,000.
Of some interest is the pattern of support by discipline. Typical grants
in nutrition, ecology, and systematic biology are of the order of $15,000
per year, whereas grants to investigators in most of the other research areas
were about twice as large.
Utilization of Research Grants
Typically, a research grant is utilized to provide consumable supplies,
major and minor equipment, salaries of technicians and clerical staff, travel
and publication costs, stipends for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows,
and visiting investigators, as well as a variable fraction of the salary of the
principal investigator not to exceed that fraction of his annual effort in-
vested in the research project in question. Uniquely, research grants to
clinical investigators may require expenditures in support of the basic costs
of maintaining patients in hospitals; other grants may provide for unusual
purposes such as ship time, international travel either to meetings or for
work in the field, and, increasingly frequently, computer time. The relative
OCR for page 273
THE WORLD OF BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
TABLE 24 Utilization of Funds from an Average Two-Year Research
Grant in the Life Sciences-National Science Foundation-1968
DOLLARSPERCENTAGE
GRAND TOTAL39,961100.0
Total Direct Costs32,18480.5
Salaries ~ Wages, Subtotal19,69949.3
Principal + Coinvestigators3,9019.8
Research Associates3,5298.8
Graduate Students3,2648.2
Other Professional Personnel3,5518.9
Technical Personnel3,5738.9
Clerical Personnel5881.5
Fringe Benefits on All Above1,2933.2
Equipment4,12310.3
Supplies4,37411.0
Travel, Subtotal1,3463.4
Within the United States9782.5
International3680.9
Publication5051.3
Computer Time1520.4
Other1,9865.0
Total Indirect Costs7,77719.5
distribution of expenditures among these various areas from research grants
in support of research In the life sciences was not ascertained by the present
study. However, data describing the general patterns of funding by the
National Science Foundation are summarized in Table 24.
Research Support as a Function of the Investigator's Age
In a general way, increasing research support comes to the academic in-
vestigator as he gains seniority in the system. As shown in Figure 34, this
is clearly true for investigators supported by the National Institutes of Health
OCR for page 274
274 THE LIFE SCIENCES
50
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National Science
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Age of I nvestigator (Yea rs)
FIGURE 34 Research support of life scientists as a function of their age. (Source:
Survey of Individual Life Scientists, National Academy of Sciences Committee on
Research in the Life Sciences.)
and most other sources. The figures shown for "all sources" represent the
simple arithmetic means for all grants from all sources. Because of the
relatively large number of small grants from the National Science Founda:
lion, industry, foundations, and voluntary societies, the mean grant size
for all sources is decidedly less than that shown for the National Institutes
of Health. Nevertheless, the trend is quite apparent: individual research
support attains a maximum at 50 to 60 years of age and declines thereafter.
This phenomenon is scarcely visible for the National Science Foundation,
largely because this beleaguered agency strives to stretch its available
resources as far as it can to support all qualified applicant investigators
whose proposals fall within its purview, thus markedly reducing the amount
of money available per applicant investigator.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
life scientists
