US stands to lose a generation of young researchers

“Reviewers told us we have good data, a strong team, and well-thought-out experiments. We didn’t get funded just because there were others going for their second and third round who were waiting in line,” says Jill Rafael-Fortney, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry at The Ohio State University, who is working on a new treatment for heart failure.

Highlights of how flat funding is affecting research:

• In 1990, young researchers received 29 percent of R01 grants (the premier NIH research grant needed to establish a researcher’s credibility and independence). By 2007, that dropped to 25 percent.
• While the success rate has dropped for all R01 applicants, it is particularly low— only 18 percent— for first-time applicants.
• First-time RO1 recipients also are older. The average age is now 43, up from 39 years in 1990.

As a result, scientists who review NIH proposals have become more conservative when judging the merits of funding research projects. They are demanding more evidence of eventual success of proposed theories prior to approving funding and inadvertently changing the way science is being conducted, discouraging innovative, big ideas in favor of safer approaches for incremental progress to scientific discovery.

“With this tight funding situation, I’ve stepped away from the riskier stuff,” says Pampee Young, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pathology, Vanderbilt University. “My salary and that of everyone in the lab is dependent on my getting grants. You become very savvy to what is fundable.” Dr. Young’s research is focused on using adult bone marrow stem cells to block the growth of tumors and to also repair damaged heart muscle.

Young investigator, Anil Potti, M.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine at Duke University says that the funding situation is hurting patients who are looking to research to help with their conditions. “I don’t worry about the difficulty of getting funding from NIH for myself. I worry more about what it means in terms of patient care. The whole [grant] cycle can take 12-18 months, and that’s if you’re successful on the first or second try. In the meantime, I’m seeing patients every day who could benefit from this research.” The work of Dr. Potti and his colleagues involves new methods to diagnose and treat lung cancer and was named one of the top science stories of 2006 by Discover magazine.

Copies of “A Broken Pipeline" Flat Funding of the NIH Puts a Generation of Science at Risk” and last year’s report: “Within Our Grasp – Or Slipping Away"Assuring a New Era of Scientific and Medical Progress” can be obtained as of Monday, March 11, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. ET at: www.brokenpipeline.org. Access to the delayed web cast of the March 11 press conference will be available at www.brokenpipeline.org.