Reporting the story

Presumably most of you have read Gina Kolata's take, in the Times, on why cancer research hasn't cured cancer yet. It's the super-conservative grant review process that rewards only incremental research and variations on well-established themes, it turns out.

Well, yes, that's something that all of us, cancer researchers or not, complain about fairly regularly: the requirement for in-depth preliminary data that signals "The first aim is all but complete" before funding shows up.

But I think she buried the real story. Anyone else catch the graph?


Let's take a couple of years here for illustrative purposes.

In 1996, we spent about $3 bn on NCI total, of which $0.6 bn went to "Other expenditures--non research." That's 20%.

In 2005, we spent about $5 bn on NCI total, of which $1.5 bn went to "Other expenditures--non research." That's 30%. Aka, a 50% increase in proportion of non-research expenditures.

Now, there are plenty of other remarks to be made about the article, including "Biology is really complex and simplistic formulations like 'The War on Cancer' are downright silly;" and "You see how funding flatlined and then actually sank? That might have something to do with reviewers becoming conservative." Neither of which was ever addressed in Kolata's article.

But looking at that graph, all I can ask is: where is this non-research money going? Is this due to an increase in overhead/indirect costs? And if so, why? Did it really get that much more expensive to administer and run science buildings starting around the year 2000?

For 2005 alone, if these non-research costs could have been kept at their original 20%, there would be an extra half-billion dollars freed up for cancer research funding. At, say, $250,000 per project/year, that's an extra 2000 projects that didn't happen. In 2005 alone.

This article felt like one of those talks where the speaker doesn't address some really fundamental issue up front, and I can't even process the rest of the talk because I'm so focused on this problem raised by the graph on the third slide.

Leave the epic similes to Virgil, sir

A PI to a classroom of students and postdocs, regarding a scientific issue of signal propagation:

“Here’s an analogy. It’s like when you’re on the same floor as the secretaries, and there’s only one thermostat, and the secretaries, who are always young women with very little body fat and they’re wearing kind of skimpy clothing, are always turning the thermostat way up, and it affects you even though you’re at the other end of the hall, but your feedback doesn’t change the thermostat.”

Cruel to be kind

Good old Blog Fodder the Tech, who astounded me with his many iniquities before shaping up as a reasonable lab member, has announced his plans to attend graduate school.

BF had previously mentioned grad school as a possible future, but had acknowledged that he was just as interested in business school (poll: which requires a better grasp of basic arithmetic?). Now, however, he is actually studying for the general and biology GREs (and taking a Princeton Review course). Last week he came into lab on Saturday to do a couple of small lab tasks and grind away at a practice exam.

The problem is, of course, that BF lacks the fundamental curiosity, let alone the determination, to make it through grad school. He asks questions....about the tasks he is given. Perhaps once a month, he asks a question about the research presented in lab meeting, but these questions are not typically experimental in nature--they are more likely to run along the lines of, "Does this relate to phenomenon X that I read about in Science/the Times/the Economist?" Sometimes it's an interesting question, but it's pretty much never what I would expect from a first-year grad student--i.e., a question about experimental details, or whether one could follow up with Experiment Z, or even just what the heck the significance of an observation is.

(And no, this is not because he fears me; he doesn't ask these questions of anyone.)

When he told me recently that he was studying up for the GREs in preparation for grad school applications this fall, I asked him more about his research interests. In the past he has mentioned labs that do fairly similar work to our lab, but this time he mentioned some labs that are further afield. It's fine for your subject affinity to shift over time, but I think in this instance he's probably just hoping that the work of Other Labs is more interesting to him than the work of This Lab.

In any case, I tried, gently, to dissuade him from Ph.D. programs. I pointed out that if he's still thinking about going into business in some capacity (the business end of a pharma company, for example), then an M.S. would likely give him the training he needs for much less hassle.

"I just figure that if I'm going to grad school, I might as well go the whole hog," he replied. "Besides, I'd be happy to spend six years in [City With His Dream Grad Program]."

Blink. Blink.

Despite BF's many failings as a scientist, I have developed a certain fondness for him, the way one does with household items. So I should probably try again to steer him in the direction of the M.S., or even an entire life re-evaluation. (Note to readers, BF is loaded, so the cost of doing an M.S. should not be a hurdle.)

On the other hand, it's not as though he's coming to me asking for advice or help, and often it is easy to irritate people by profferring unasked-for advice, or so I am told. Since I've already suggested the M.S. to no effect, I could just wash my hands of the situation.

Still, though, I dread the moment that BF asks Advisor for a recommendation. The problem is that BF likely won't ask until it's actually grad school application time, i.e. November, by which time it will be harder for him to change his plans in response to Advisor's anticipated reaction ("You are applying to what?")

So I feel as though the Right Thing To Do would be to sit BF down and try again to persuade him to think this all through. It might be a waste of my breath, because he has a certain unshakeable confidence, but I think it's worth a try, on the theory that a little effort now might save some misguided university the cost of his tuition and stipend for 2-3 squandered years. Have any readers ever successfully talked someone out of applying to Ph.D. programs? Particularly someone who is a bit stubborn and ignorant, and perhaps also very bad at math?

Why do you write a training grant?

I've been funded off an NIH training grant (T32) at two different points previously, and I'm applying to be put on another training grant in the future.

My participation level in these training grants has been, at maximum, to write a paragraph of application explaining why I should be on one, and another page or so each year I'm on the grant to update NIH on my progress. Ridiculously easy.

But the person administering the training grant seems to do an awful lot of work. They write the grant, pick trainees, and generally deal with the flow of funds. My question is, what's in it for them? It seems like a giant hassle for very little professional benefit--perhaps you can stick one of your own trainees on the grant, but beyond that it just looks like scut work. Yet the two training grants I've been on have been administered by high-ranking PIs (and sniffing around T32s at other institutions on CRISP, this doesn't appear to be uncommon).

Do you just get departmental brownie points for writing/running a T32? Is it the sort of service activity that gets you out of jail for some other service activity, like being on a search committee? Is it just out of the greatness of your heart? (And if so, how to explain the presence of some T32 administrators who are well known not to have hearts at all?)

I'm grateful to have this funding, but can't imagine that "postdoc gratitude" inspires a lot of would-be grant-writers. So I have to assume there is something I don't understand about the apparently selfless action of these folks. Internet, please explain.

Your personal eigenvalue

This just cracked me up:

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/17/6883.full

PNAS publishes a letter on the "Eigenfactor" version of citation ranking, some attempt to come up with yet another version of impact factor. The fawning conclusion? That you can "publish in PNAS with the full knowledge that you are contributing to one of the most influential drivers of scientific progress."

Also, apparently, in JBC, which way outranks Cell.




Who amongst you doesn't want to know what those tantalizing unlabeled dots near Cell and Phys Rev B are? J Nobody Reads This?

A very small snippet that says oh so much

From this week's NY Times Week in Review:

But Justice Ginsburg said her own influence in all sorts of cases at the justices’ conferences was uncertain. “I will say something — and I don’t think I’m a confused speaker — and it isn’t until somebody else says it that everyone will focus on the point,” Justice Ginsburg said.

That is, she is one of the nine highest-ranking judges in the nation, with the power to define and defend constitutional law, and she sometimes kinda feels like people ignore the points she makes...until a guy says the same thing ten minutes later.