Forum:Is US biomedical research heading for a breakdown? Bruce Alberts thinks so in PNAS Article.

Question

[William]

• Bruce Alberts, Marc Kirschner, Shirley Tilghman, and Harold Varmus (most of whom helped create or expand the current system), say US biomedical research is unsustainable without some deep-rooted reforms.
• "The long-held but erroneous assumption of never-ending rapid growth in biomedical science has created an unsustainable hypercompetitive system that is discouraging even the most outstanding prospective students from entering our profession - and making it difficult for seasoned investigators to produce their best work. This is a recipe for long-term decline, and the problems cannot be solved with simplistic approaches. Instead, it is time to confront the dangers at hand and rethink some fundamental features of the US biomedical research ecosystem."

Ars Technica news Article:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/04/is-us-biomedical-research-heading-for-a-breakdown/

PNAS Article

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/09/1404402111

I guess we bio-informaticians are somewhat excluded and we have better alternative career possibilities (just switch to geo/finance/x-informatics). But I do think the mentioned problems exisist for wet-lab biologist, because the market is more saturated and there are less alternative career options.

The overproduction and disposability of researchers is not a bug, it is a feature of the current system. To put it in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's terms the anti-fragility of science (and senior researchers) as an aggregate depends on the fragility of students, PhD and PostDocs. Reducing the number of PhDs and working with just permanent employees would remove the anti-fragility of the aggregate, ie make science as a whole more fragile and reduce output.

What is the middle ground that can be found, were there are good career options for wet-lab biologist, and the aggregate of science keeps being anti-fragile?

Answer 1

[Istvan Albert]

I would not call it it a breakdown. I find that to be overly alamist and thus less credible. Breakdown implies a sudden drop off the cliff. Nothing of sorts will happen.

Let's call in unhappiness and inefficiency. The current way of doing science can be very stressful and can be grossly inefficient.

Unhappy people produce low quality results not just in science but any section of the economy. This is not unique to science, there are plenty of private companies with unhappy people, yet we are not calling for the imminent breakdown of those.

There are many explanations that one can come up with. I have my own that seems to be in line with some of their arguments. IMHO the root of all problems lies in the "overhead" that a research institution can charge on a grant. This can range from 50% to 90% (and even more after factoring in that the cost of tuition for a graduate student is inflated as well) and acts as a revenue stream for the institution. This creates the incentive towards hiring more "grant writing type" of people.