Duke Medicine officials Tuesday joined leaders from six other major academic medical centers in warning that six years of essentially flat National Institutes of Health budgets are putting at risk the careers of a generation of young biomedical researchers.
At a news conference held in Washington, D.C., a coalition of health sciences leaders from Brown, Harvard, Ohio State, UCLA, Vanderbilt and Brigham and Women's and Massachusetts General Hospitals, said another year of budget constraints will deal a devastating blow to young scientists. The coalition protested President Bush's proposed 2009 NIH budget and called upon Congress to fund long-needed research budget increases.
Researchers such as Duke cardiologist Dr. Kristin Newby and oncologist Dr. Anil Potti are working with the coalition. As young scientists with promising careers, Newby and Potti said they fear that unless something changes, not only will their own research suffer, but so will the public, because many promising discoveries may never materialize without research support.
Both are highlighted in a report released in conjunction with the news conference, A Broken Pipeline? Flat Funding of the NIH Puts a Generation of Science at Risk, co-authored by Brown University, Duke University, Harvard University, The Ohio State University, Partners Healthcare, the University of California Los Angeles and Vanderbilt University.
The report profiles 12 junior researchers from institutions across the country who, despite their exceptional qualifications and noteworthy research, face serious funding difficulties along with many of their professional peers. These researchers are devising new ways to manipulate stem cells to repair the heart, revealing critical pathways involved in cancer and brain diseases and using new technologies to diagnose and treat kidney disease.
"This is a real problem, discussed at almost every meeting one attends on campus, that can't be simply dismissed," said Drew Faust, president of Harvard University. "This is about the investment that America is -- or is not -- making in the health of its citizens and its economy. Right now, the nation's brightest young researchers, upon whom the future of American medicine rests, are getting the message that biomedical research may be a dead end and they should explore other career options and in too many cases, they're taking that message to heart. President Bush's latest budget proposal that calls for another year without an increase will only make the problem worse."
NIH's research budget has lost real purchasing power since 2003. To read chart, click here.
The situation didn't used to be this way. Between 1998 and 2003, the NIH budget more than doubled, from $13.3 billion $27.3 billion. Today, its budget is closer to $30 billion, with 85 percent of the money going to fund biomedical research.
But where a third of all grant requests were funded in 1999, today only one in every four is funded. In addition, researchers have to wait longer for their first award and usually have to apply multiple times.
The most common and important NIH award for biomedical researchers is the RO1 grant. The average age when a researcher gets a first, coveted RO1 used to be 39. Today it is 43.
Newby is 47 and is still waiting for her first R01, and she said the wait is excruciating. RO1 grants, or Research Project grants, are must-haves for young scientists hoping to launch a research career. Without one, young scientists generally struggle to find funding for staff and equipment that are essential to establishing a lab. Some are forced out of academia and opt for jobs in private industry.
"The process of getting NIH funding can be a career in itself. It takes time, and you have to be persistent," Newby said.
Getting that initial NIH grant is becoming more difficult. To read chart, click here.
Newby's research could have wide effects. For years, she has studied a protein called troponin that breaks down and leaks into the bloodstream when heart muscle is damaged.
She is hoping to develop a screening test based on troponin and other biomarkers that can help physicians better identify people who are at greater risk of suffering a stroke or heart attack. She has limited support from the government and private industry, but needs the boost that only an R01 can give.
An R01 is typically a grant of hundreds of thousands of dollars over several years, and Potti said it's that critical mass of dollars that he and others need to build the labs, buy the materials and hire the staff needed to translate early, promising research to the next level.
Potti and his colleagues have identified molecular signatures in small, early lung tumors that can help predict which patients will see their cancers recur and which are likely to remain cancer-free following treatment. That same information helps physicians choose the most appropriate form of chemotherapy. His work made national headlines this year and was selected by Discover magazine as one of the top science stories of 2006.
Tight NIH funding means it's more difficult to fund RO1 applications. To see chart, click here.
But as of yet, he hasn't been able to receive RO1 funding.
"What keeps me going?" Potti asked. "It's the realization that one needs to be persistent in the current environment. Moreover, trying to do something that might improve treatment outcomes in cancer patients is motivating in and of itself."
Ironically, the budget constraints come at a time when most recent NIH grant rankings show Duke near the top of the list of the most generously funded institutions, (Click here to see list.) Duke has benefited from two, exceptionally large recent awards -- one to support HIV research and the other to support translational research, but no one is taking it for granted that such awards will continue.
"If you don't get funded, you don't have a career in research," says Ross McKinney, former vice dean for research at Duke and professor of pediatrics, molecular genetics and microbiology. "This is a crisis."