Physics of Life (2022) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
9 Funding, Collaboration, and Coordination
9 Funding, Collaboration, and Coordination
Pages 271-303
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 271... ...
Governments, foundations, and the private sector all have much to gain from the basic mechanisms uncovered and the ideas sparked by advances in the field. These opportunities exist across the full range of the field, along all axes: from the dynamics of single molecules to the collective behavior in large communities of organisms, from theory and experiment, from research by individual investigators and by larger groups.
|
From page 272... ...
All the agen cies support individual investigators and small groups, but DOE in particular plays an enormous role in supporting large infrastructure, often in the form of user facilities that are accessible by peer-reviewed proposal at no cost to the researcher. These facilities address the needs of the scientific community as a whole.
|
From page 273... ...
As explained in the text, totals for NIH and NSF reflect detailed searches through full databases of grants. Total for DOE is from congressional budget documents, including several programs that overlap biological physics but are much broader; real spending on the field is much less.
|
From page 274... ...
program, again led by PHY but with significant contribu tions from other divisions and directorates. Uniquely among the funding programs surveyed here, NSF/PHY has supported the physics community's exploration of life across all scales, from single molecules to populations of organisms, including both theoretical and experimental work, and has embraced the field as a part of physics more broadly.
|
From page 275... ...
As with the caveats to Figure 9.1, these budgets considerably exceed actual spending on biological physics. in particular, for the Physics Frontier Centers, 2012 includes $28 million to the Kavli Institute for Theoreti cal Physics; only ∼30 percent of Kavli Institute programs are in biological physics, and some of these are supported by funds outside the main NSF Physics Frontier Centers award.
|
From page 276... ...
The Human Genome Project began with DOE efforts in the mid-1980s, before being fully launched in 1990 through a memorandum of un derstanding between DOE and NIH. For some perspective on these efforts, a 2011 report estimated the $3.8 billion federal investment in the Human Genome Project generated $796 billion in economic impact, providing more than 300,000 jobs in the genome-driven industries that emerged.4 Beyond shared research facilities, the BES program provides funding for bio logical physics research through its Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences (CSGB)
|
From page 277... ...
The funding reported for DOE in Figures 9.1 and 9.2 represent totals for CSBG and BSSD, and were obtained from congressional budget documents.5 These programs have strong overlap with biological physics, but also clearly sup port much work outside the field. Indeed, DOE has made substantial efforts to integrate different disciplines, and to create a continuum of support from basic science to applications, all in pursuit of its mission.
|
From page 278... ...
This approach certainly undercounts biological physics researchers who do not have primary appointments in physics or biophysics departments, and may include some scientists who would not identify with the definition of the field adopted in this report, but seems a reasonable proxy. Over the decade 2010–2019, NIH made approximately 170 awards per year to principal investigators (PIs)
|
From page 279... ...
The committee notes, more explicitly, that there are several study sections tradi tionally thought of as "biophysics" study sections, but these only serve a rather nar row slice of the biological physics community. This includes traditional structural biology and single molecule research, some works on theories and models connected FIGURE 9.3 Number of NIH awards to individual investigators, by institute.
|
From page 280... ...
Finding: DoD agencies have highlighted multiple areas where the interests of the biological physics community intersect their missions. Concretely, in response to the committee's request for data on the support for biological physics, representatives of several DoD agencies called out multiple
|
From page 281... ...
areas where the field intersects their mission: soft robotics; bio-inspired materials and autonomous systems; computational neuroscience and sensorimotor control; radio-bio; insect brains; soft-matter circuit design; locomotion; non-equilibrium active matter; physics-based models of stochasticity in populations; inter-cellular communication; agent-based models; and more. While distributed across many dif ferent funding programs in multiple DoD agencies, this broad spectrum of topics connects with a large swath of the biological physics community.
|
From page 282... ...
HHMI also has supported fellowship programs for PhD students coming from abroad, and from underrepresented groups in the United States. The Simons Foundation has multiple programs that overlap with the interests of the biological physics community.
|
From page 283... ...
At the recently established Flatiron Insti tute, two of the five centers -- the Center for Computational Biology and the Center for Computational Neuroscience -- have strong overlap with the physics of living systems. Finding: Private foundations have supported programs that engage the bio logical physics community, often before such programs become mainstream in federal agencies, and have explored different funding models.
|
From page 284... ...
It is important that the NSF grants in our field are not just smaller than NIH grants, but small in absolute terms. Appendix F estimates the bare minimum grant size needed to support a faculty member working with one PhD student; FIGURE 9.6 The full distribution of award sizes to individual investigators in biological physics at the National Science Foundation (NSF; blue)
|
From page 285... ...
If particular grant programs cannot meet scien tists' needs, eventually they stop applying, giving the impression that community demand is shrinking, and making it more difficult for program officers to argue for greater resources. Finding: NSF award sizes for individual investigators in biological physics have reached dangerously low levels, both in contrast to NIH and in absolute terms.
|
From page 286... ...
NSF and the Simons Founda tion also have partnered to support four Centers for the Mathematics of Complex Biological Systems, as noted above, all of which have substantial participation from the biological physics community. Many of the institutions that host these differ ent Centers are linked through NSF's Physics of Living Systems Student Research Network, which also connects to a number of institutions internationally.
|
From page 287... ...
For many doctoral programs in the biomedical sciences, broadly defined, these training grants are a major pillar of support. Perhaps surprisingly, fully 14 percent of NIH grants awarded to physics and biophysics departments over the past decade have been training grants, but this represents only 0.5 percent of the more than 35,000 NIH training grants in total.
|
From page 288... ...
Correspondingly, there is a long tradition of federal agencies supporting theory as an independent activity. At NSF, for example, in the Division of Physics there are separate, parallel programs for theory and experiment in atomic, molecular, and optical physics; elementary particle physics; gravitational physics; nuclear physics; and particle astrophysics and cosmology.
|
From page 289... ...
RESPONDING TO CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES One of the major challenges facing the biological physics community is the sub stantial mismatch between the community's intellectual activity and the structure of current funding programs. This should be understood in the context provided by the initial conclusion from Part I of this report: Conclusion: Biological physics, or the physics of living systems, now has emerged fully as a field of physics, alongside more traditional fields of astro physics and cosmology; atomic, molecular, and optical physics; condensed matter physics; nuclear physics; particle physics; and plasma physics.
|
From page 290... ...
But mapping these questions into the current funding programs fragments the community: If the multispecies groups are bacteria living inside the human gut, then the problem is relevant for NIH, while bacteria living in soil are relevant for DOE; if the question asked is not about bacteria but about plants in the rainforest, then connections are drawn to climate science and the mission of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or the ecol ogy programs of NSF, while interest in cooperative behaviors is a basic science problem connected to the practical problem of coordinating multiple autono mous vehicles and the mission of DoD. All of these agency missions would be advanced by more coherent and coordinated support for the biological physics community's attack on these problems.
|
From page 291... ...
Specific Recommendation: The National Institutes of Health should form study sections devoted to biological physics, in its full breadth. NIH study sections are established via a process called ENQUIRE, through the Cen ter for Scientific Review (CSR)
|
From page 292... ...
Furthermore, there is a tradition of DoD agencies, at various times, seeing their mission in the broadest possible terms. As described above, DoD officials see a wide range of connections to topics being explored by the biological physics community.
|
From page 293... ...
Conclusion: There is an opportunity for DoD agencies to use the MURI Program to support biological physics, and for NSF and NIH to expand their support of these mid-sized collaborations. Industrial Research Laboratories As described in Part II of this report, biological physics has strong overlap and interaction with many fields that are relevant for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries -- structural biology, systems biology, molecular design, synthetic biology, and more.
|
From page 294... ...
While there is wide spread appreciation of the impact that physics has had on the mission of NIH, only 0.5 percent of training grant funds go to the biological physics community. To put this in perspective, a 3.5 percent increase in the T32 budget would provide enough funds to support all physics PhD students currently working on biological physics (Appendix F)
|
From page 295... ...
NIH has multiple funding mechanisms that emphasize career development beyond graduate education. The same T32 training grant programs that fund PhD students also can fund postdoctoral fellows; there are Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Awards that support communities of postdoctoral fellows engaged with modest amounts of teaching at minority serving institutions alongside their research activities; and there are Pathway to Independence programs to support individuals in the transition from postdoctoral fellow to independent investigator (K99/R00)
|
From page 296... ...
As in other fields of physics, independent, individual fellowships are an effective mechanism. In addition to examples of how such fellowships are implemented at NSF and NIH, there are examples such as the BWF Career Awards at the Scientific Interface, which has had substantial engagement with the biological physics community, as discussed above.
|
From page 297... ...
More concretely, NIH support for research on biological physics ultimately is justified by the fact that physicists' explorations of the phenomena of life have a profound impact on human health. As emphasized throughout this report, this is not merely "physics applied to medicine." Similarly, DoD support for the field is justified by the impact that biological physics has on relevant technology.
|
From page 298... ...
Many are physically located at the DOE National Laboratories and are sup ported directly by the DOE Office of Science. Other facilities and funders relevant to the biological physics community include, among others: • The Advanced Imaging Center at Janelia Research Campus of HHMI, sup ported in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; • The New York Structural Biology Center, supported by a consortium of New York–based universities, the Simons Foundation, and NIH; • The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University, supported by NSF along with DOE through facilities at Los Alamos Na tional Laboratory; and • The Pacific Northwest Center for Cryo-EM (PNCC)
|
From page 299... ...
Finding: Large-scale physical tools, particularly those for imaging and ad vanced computing and data, are an important part of the infrastructure sup porting thousands of researchers exploring the living world. Engagement of the biological physics community with user facilities goes beyond instruments to include high-performance computing.
|
From page 300... ...
They invariably offer specialized training, courses and summer schools, run conferences bringing together their user communities, and host student interns. PNCC notes the centrality of training, "One of our center goals is to train cryo-EM researchers toward independence, with a focus of pro viding hands-on training opportunities, that are in short supply amongst many existing cryo-EM workshops." Although the raw data do not offer a detailed accounting of facility use by biological physics researchers, respondents offered insightful comments on the role of biological physics in the evolving interests and needs they are seeing among their user communities.
|
From page 301... ...
User facilities are not always based around large instruments. The five DOE nanoscience centers, for example, provide advanced instrumentation to a very wide research community, though the individual instruments might not be beyond the financial reach of some university laboratories.
|
From page 302... ...
An emerging NIH/DOE collaboration around connectomics for the BRAIN initiative promises to develop next generation imaging technologies and broaden their access while tackling a moonshot project of the mouse connectome and leaving a legacy of a new user facility for the community. Specific Recommendation: Congress should expand the Department of Energy mission to partner with the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to construct and manage user facilities and in frastructure in order to advance the field of biological physics more broadly.
|
From page 303... ...
An important component of these programs has been that they highlight, for the physics community as a whole, that biological physics has a place alongside other subfields as part of an integrated effort in theoretical physics. As the field grows, there is room for more experimentation with support for theory communities, where considerable impact is possible at relatively low cost.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.