The Life Sciences Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future (1970) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Major Conclusions and Recommendations
Major Conclusions and Recommendations
Pages 1-31
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 1... ...
We are confident that research in the life sciences can surely contribute tomorrow at least as much to human welfare as it has in the past. The living scene continues to present numerous fascinating and perplexing mysteries.
|
From page 3... ...
Federal biological laboratories burgeoned after World War II when the Public Health Service and the Department of Agriculture constructed and equipped some of the world's finest laboratories. This advance was followed shortly by the creation of a multiplicity of biological laboratories within the Department of Defense and among the contract centers of the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as by the establishment of special laboratories within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of the Interior.
|
From page 4... ...
\< NASA / ~ ! ' I , , , l / 4~ ~, , , I , I I I l I 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 -- ~ DOD Anterior ~ / All Other 1966 1968 1970 FIGURE 2 Federal support of research in the life sciences, by agency (other than the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare)
|
From page 5... ...
The major innovation in this regard was the institution of disciplinary training grants at the National Institutes of Health grants that provide not only stipends for graduate students but also additional funds to strengthen the quality of their training e.g., for equipment, consumable supplies, visiting lecturers, or, occasionally, additional faculty. The training grants of the National Science Foundation, however, have never been funded on a scale commensurate with such objectives and have been limited to what are, in effect, locally administered fellowship programs, while both agencies, and others, have managed predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowship programs.
|
From page 6... ...
It is, rather, the opportunities for significant research, the national supply of talented life scientists, and the requirements for their support, combined with the national sense of urgency
|
From page 7... ...
2. The rapidly unfolding understanding of life in molecular terms is not merely one of the gigantic intellectual accomplishments of man; it is the unique basis for hope that, in the future, we shall be able to cope with the major diseases to which man is subject, thereby lengthening the span of useful, enjoyable human life.
|
From page 8... ...
One alternative is to maintain quality standards and to support only the best research, performed by the most competent investigators. Then, if current trends were to continue, within a few years, research funds would again be limited to a relatively small group of institutions, and great regions of the country would be without universities or medical schools with significant research endeavors.
|
From page 9... ...
Such planning should be undertaken with due regard for the financial stability and nurture of institutions of higher learning, which, collectively, have become a great national resource as well as for the specific requirements for research imperative to future national programs concerned with the magnitude of the population of both the United States and the world, the quality of the environment, the public health, and the world and American food supplies, while also assuring an adequate future flow of scientifically trained manpower. No other sector of the American economy can conceivably substitute for the federal government in these regards.
|
From page 10... ...
Moreover, only if this research endeavor is successful can we leave to future generations assurance of the quality of our national life, since only by utilizing the fruits of continuing research can this nation cope with the problems posed by a growing population, an advancing technology, a deteriorating environment, and dissipation of the bounty of great natural resources of our land. We must guard against impatience; decades may elapse between appreciation of a new scientific observation and its intelligent application to some human or technical problem.
|
From page 11... ...
Although the life sciences, even now, are capable of contributing si~nificantly to this critical enterprise, the science of ecology, while crucial, is still developing; its capabilities are limited, as is the number of ecologists. It must be clear that ecological understanding rests upon the totality of all other biological understanding upon our comprehension of physiological function, nutritional requirements, and reproductive mechanisms of plants, animals, and microbial forms as well as of the deleterious effects of chemical entities not normally present in the environment.
|
From page 12... ...
The institute should have access to a large and powerful computer and to a variety of vehicles for use on land, on water, and in the air. The center should provide facilities for its central staff and for visiting ecologists and other life scientists, for physical and social scientists, for engineers, and for attorneys from universities across the nation; it should serve as a center for study of the sociotechnological aspects of the environment and as a source of advice to the many distinct entities in both the government and private sectors that can profitably utilize such assist
|
From page 13... ...
The proposed institute would be concerned, inter alla, with the effects of man on his environment. Because the network of environmental responsibilities extends across so many agencies of government, it is suggested that a working council composed of assistant secretaries of the appropriate departments of government, or their equivalents, specifically concerned with such problems, could serve as a vital coordination arid communication mechanism, working in concert with the White House Council of Environmental Advisers.
|
From page 14... ...
Until definitive preventive and therapeutic procedures for these disorders based on such understanding become available, we must continue to rely upon the costly sometimes heroic but inadequate measures that constitute the great bulk of current clinical practice. If historical precedent is any guide, when definitive procedures are provided by research, they are invariably not only more satisfactory but also decidedly simpler and cheaper than are the stopgap procedures that occupy most of the efforts of the health care system.
|
From page 15... ...
The latter process should be avoided to the maximum extent possible in the United States, preserving such lands for wilderness and recreation, but it is very important in various developing nations, particularly those with laterite soils. We take heart in the remarkable accomplishments in Mexico and in the Philippines, which have made available new strains of corn, wheat, and rice, which, for the nonce, have staved off the specter of world famine.
|
From page 16... ...
But if the first three agencies named provide the major sustaining support required, support from the second group could be limited to that research most germane to their mission requirements. The Academic Endeavor in the Life Sciences INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT PROGRAMS American universities and their graduate and professional schools have arisen over a period of more than two centuries, with diverse and often limited or local sponsorship.
|
From page 17... ...
To charge federal contributions to these faculty salary payments against federal appropriations earmarked for research can be seriously misleading. Without those contributions, universities and their graduate and professional schools would find it impossible not only to pursue their research endeavors but also to meet their fundamental teaching obligations.
|
From page 18... ...
These various block grants to the universities and their component schools should alleviate current funding difficulties without altering the individual character of these institutions. Such a system would permit university administrators to plan rationally, based on the assurance of continuity of adequate funding for their continuing commitments, thus freeing them to concentrate on the magnitude and quality of their teaching and research endeavors.
|
From page 19... ...
The quality and success of such a program is contingent upon the availability of funds to provide instrumentation used in common by the department staff and students, to support a vigorous seminar program, to operate communal facilities such as greenhouses, media preparation, animal care, and sterilization facilities, or instrument shops, as well as stipends for the graduate students. Without exception, these demands overtax the resources of the university.
|
From page 20... ...
Department of Agriculture embark upon a program of analogous training grants for support of the graduateeducational endeavor, not only in the animal and plant sciences in the agricultural colleges but also in support of related education in graduate departments of the colleges of arts and sciences concerned with aspects of botany and zoology that necessarily underlie the future success of research in the somewhat more applied areas of animal and plant science. STIPENDS Until recently, relatively few qualified graduate students failed to find stipend support.
|
From page 21... ...
Although we cannot recommend to any student that he seek further education in a department deemed unqualified by a jury of peers, recognizing that compelling personal circumstances may occasionally prevail, we recommend that a modest fellowship program be inaugurated specifically to support such students. CURRICULA The pace of research has far outstripped the pace of educational reform in the life sciences.
|
From page 22... ...
Accordingly, we encourage experimentation with graduate curricula intended to lead to other advanced degrees, which would combine extensive training in biology with humanistic, social, engineering, or administrative studies, which would include some sophisticated laboratory experience but would not require an original research dissertation. Success in such efforts would reduce the national bill for graduate education and would supply individuals better motivated for their actual careers than may be those Ph.D.
|
From page 23... ...
_ We urge serious consideration of a significant program of personal stipend support for medical students, probably most suitably managed by the Bureau of Health Manpower at the National Institutes of Health. A stipend level equivalent to that established for graduate students, combined with a cost-of-education allowance at least sufficient to meet tuition payments, would go far to broaden the pool of American families from which we may draw future physicians, and it would encourage the physician to view his career from the standpoint of public service rather than private gain.
|
From page 24... ...
This will require appropriate job titles and a salary scale commensurate with the contributions that are made to research by truly qualified technical assistants. POSTDOCTORAL EDUCATION Each year a larger fraction of those who receive the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in one of the life sciences have been going on to postdoctoral educational experience.
|
From page 25... ...
While we have recommended above that other instruments be utilized to convey funds to be used, largely at the universities, for faculty salaries, student stipends, and provision of all those services included within "indirect costs," research grants or contracts should convey those funds that, most appropriately, should be controlled by individual senior investigators- e.g., funds for equipment, research vehicles, consumable supplies, travel, computer costs, publication costs, and the salaries of individuals employed specifically for the purposes of the research project. We endorse the utilization of juries of qualified scientific peers for the evaluation of applications for such research support and of the qualifications of scientists making the applications.
|
From page 26... ...
Since, further, we are confident that intriguing and important questions concerning the multitudinous aspects of life will continue to confront us and that the answers to these questions will be of great significance to human welfare, there will remain a broad scope for exercise of the research talents of the next generation of investigators. Expansion of the research-support system at a commensurate rate and by the mechanisms that have been suggested here seems entirely in accord with our national purpose.
|
From page 27... ...
Our questionnaire to department chairmen, which explored their understanding of current requirements for an extensive, but by no means totally comprehensive, group of specialized biological facilities and the priorities among them, revealed that there is a substantial and growing requirement for such facilities, each of which must be managed as an institutional, regional, or national resource. Moreover, this sampling of department chairmen does not necessarily adequately reflect genuine national needs.
|
From page 28... ...
This agency is urged to exploit these possibilities by all necessary means, including collaboration with and support of academic life scientists in positions to capitalize on these opportunities. Since these increasingly expensive instruments will generally be utilized by communities of scientists rather than by individuals, the administrators of these programs should negotiate with coherent disciplinary departments or multidisciplinary groups rather than with individual investigators.
|
From page 29... ...
Not only are new universities being brought into being and new medical schools and other health-professional schools planned and initiated, but the space requirements of existing institutions have grown with our society's expectations for the roles of these institutions. Our studies reveal an acute backlog requirement for approximately $150 million for construction of research-laboratory space, already planned and partially funded, and required only for existing institutions to keep pace with their expanding graduate enrollments.
|
From page 30... ...
Accordingly, if these programs are not inaugurated in the reasonably near future, they will not make buildings available in time to match the urgencies that will be generated by burgeoning graduate and professional enrollments. Museums The natural history museums of the United States constitute an invaluable and long-neglected resource for public education and research.
|
From page 31... ...
The recommendations above, in our view, constitute a measured evaluation of the overall requirements to maintain the life sciences enterprise in the United States in the forefront of the worldwide scientific endeavor, to educate the next generation of citizens, scientists, and practitioners, and to construct the intellectual platform that will underlie future improvements in our public health, permit expansion of the economy, provide an adequate and wholesome food supply, and transmit to our progeny a bountiful land whose natural beauty and resources have been preserved and enhanced.
|
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.