This is an interesting comment: "Under 20% of applicants are funded. Anyone else want to enter a field where you constantly have to be in the top 20% to keep your job?"
I'm assuming those who don't receive approval have skills that are in demand and can find a job? Perhaps you should ask anyone who has started their own business that same question. I believe the success rate is much less than 20%. Point of perspective.
>This is an area of failure for the NIH, imo. They need to work in a mechanism where the government shares in the return on investment. <
I agree with you 100 percent on this point. People seem to forget that after the failure of Avastin in breast cancer it was the NIH that conducted the trials in Colorectal cancer. Where would Genentech have been if the NIH would have given up on it also?
Executives at DNA benefited enormously, but the only US taxpayers that benefited were the ones with cancer that got to live an extra couple of months.
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is choosing an influential scientist who helped unravel the human genetic code -- and is known for finding common ground between belief in God and science -- to head the National Institutes of Health.
Mr. Obama called Dr. Francis Collins "one of the top scientists in the world" in announcing his nomination Wednesday. "His groundbreaking work has changed the very ways we consider our health and examine disease," Mr. Obama said.
The NIH is the nation's premiere medical research agency, directing $29.5 billion to spur innovative science that leads to better health. Dr. Collins, an early gene-hunter, would come to the job not just with the scientific credentials, but with a reputation for translating the complexities of DNA into language the everyday American can understand.
The folksy Dr. Collins led the Human Genome Project that, along with a competing private company[Celera], mapped the genetic code -- or, as he famously called it, "the book of human life."
"It is humbling for me, and awe-inspiring, to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God," he said at a 2000 White House ceremony marking release of the genome's first draft.
For that work, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award. But he may be more widely known for his 2007 best-selling book, "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief."
John Porter, a former Republican congressman from Illinois who now chairs the health advocacy group Research!America, called Dr. Collins "a perfect choice."
"He knows the science and he is an outstanding leader," Mr. Porter said.
Dr. Collins promises to make the NIH's important work more understandable not only for patients but for lawmakers who hold the agency's purse strings, said American Heart Association President Dr. Clyde Yancey. "The real advantage he brings is the ability to translate deep and complex science to the lay population .. in a meaningful way that allows it to be tangible and actionable," he said.
Dr. Collins has discovered numerous genes important for diseases, including the one that leads to cystic fibrosis.
But the true power of genetics, he told a meeting of scientists in Washington last month, has yet to be realized as researchers eventually learn enough to provide customized predictions of which diseases really threaten an individual, and personalized care to respond.
Today, "you can get fancy DNA tests for hundreds of dollars," Dr. Collins told The Endocrine Society meeting -- but your better bet for now may be a simple family tree of health, checking what ailments Mom, Dad and Grandpa had to predict your own future. "That's a free genetic test of great power."
NIH is familiar turf: Dr. Collins spent 15 years as the NIH's chief of genome research, before stepping down last year to, among other things, work with Mr. Obama's campaign. He also helped found the BioLogos Foundation, a Web site formed by a group of scientists who say they want to bridge gaps between science and religion.‹
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