I just don't understand these "basic science eleventy" NIH funded people

I don’t. I just don’t. I cannot in anyway understand scientists who are offended that they have to some up with some thin veneer of health-relevance to justify the grant award they are seeking. The H in NIH stands for “Health”. The mission statement reads:

NIH’s mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.

Yeah, sure, if you end at the seventh word, you can convince yourself that the NIH is about basic research. Maybe you get to continue on to the fifteenth. But this is a highly selective reading. I just don’t see where it is a burden to think for a minute or two about whether you are doing anything to address the second half of the statement.

After all, you are asking the taxpayers of the US to front you some serious cash. Millions of dollars for many of the PIs who are complaining about how hard it is to get basic research grants funded (BRAINI proponents, I’m looking at you). It really isn’t that much of an insult to ask you to pay something back on the matter of public health.

We need to encourage more of this

An RT Tweet from @betenoire1 was making the rounds of my Twitter feed today. It points to a Facebook polemic from a Leon Avery, Phd. (CV; RePORTER). He says that he is Leaving Science.

I have decided, after 40 years as a lab scientist and 24 years running my own lab, to shut it down and leave. I write this to explain why, for those of my friends and colleagues who’d like to know. The short answer is that I’m tired of being a professor.

Okay, no problem. No problem whatsoever. Dude was appointed in 1990 and has been working his tail off for 24 years at the NIH funded extramural grant game. He’s burned out. I get this.

I have never liked being a boss. My happiest years as a scientist were when I was a student and then a postdoc. I knew I wouldn’t like running a lab, and I didn’t like it. This has always been true.
…
My immediate plans are to go back to school and get a degree in Mathematics. This too has been a passion of mine ever since high-school sophomore Geometry, when I first learned what math is really about. And my love of it has increased in recent years as I have learned more. It will be tremendous fun to go back and learn those things that I didn’t have the time or the money to study as an undergrad.

GREAT! This is awesome. You do one thing until you tire of it and then, apparently, you have the ability to retire into a life of the mind. This is FANTASTIC!

So what’s the problem? Well, he can’t resist taking a few swipes at NIH funded extramural science, even as he admits he was never cut out for this PI stuff from the beginning. And after a long and easy gig (more on that below) he is distressed by the NIH funding situation. And feels like his way of doing science is under specific attack.

For many years NIH was interested in funding basic research as well as research aimed directly at curing diseases. With the tightening funding has come a focus on so-called “translational research”. Now when we apply for funding we have to explain what diseases our work is going to cure.

Ok, actually, this is the “truthy” part that is launching a thousand discussions of the “real problem” at NIH. So I’m going to address this part to make it very clear to his fans and back thumpers what we are talking about. On RePORTER (link above) we find that Dr Avery had one grant for 22 years. Awarded in April of 1991 and his CV lists 1990 as his first appointment. So within 15 mo (but likely 9 mo given typical academic start dates from about July through Sept) he had R01 support that he maintained through his career. In the final 5 years, he was awarded the R37 which means he has ten years of non-competing renewal. I see another R21 and one more R01. This latter was awarded on the A1. So as far as we can tell, Professor Avery never had to work too hard for his NIH grant funding. I mean sure, maybe he was putting in three grants a round for 20 years and never managed to land anything more than what I have reviewed. Somehow I doubt this. I bet his difficulties getting the necessary grant funding to run his laboratory were not all that steep compared to most of the rest of us plebes.

And actually, his Facebook post backs it up a tiny bit.

And I’ve been lucky that the world was willing to pay me to do it. Now it is hard for me to explain the diseases my work will cure. It feels like selling snake oil. I don’t want to do it any more.

I think the people enthusiastically passing along this Fb post of his maybe should focus on the key bits about his personal desires and tolerance for the job. Instead of turning this into yet another round of: “successful scientist bashes the NIH system now that finally, after all this time of a sweet, sweet ride s/he experiences a bare minimal taster of what the rest of us have faced our entire careers”.

Final note on the title: Dude, by all means. Anyone who has had a nice little run with NIH funding and is no longer entused….LEAVE. We’ll keep citing you, don’t worry. Leave the grants to those of us who still give a crap, though, eh?

UPDATE (comment from @boehninglab):

He studies satiety and feeding, which is an easy sell for the NIH. Don't understand this whine @drugmonkeyblog @bakermind @Odysseyblog

— boehninglab (@boehninglab) February 10, 2014