Basic Research is "Waste"

Newsflash: academic researchers don't patent as much as IBM. In a letter to Nature entitled "Scientists Should Cut Waste Too", Matthew Kumar calls on scientists to do their part in helping reduce the $1.3 trillion US budget deficit by reducing waste and inefficiency and working within their means (in this case, reduced federal funding). Of course on the surface, this doesn't sound too bad. Certainly everybody should be working to reduce waste and inefficiency. The problem is what Kumar views as "waste":

Unlike companies, non-profit academic institutions deliver a paltry return on taxpayers' investments. In 2010, after spending nearly $3.1 billion of taxpayers' money on intramural research, the NIH received $91.6 million in royalties and was issued with 134 patents. By contrast, in 2009 IBM spent $6.5 billion on research and development, generated $15.1 billion in revenue and was issued with 4,914 patents.

There's a lot to pick at here. First of all, NIH funded research versus IBM R&D? We could at least try to compare health research with health research if we want to attempt a fair comparison. Of course picking a pharmaceutical company might undermine the point. And nevermind the fact that patent production isn't necessarily the metric a non-profit academic institution would use as a measure of productivity. Or the fact that academic institutions also have other functions, like teaching the next wave of uber-productive, patent-producing scientists at for-profit companies (and the "wasteful" ones that stay in academia. But the worst part is the implication that basic research is a waste - that if you're not generating revenue or patents, it's not worth it. In my mind, Carl Sagan said it best (click the link for the full passage):

Cutting off fundamental, curiosity-driven science is like eating the seed corn. We may have a little more to eat next winter, but what will we plant so we and our children will have enough to get through the winters to come?

I wonder how productive these model companies would be without that wasteful basic research to build on.

Innovation?

It's no secret that pharmaceutical companies spend a large amount of money on promotion and marketing of their products, but the amount going into research and development is not insignificant (2004 US estimate of over $24 billion in R&D expenditures). But how much of that R&D money translates into innovative new products or improvements on current therapeutics?

The French publication Prescrire (link to English site) provides an annual report on new drugs released in France and rates them based on therapeutic advance and risk-benefit balance. In 2010, they reviewed 97 new drugs and indications, but first the rating system:

Bravo: The product is a major therapeutic advance in an area where previously no treatment was available.

A Real Advance: The product is an important therapeutic innovation but has certain limitations.

Offers an Advantage: The product has some value but does not fundamentally change the present therapeutic practice.

Possibly Helpful: The product has minimal additional value, and should not change prescribing habits except in rare circumstances.

Nothing New: The product may be a new substance but is superfluous because it does not add to the clinical possibilties offered by previous products available. In most cases it concerns a me-too product.

Judgement Reserved: The editors postpone their rating until better data and a more thorough evaluation of the drug are available.

Not Acceptable: Product without evident benefit but with potential or real disadvantages.

The review includes new products (other than generics copies) and new indications proposed by drug companies as well as new dose strengths and new form/presentations of existing drugs. Results from the past 10 years can be found here including the 2010 data reproduced below:


In 2010, over half the new products or indications added nothing new to existing clinical possibilities and almost 20% had potential or real disadvantages over current practice. The lone real advance was imatinib (Gleevec) reassessed in inoperable or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumours.

While breakthrough drugs might be expected to be relatively rare (only 2 in the last 10 years by Prescrire's account), the fact that 70% of new drugs or indications - in France, at least - represented no change or a step backwards from currently available interventions is not very encouraging. Where's the innovation? Sales techniques, it seems.

Canada's impact factor

I ran across some statistics that showed Canada has a pretty decent citations per paper published according to in-cites.com. Apparently after Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, England and the United States, Canada has an average of 11.14 citations / publication. That suggests to me that Canadian researchers are producing some quality research publications. The USA publishes WAY more papers than any other country and it's all obviously in English. So perhaps having English as an official language in Canada helps as we publish a lot of papers that may be cited by English speaking US researchers. If you are interested in some better analysis of where Canada sits internationally check out this somewhat old Nature paper (2004, subscription req.) What is disturbing to me is that despite being obviously productive researchers, this is not reflected in the Canadian governments investment in research. We are ranked 14th in health research funding!! Also check out patents granted / capita which is pretty interesting, go Iceland! These stats are of course to be taken with a grain of salt however I still find them interesting.

Science Horoscopes: Are You a) A Morning Graduate Student, b) an Evening Graduate Student or c) All of the Above?

"I know a lot of morning people and I know a lot of night people but I have yet to meet a late afternoon person". ----- Douglas Coupland, Starbucks The Way I See It #277.

Nowhere are variations in individual work routines more apparent than in an independent and liberal work environment such as the research lab I work in. It is easy to observe, for example, subpopulations of obligate morning-workers and obligate evening workers, as well as the facultative morning/evening workers. Then there are the really crazy (but increasingly rare) individuals who just never go home.

But what underlying differences cause different people to gravitate towards different work schedules? Are certain work schedules more productive than others?

I recently came across a paper that found some interesting correlations between student work schedules and tendencies in two areas of personality that are highly relevant to scientific research: 1) How students internalize information about their environment and 2) how they communicate with others.

Basically, morning-types tend to be conformists:

"Specifically, morning-types gather their knowledge from the tangible and concrete, trusting direct experience and observable phenomena (realistic/sensing), prefer to process knowledge using analysis and logic (thought-guided), and transform new knowledge according to what is known (conservation-seeking). Their behaviour style was upstanding and self-controlled; they relate to authority in a respectful and cooperative manner and tend to behave in a formal and proper manner in social situations (dutiful/conforming). Finally, morning-types care about giving a positive impression"

Whereas evening-types tend to be innovators:

"the thinking style of evening-types was based on the symbolical and unknown data more than on concrete and observable ones (imaginative/intuiting), they tend to be creative and to take risks, ready to transform and recast whatever they come upon (innovation-seeking). As for behaving style, evening-types tend to act out in an independent and nonconforming manner and resist following traditional standards (unconventional/dissenting)."

It's interesting to speculate as to the underlying biological basis for these differences (ie circadian rhythms, etc.). But to me the real take-home message from this work is that different people probably perform to the best of their abilities on different working schedules. Thus the most productive research environment is likely to be one that respects the individual's freedom to work on one's own schedules. On an individual level, this study might also suggest that different research tasks (ie repetitive labor vs. idea brainstorming) are best performed on different schedules.

Can tests predict you ability to succeed in graduate school?

This meta-analysis suggests so. However the correlation with citation seems low. what do you think? "Research has been conducted on the correlation between test scores and various measures of student success: first-year grade point average (GPA), graduate GPA, degree attainment, qualifying or comprehensive examination scores, research productivity, research citation counts, licensing examination performance, and faculty evaluations of students. These results are based on analyses of 3 to 1231 studies across 244 to 259,640 students."