The NSF Division of Science Resources Statistics has released its Academic Institutional Profiles for 2006. A convenient upgrade for this year is that you can scroll through alphabetized lists of academic institutions with their various rankings or without any rankings. Clicking on the institution name in either list takes you to their data tables (earned doctorates, federal science & engineering obligations, grad students & postdoctorals, and R&D expenditures). A search engine can also be used to take you to the institution of interest.
Archive for Research Resource
Direct Public Funding of Pilot Research
What a concept: “Our mission is simple: To enable the public to fund pilot research projects.”
Whose concept? Whose mission? Fund Science.
A bit more on their mission …
First we’re providing research funds to a whole new generation of researchers that are our future. Secondly we’re walking the public through the scientific process, from grant writing to funding, all the way to the results. Finally we are creating an ecosystem for scientists to collaborate with each other as well as the public on shaping future research projects. Read the rest of this entry »
R01s in Decline
A letter in Science from H. George Mandel (GWU) and Elliot Vesell (PSU) starkly lays out data showing the decline of R01 funding.
From 2000 to 2007, the success rate for new Type 1 applications dropped from 20.3% to 7.2%. The average award per R01 looks to have dropped from $3.38M to $2.69M. For individual institutes, they report new application success rates of 5% for NCI and NIAID and 3% for NINDS. Oof.
For Type 2s in this same period, success rate halved from 53.0% to 25.2%, with the award amount declining from $3.03M to $2.44M. The authors note that “For renewal applications, the decline means discontinuation of 75% of ongoing programs.” What a colossal waste of tax-payer investment. Read the rest of this entry »
Addressing Underpublication of Clinical Trial Results
In the September issue of The Oncologist, Scott Ramsey and John Scoggins (both from Fred Hutchinson) report that fewer than one in five cancer clinical trials registered with clinicaltrials.gov have been published in the peer-reviewed literature (17.9%). Categories of studies with the lowest rates of publication included industry-sponsored (5.9%), non-randomized (4.4%), and terminated (3.4%) trials.
In examining the 357 trials with published results, the authors could judge whether the results were positive or negative for 341. The majority (64.5%) reported positive results, with Phase I trials most likely to report positive results (89.9%), followed by Phase IV (83.3%), Phase III (63.2%), and Phase II (53.6%). NIH-sponsored trials were most likely to result in positive results (78.8%).
Previously, Richard Johnson and Kay Dickersin (both from Johns Hopkins) also raised the issue of publication bias against negative clinical trials in Nature Clinical Practice Neurology.
Fortunately, the FDA Amendments Act of 2007 has set in motion the expansion of clinicaltrials.gov to include compulsory reporting of basic results. You can check out progress made on the basic results data entry test system, which is designed to capture the following information:
‘‘(i) DEMOGRAPHIC AND BASELINE CHARACTERISTICS OF PATIENT SAMPLE.—A table of the demographic and baseline data collected overall and for each armof the clinical trial to describe the patients who participated in the clinical trial, including the number of patients who dropped out of the clinical trial and the number of patients excluded from the analysis, if any.‘
(ii) PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOMES.—The primary and secondary outcome measures as submitted under paragraph (2)(A)(ii)(I)(ll), and a table of values for each of the primary and secondary outcome measures for each arm of the clinical trial, including the results of scientifically appropriate tests of the statistical significance of such outcome measures.
(iii) POINT OF CONTACT.—A point of contact for scientific information about the clinicaltrial results.
(iv) CERTAIN AGREEMENTS.—Whether there exists an agreement (other than an agreement solely to comply with applicable provisions of law protecting the privacy of participants) between the sponsor or its agent and the principal investigator (unless the sponsor is an employer of the principal investigator) that restricts in any manner the ability of the principal investigator, after the completion date of the trial, to discuss the results of the trial at a scientific meeting or any other public or private forum, or to publish in a scientific or academic journal information concerning the results of the trial.”
Indeed, in an accompanying commentary, James Doroshow notes that NCI is developing in parallel a complementary clinical trials database to catalogue administrative and outcome data for all studies performed at NCI-supported institutions (perhaps drawing from or building on the NCI’s excellent existing Cancer Research Portfolio database). Unlike the clinicaltrials.gov basic results reporting, the NCI database will include interim reports on accrual and outcomes. Thus, the oncology community will, within the next few years, have rapid access to safety and efficacy data from cancer clinical trials.
Further, the editors of The Oncologist, Gregory Curt and Bruce Chabner, indicate that they are considering whether to “undertake the publication of a peer-reviewed, searchable venue for these trials” in reference to “well-executed trials that fail to meet positive endpoints: ‘negative’ in a sense, but valuable nonetheless.” The editors invite readers to indicate their level of enthusiasm and support for such a venture.
The title of Doroshow’s commentary captures the urgency for action on this front, not only in the oncology community but among all clinical disciplines: Publishing Cancer Clinical Trial Results: A Scientific and Ethical Imperative.
By JoVE – They’re Indexed!
The National Library of Medicine will index in PubMed videos from the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE), an online open-access research journal that “publishes” videos of experiments and protocols “to increase reproducibility and transparency in biological sciences.”
Check out the official JoVE blog to learn more about the journal and how you can contribute to their blogging and visualization efforts. The editors also invite you to bring your own blog posts to life with their videos (just ask).
Olja Finn: Science Goddess
Nothing put a bigger smile on my face last week than Science’s profile of Olivera Finn, the founding chair of Immunology at Pitt and recent president of AAI. She is a remarkable scientist (cancer immunology), superb mentor, and delightful woman. Her colleagues and trainees are quick and eager to recognize her professional accomplishments in the course of maintaining a rich family life. I like the way Mitch Leslie starts the article:
Take a look at Olivera “Olja” Finn’s life, and you can tick off the actions women are supposed to avoid if they want to advance in science. Get married fresh out of high school. Check. Interrupt your education for your husband’s sake. Check. Allow his career to take precedence over yours. Check. Have children before you have a job and give birth at what seem like inopportune times, such as shortly before you start graduate school. Check.
Yet Finn has, with great success, pursued career and family goals simultaneously. She celebrated her 40th wedding anniversary last month, has raised a daughter and a son, and, at the age of 59, already has grandchildren. Professionally, Finn has prospered. Nearly 20 years ago, she discovered the first cancer antigen, a tumor molecule that elicits a reaction from immune cells. And despite spending her youth in Communist-run Yugoslavia, Finn has climbed the academic ladder in the United States–she is chair of immunology at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and has served as president of the American Association of Immunologists. She argues that interweaving career and family is essential. “I don’t think we live long enough to do things sequentially.”
Indeed, programs promoting women in science at the NIH, the AAMC, and FASEB need look no further than Olja for their role model, both in terms of her incredible career and how she manages her own productive yet family-friendly labs.
Of note is the current NIH RFA for “Research on Causal Factors and Interventions that Promote and Support the Careers of Women in Biomedical and Behavioral Science and Engineering.” I know of several applications going in and am not sure “research” will uncover anything more novel than the need for institutions to pony up resources and reward supportive department practices – but we’ll see. Perhaps just having hard rather than anecdotal data will make the difference in justifying policy change and budgeting priorities, especially in terms of enhancing recruitment and retention.
(Those not familiar with allowable grant costs in this regard can check this FAQ on NIH policy on child care and parental leave and should also check with their usual IC for special policies, such as the Primary Caregiver Technical Assistance Supplements for postdocs available through, who else, NIAID … Olja, did you have a hand in this?)
Now if only FASEB would recognize her with an Excellence in Science award….
Best Places for Postdocs
The Scientist has an annual feature I’ve followed with interest since it’s inception: the annual survey of the best places for postdocs to work. You can go directly to the tables and survey methodology. Rankings for US and international sites are broken out, but the lists combine academic, private, government, and industry employers (click on the “Type” column to sort them accordingly – clicking on all the column heads sorts the data thusly).
Catching Up …
Let’s see … while I’ve been trying to save the world from bad grantsmanship, last week the NSF released its FY 2006 academic R&D expenditure data … no payline news likely to be forthcoming Read the rest of this entry »
DOE: Science with a Mission
Yes, the Department of Energy prides itself in “Advancing the Energy, Economic, & National Security of the US.” Four years into its 20-year plan, Facilities for the Future of Science: A Twenty-Year Outlook, the DOE has released an interim report.
You may recall that the DOE was the originator of and longtime partner in the Human Genome Project. They’ve since transitioned to a Genomics:GTL (genomics to life) program and support for Bioenergy Research Centers.
FY05 Federal S&E Obligations
The NSF has published data for Federal Science & Engineering Awards to universities, colleges, and nonprofit institutions for FY05. For those bean counters who study these tables closely, one item to consider in these post 9/11 years is that the Dept of Homeland Security is lumped in with the 10 “other” agencies, with some special considerations in specific tables (see the Table Notes for details). Johns Hopkins maintains its commanding lead in S&E obligations ($1.23B), about half of which goes to its heavily DoD-endowed Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
