Ancestors

Written by Geoffrey Adams on 2025-01-23 at 01:16

NIH Study Sections are how the US government recruits expert scientists to help decide what biomedical research to fund.

Normally, Congress and political appointees in Heath & Human Services establish the main funding priorities, and these result in "funding opportunity announcements," inviting researchers to submit project proposals that respond to those priorities. This process constitutes NIH's "extramural" research program, by which academic scientists across the country are recruited to work on NIH's research priorities.

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[#]Science #Medicine #Healthcare #Research #NIH

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Written by Geoffrey Adams on 2025-01-23 at 01:16

The reason for this approach is that while non-scientists in a democracy can and should set the overall goals for spending public money on biomedical research, only expert scientists have the knowledge to formulate projects that can advance those goals. And the diversity of biomedical research problems mean that the necessary expertise can never be completely housed within NIH, so it's better to let experts compete with each other to produce the best proposals for meeting those goals.

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Written by Geoffrey Adams on 2025-01-23 at 01:17

For the same reason, it's impossible for NIH to internally possess all of the expertise to competently review every proposed project. The solution to this is Study Sections. NIH invites scientists (generally people who are themselves funded NIH extramural researchers) to participate in a Study Section, which reviews grant applications responding to a specific funding announcement (NIH-identified research priority). Each reviewer assigns each application a score, and the top-scored applications are then considered for funding.

It is not a perfect system, and I think every NIH-funded researcher has some complaints about how it works. But it's the system we have, and on the whole the past 50+ years of biomedical research in the US show that it basically works pretty well.

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Written by Geoffrey Adams on 2025-01-23 at 01:17

There are currently reports that NIH has just abruptly suspended all study sections, including some that were already in progress, as a result of executive orders prohibiting external communication by NIH employees. I haven't seen definitive confirmation of this yet but it's a weird thing to turn out to just be a rumor.

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Toot

Written by Geoffrey Adams on 2025-01-23 at 01:17

Academic scientists structure their lives around the NIH grant cycle. Gaps in funding for graduate students and postdocs can mean that people who we've invested years of public money into training to become biomedical researchers will have to leave the field. Some people may have to close productive labs. Research into life changing treatments and the basic knowledge that will drive the next generation of these treatments will be delayed or halted. Some scientists will likely consider moving their labs to countries with more stable funding environments.

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Descendants

Written by Geoffrey Adams on 2025-01-23 at 01:17

If you are an American citizen, please pay attention to this news as it develops, and consider contacting your senators and representatives to tell them to put pressure on NIH and the Executive to allow grant reviews to resume. Biomedical research saves and improves lives. We all know people affected by cancer, or Alzheimer's disease, or drug addiction, or long covid. Let's not give up on them, let's not give up on ourselves.

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Written by Geoffrey Adams on 2025-01-23 at 03:47

Update: I have just seen this article from Science Magazine, which confirms the story and also provides additional information about how NIH's intramural program (the research conducted by government employees, generally considered one of the most prestigious biomedical research institutes in the world) has been impacted.

https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-hits-nih-devastating-freezes-meetings-travel-communications-and-hiring

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Written by Cindy Weinstein on 2025-01-23 at 02:38

@biogeo

Excellent thread. This "pause," or whatever exactly it is, will be fatal.

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Written by Mike Taylor 🦕 on 2025-01-23 at 13:09

@CindyWeinstein @biogeo The idea that you can simply pause something like this, then resume it when it suits you, is just incredibly naive.

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Written by Cindy Weinstein on 2025-01-23 at 15:53

@mike

@biogeo

Yes, naive is one accurate adjective (and a nice one). Many more, less generous ones, also come to mind.😡

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Written by Mike Taylor 🦕 on 2025-01-23 at 16:07

@CindyWeinstein @biogeo Oh, I don't for a moment mean to minimize the malice and incompetence that underlies this. I'm just saying that AS WELL AS all that, it's ALSO naive.

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Written by Cindy Weinstein on 2025-01-23 at 16:09

@mike @biogeo 💯

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Written by Wyatt H Knott on 2025-01-23 at 16:11

@mike @CindyWeinstein @biogeo The part you're missing is they don't intend to resume.

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Written by Mike Taylor 🦕 on 2025-01-23 at 16:12

@whknott @CindyWeinstein @biogeo You may be right. But I get there comes a point where they suddenly go "Oh, we need a research program into this very specific thing", and there's no-one to do it because all the researchers have moved to Canada or moved into marketing or something.

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Written by Wyatt H Knott on 2025-01-23 at 16:14

@mike @CindyWeinstein @biogeo Their goal is to privatize everything. They believe research is better done in the private sector. They do not want public research.

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Written by Cindy Weinstein on 2025-01-23 at 16:17

@whknott @mike @biogeo

I'm not sure even private sector research is a goal, except for AI research.

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Written by Wyatt H Knott on 2025-01-23 at 16:18

@CindyWeinstein @mike @biogeo I do think they'd like to keep, say, drug research private. They see how much the pharma-bros make, and are jealous.

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Written by Cindy Weinstein on 2025-01-23 at 16:19

@whknott @mike @biogeo

good point.

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Written by Mike Taylor 🦕 on 2025-01-23 at 16:21

@whknott @CindyWeinstein @biogeo Yes. But it doesn't take a sophisticated understanding of biomedicine to realize that techniques like CRISPR gene editing arose from publicly funded research (in several countries) that was subsequently commercialized.

Or maybe the plan is to leave basic research to other countries, and jump in when there's something to commericalise. I guess that would fit (a very unambitious version of) "America First".

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Written by Wyatt H Knott on 2025-01-23 at 16:27

@mike @CindyWeinstein @biogeo Consider this: if your plan is to crush the US economy and buy up the scraps at bargain basement prices, where, as a well-heeled billionaire, are you supposed to park your assets so that they don't lose money when the US dollar collapses? Well, gee, the stock of multi-billion dollar pharma companies with physical locations outside the US and with assets valued in Euros might be a great place to start.

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Written by Mike Taylor 🦕 on 2025-01-23 at 16:18

@whknott @CindyWeinstein @biogeo You might be right. But I suspect that some of them at least understand that no private organization is going to fund the kind of basic research that underlies breakthroughs with practical applications.

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Written by Wyatt H Knott on 2025-01-23 at 16:20

@mike @CindyWeinstein @biogeo I hope you are right, but I suspect the origin story for most of these guys starts with "2 engineers in a garage who dropped out of school" - they don't believe in public organizations the way we do.

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Written by Cindy Weinstein on 2025-01-23 at 16:20

@mike @whknott @biogeo

If god forbid #RFK gets through as head of #HHS, all bets are off.

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Written by Urzl on 2025-01-23 at 16:23

@whknott @mike @CindyWeinstein @biogeo What they really hate is public IP, I think.

They want to destroy the commons once and for all.

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Written by Wyatt H Knott on 2025-01-23 at 16:16

@mike @CindyWeinstein @biogeo My friend, please, consider that at the same time, they are attacking academic institutions directly, with anti-DEI rhetoric and threats of lawsuits. Academia and independent scientists are the exact group of people who they would like to disappear, because they are they ones that oppose the regime with facts.

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Written by Mike Taylor 🦕 on 2025-01-23 at 16:19

@whknott @CindyWeinstein @biogeo There may be something in that, yes.

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Written by Cindy Weinstein on 2025-01-23 at 16:25

@whknott @mike @biogeo

The disgusting #DEI EO also goes after private institutions that get funds from the government. I wonder what the kzillionaires who serve as trustees of universities -- the ones who had so much to do with getting rid of their presidents -- have to say about this. Ackman, you there? Maybe the promised tax cut renders everything else irrelevant.

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Written by Anne Ominous on 2025-01-23 at 16:43

@mike @CindyWeinstein @biogeo

i quir academic research science after 20 years, in 2021.

and jfc i am so glad.

i can only imagine how so many profs, post-docs, students, are feeling right now

& folks, no one ever seems to know this, but most people who are not professors, but work at an academic institution as a super smart & capable scientist? they don't make very much money.

i never made more than 60K, & i have over 30 publications.

there is very little 'fat' to be trimmed from the NIH.

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Written by Sasyecat on 2025-01-23 at 17:18

@mike @CindyWeinstein @biogeo

Trump is about to privatize EVERYTHING. The rich will get richer and continue to donate to Republicans who don't care what happens to the rest of us.

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