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In This Issue of Basics:

Is Big Biology Better?
HOPKINS BASIC SCIENTISTS WEIGH IN ON THE PROS AND CONS.

What happens when a garrulous physicist and a cocky geneticist share an office? First, they spend a great deal of time drinking together; then they come up with the greatest scientific find of the 20th century. Watson and Crick's discovery of the structure of DNA is the most famous example of the virtues of interdisciplinary collaboration and the benefits of lab proximity. Contrast that with the Human Genome Project 50 years later—same teamwork, same discipline-crossing but on a vastly increased scale. “It's clear,” says Chi Dang, Hopkins Medicine's vice-dean for research, “that we're moving from single laboratory-based science to large-scale science, with multiple labs and efforts worldwide to solve major problems.”

Yet despite the success of the Human Genome Project, doubts remain about the impact of “big biology” on the R01-based individual laboratory approach “that's been the backbone of research in the biomedical sciences,” says Stephen Desiderio, who directs the Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences (IBBS). We don't know, he cautions, how the expanded model will fare in the long term.

The consensus at Hopkins, however, is that we're better off with both.

Big biology apparently works best, for example, when it attacks complex biological questions needing diverse types of expertise and expensive technology. “Science is becoming so much more complex and information-dense that we need more team efforts,” says Dang. That's happening on Hopkins' basic science side with the Institute for Cell Engineering (ICE) and the IBBS, where scientists from different disciplines work together on specific technologies or tackle parts of biological problems.

And with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) increasingly touting translational research, formerly rare unions of basic scientists and clinicians have added importance, says Gerald Hart, director of biological chemistry. “IBBS was founded in part to build bridges,” he adds, “and improve communications between people doing fundamental research and those with clinical studies.” Such efforts build on the long-existing atmosphere of mutual aid and assistance, Desiderio notes, and “part of the culture here is that you never turn colleagues down when they ask for help, and you don't make credit your primary goal.”

Increased faculty collaboration is only one part of the picture. “The move to big science is primarily instrument-driven,” says Hart. “It's difficult for individual investigators to compete for grants without current equipment.” That became painfully clear not long ago, when Hopkins needed major investments in technology. Fortunately, serendipity took a hand. “The donor who funded ICE was driven by a desire to support stem cell research,” Dang says—an undertaking, he explained, that would require, at the least, molecular screening and assay centers, a microarray facility, molecular imaging ability and a proteomics center. “So a portion of the ICE gift nurtured our core facilities.”

Expected to become self-supporting within three years, the cores already helped make Hopkins competitive when it came to apply for a research plum, a $17 million NIH Roadmap grant. With a team led by Jef Boeke of the High-Throughput Biology Center, Hopkins was awarded the grant this past October (see article, page 4). The Roadmap grant encourages institutions and investigators who have embraced the big biology approach. It's inevitable, many researchers here agree, that biomedical research at Hopkins will become more technology-intensive and more collaborative as well as increasingly focused on clinical outcomes.

And what about basic science investigators who may bristle at the current “bench to bedside” thrust, those who just want to be left alone to do their work? Will they be pressured to board big biology's train? “No,” says Dang. “You can't legislate collaboration. It has to evolve naturally. I strongly feel there is still a role for the single investigator,” he says. “There will always be scientists who prefer to work on their own and who can make big discoveries. We need to make sure that these investigators are encouraged.” Collaboration versus independent research, however, doesn't mean all or nothing. “If you look at your time as a pie, and 90 percent of that pie is devoted to your individual research,” he says, “you can probably make the remaining 10 percent collaborative.”

Hart agrees. “RO1 individual investigator research is still critical,” he says, “because it's where major discoveries are made.” At the same time, the administration's commitment to seed money for new technology and facilities has made Hopkins competitive in the new funding environment. That takes on real importance in the basic sciences, Hart says, “because we are wholly dependent on NIH. Raising money is much more difficult for us—we don't have millionaire patients. Rats and mice and yeast don't fund research.”

“IBBS and ICE are the best of both worlds,” he adds. “We're ahead of the curve while other institutions are lagging behind.”

– Deborah Rudacille

 

 
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