Playing It Safe in Cancer Research

I recently read an article entitled “Playing it Safe in Cancer Research” published in the June 28, 2009 issue of the New York Times. If you want to read the full article you can find it at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/health/research/28cancer.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=kolata%20%22playing%20it%20safe%20in%20cancer%20research%22&st=cse

This article is based on the system in the USA and it would take someone with more knowledge of science than I to compare it to the system in Canada, but it did raise in my mind some fundamental philosophical points.

The subtitle of the article is “Grant Money Goes to Projects Unlikely to Break Much Ground” but it does make the point too that grant money in the USA is often not going to projects that are likely to break much ground. It talks of the grants going to projects which are only likely to produce incremental progress in the fight against cancer. “The reviewers choose such projects because with too little money to finance most proposals, they are timid about taking changes on ones that might not succeed. … projects that could make a major difference in cancer prevention and treatment are all too often crowded out because they are too uncertain.”

The article goes on to refer to big ideas without a backer. In some cases there is a real catch 22: a project is refused funding because there are not even any preliminary results to support it, but of course the researcher cannot come up with the preliminary results without some grant money to get the project started.

Reference is then made to some angels outside the USA government and the American Cancer Society. Some researchers don’t even bother to apply for government money and instead go for grants from some endowments which can support such grants. But regrettably there are not enough of such angels around to support the many projects which are available.

One researcher, who has reviewed grants for the cancer institute herself, is quoted as saying that she realized that, among other things, those that get financed must have a novel hypothesis that is credible based on what we know already. I have found it instructive to live by the principles enunciated by Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and some of his other works. In some of his foundational principles he talks of significant breakthroughs being breaks with old ways of thinking. Also, it is often the case that significant problems cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Those principles make good sense to me. I wonder if they apply to medical research. The article does talk of the USA National Institutes of Health setting aside some funds for pioneer awards which are for proposals which are exceptionally innovative, high risk, original and /or unconventional research but with the potential to create or overturn fundamental paradigms. If so, that would support I would think taking some risks and going for projects which might produce real breakthroughs. However risks need to be balanced. So it makes sense to me that chancy experiments with novel hypotheses which may provide real breakthroughs will need to be balanced with something. The something I’m sure involves the “bigger picture” including some consideration of where science is at. I leave it to those more knowledgeable than I to figure out that balance.