Scientists decry decline in research funding

(Reprinted with permission)

Dr. Jeff Michalski is suddenly less confident that he's going to get the right answer.

Michalski, a cancer researcher, leads a clinical trial to see whether reducing the amount of radiation given to children with a rare brain tumor, called a medulla blastoma, is safe. Most patients survive with a combination of radiation and chemotherapy, but the treatment has severe side effects, including growth delays and hearing loss.

Michalski, director of radiation oncology at Siteman Cancer Center and a professor at Washington University, wanted to enroll 600 patients to see if the therapy can be safely reduced.

But he can't get enough money from the National Institutes of Health -- the federal agency that pays for most biomedical research in the country -- for all those patients. So between 200 and 300 patients will be enrolled. Fewer patients means less statistical power, which will increase the chance that the researchers will get the wrong answer.

Michalski faces what scientists say is a dismal climate for federal funding of medical research.

In an era of bioterrorism, bird flu, an obesity epidemic and exploding health-care costs, the U.S. can ill-afford to reduce research funding, NIH supporters say.

On Monday, scientists from top universities testified before the U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee, which will help determine how much money the NIH gets for 2008, about how dire they think the situation is.

Tighter budgets are already having an impact. The National Cancer Institute, the group within NIH that funds cancer research, has warned researchers that they should prepare for a 10 percent budget cut in clinical trials.

Scientists, including some at Siteman, are waiting to hear which projects will feel the pinch.

The cuts could delay or close about 95 clinical trials and eliminate slots for about 3,000 cancer patients in those trials, according to the Coalition of Cancer Cooperative Groups. In addition, research on melanoma, sarcoma, rare childhood tumors, and head, neck and brain cancers would come to a halt.

The cuts come at a time when about 400 cancer drugs are in the pipeline, said Dr. Robert L. Comis, president of the Coalition of Cancer Cooperative Groups.

"It is important for the nation to understand that standing clinical trial infrastructure for developing new treatments for cancer is in jeopardy," Comis said.

Between 1998 and 2003, the NIH budget doubled. Then it flattened. President George W. Bush is calling for a budget of about $28.8 billion in 2008, an actual reduction of $500 million since the agency will have to pay the U.S. contribution to the global AIDS fund instead of splitting the cost with the State Department.

"Congress says, 'We've doubled the budget. Why haven't you cured cancer, heart disease or what have you?'" said Lawrence Shapiro, dean of the Washington University medical school. "And the answer is, it takes time."

This would be the fourth year in a row that the agency's budget hasn't kept up with inflation, leading to a 13 percent reduction in real dollars, said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the NIH. It would cost about $1.9 billion to correct the inflationary erosion, he said.

At the same time, medical research has grown more expensive. Inflation in health-care costs drives up the cost of labor, supplies, rent and medications, increasing the price of doing clinical research.

Scientists argue that less money for research that leads to treatments and cures of diseases means increasing health-care costs for Americans fighting Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, diabetes and other diseases.

"We can put the money into research now or pay more for medical care later," said Mary Wooley, president of Research!America, a nonprofit group that lobbies for money for biomedical research.

A side effect of the budget issues is that much of the grant money is committed to work started when the budget was growing, leaving less for new faculty members.

The result: The average age at which new professors get their first grant from the NIH has increased from 37 in 1980 to 42 in 2004.

"I just think it's problematic to have people wait until their late 30s or early 40s to really get launched on their careers," Shapiro said. "I think we're losing too much of people's creative lives."

The NIH has typically funded 1,500 new scientists each year, Dr. Elias Zerhouni, the agency's director, testified Monday. Last year that number fell to 1,400. If the trend continues, the U.S. won't have enough scientists in 10 years to carry research forward, he said.

The NIH

- What: The National Institutes of Health, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

- Composed of: 20 institutes and 7 centers

- Headquarters: Bethesda, Md.

- Employees: 18,627 people

- Website: www.nih.gov

- The amount of NIH money to local universities*:

Washington University School of Medicine: $360 million; 452 principal investigators**

St. Louis University Medical School: $34.4 million; 87 principal investigators

Southern Illinois University Medical School: $5.3 million; 20 principal investigators

University of Missouri-Columbia: $40.1 million, 112 principal investigators

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: $51 million, 127 principal investigators

*For fiscal year 2006

** Principal investigators are faculty members who oversee a research grant. Grant money supports salaries for graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, medical fellows, undergraduate students, technicians and other researchers working under a principal investigator. It also pays for

* tsaey@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8325

Copyright 2007 St. Louis Post-Dispatch

•	Scientists decry decline in research funding St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Tuesday, March 20, 2007 Byline: Tina Hesman Saey, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

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