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Robert G. Petersdorf Lecture
"Finding the Balance in Research"
Thomas R. Cech, Ph.D.
President, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
 Nobel Prize-winning scientist Thomas R. Cech, Ph.D., president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), outlined his views on how to bring more balance to trends in biomedical research.
Drawing in part on examples from HHMI researchers, Cech identified three key areas of research where there are opportunities for rebalancing: basic versus translational research; younger versus more established investigators; and high-risk and high-reward science versus what he termed "necessary," or more conventional, science.
In the first area, Cech argued that "to get the balance between basic and translational science correct, there are few enough translational researchers doing excellent work that we ought to fund all of them." In the second area, Cech cited the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Pathways to Independence awards, developed with input from a National Academy committee that Cech chaired, as a model for seeking out and providing grants specifically to younger investigators, who on average receive far fewer traditional NIH grants than their older, more experienced counterparts. In the third area, Cech said NIH funding restraints, general risk aversion, and overly large demands for preliminary data, often prevent the "huge leaps we need in research to shift a paradigm."
Cech added that the NIH Pioneer Award Program is a good start to addressing the imbalance, as they provide more funds for high-risk, high-reward projects, although the total number of awards is very small. Organizations that advocate for directing resources toward one specific disease, Cech said, are laudable, but may overlook the fact that "serendipitous breakthroughs often result from people looking at the basics of a problem."
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