s******9
发帖数: 283 | 1 这么轻松地忽悠了$20 million incubator grant... Science这么一写，不知道缺钱的
PI怎么去看Lynda Chin们。
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6083/789.summary
On the way to becoming a world-class funding resource, Texas's 3-year-old, $
3 billion cancer research agency has run into management troubles. Last week
, Alfred Gilman, the Nobel Prize–winning biochemist who serves as the chief
scientific officer of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas
announced he is stepping down this fall because he believes CPRIT's leaders
are making research funding decisions that bypass scientific review. Gilman
's concerns have rattled CPRIT's board members. They are now scrambling to
reassure reviewers and the public—including Texas lawmakers who voted to
fund CPRIT—that they remain committed to peer-reviewed science.
Gilman says his resignation was triggered in part by a controversial “
incubator” grant of $20 million awarded in March. Most of the money will go
to a drug-discovery institute that Lynda Chin helped launch when her
husband Ronald DePinho became president of the University of Texas (UT) MD
Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Gilman claims the Chin grant application
“appears to have been glued onto” another proposal from Rice University
and reviewed by business experts, not scientific reviewers, “unusually
quickly.” CPRIT officials and Chin deny this, saying it boils down to a
difference of opinion about the appropriate form of review.
Gilman has another complaint: He claims that pressure from some members of
CPRIT' oversight committee—appointed by the governor and other elected
officials—caused CPRIT's director to put a hold on grants worth $39 million
in March because most of the money was going to Gilman's former institution
, UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Some board members think more
CPRIT funding should be going to their local institutions, Gilman says. The
eight members of CPRIT's scientific review council, an advisory group headed
by fellow Nobelist and Massachusetts Institute of Technology biologist
Phillip Sharp, wrote the board this week to say that they share Gilman's
concerns. “Here is an explicit example of how peer review runs up against
specific interests,” Sharp says.
Others suggest that the dispute arose in part from tensions within CPRIT
about the balance between commercialization programs, which make up 17% of
its grants portfolio, versus basic research, which makes up 73%. (By law,
another 10% must be spent on cancer prevention.)
CPRIT sprang to life 5 years ago when Texas voters approved a plan to fund
the agency with bond sales amounting to $3 billion over 10 years, following
a model similar to California's stem cell research agency. Initially, some
worried about political influence, but the concern faded when Gilman joined
the agency. The peer-review system he created includes more than 100
scientists from outside Texas. CPRIT has disbursed $500 million so far for
387 research grants and recruited nearly 40 researchers to the state (
Science, 27 May 2011, p. 1019).
Chin and DePinho resigned from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston
and moved to Texas in August. They brought about 20 staff scientists from
the Belfer Institute for Applied Cancer Science, an academic-industry drug
discovery program they founded at Dana-Farber in 2004. At MD Anderson, they
created the Institute for Applied Cancer Science (IACS) with Chin as
scientific director. It's “unique,” Chin says, because scientists discover
and develop new drugs themselves and can work on a dozen or more projects.
They make “fast kill” decisions when appropriate. MD Anderson pledged to
fund IACS at $15 million a year for 5 years.
Chin says soon after she arrived in Texas, CPRIT officials encouraged her to
apply for an “incubator” grant designed for “the discovery or
development of innovative oncology medicines.” CPRIT “approached us,”
Chin says. “They believed this is exactly what an incubator should do.” In
accordance with the request for applications (RFA) approved by CPRIT's
board, she says, her team began preparing a “business plan” that would not
go through scientific review.
Separately, last November, CPRIT's commercialization reviewers approved an
incubator proposed by Rice University to set up a center to offer expert
advice to Houston-area researchers seeking to commercialize discoveries. But
the reviewers held the proposal until Rice had a management team, says
CPRIT commercialization chief officer Jerry Cobbs. He decided that combining
it with Chin's IACS center “would be a much more powerful tool completing
the innovation pipeline.”
Cobbs says he had Chin present IACS's plans to Gilman by videoconference in
January to get his “insight.” Gilman expressed concerns: To him, IACS
appeared to be a research program because its work included basic biomedical
and chemistry studies, and it did not identify products or a company. He
urged Chin to submit her proposal as a research grant. Chin disagreed: “
This is an industry-like entity,” she says. A scientific review would “not
be appropriate” because IACS staff members are former industry scientists
and can't be evaluated as academics are, such as by reviewing their
publications, she claims.
CPRIT Executive Director William Gimson says he decided Chin's proposal
should be submitted as an incubator despite Gilman's objections. Chin
submitted a seven-page proposal on 11 March; the commercialization panel
considered it 10 days later, issuing four written reviews, Chin says. The
executive board approved the $20 million award—its largest single-year
award ever—at its 29 March meeting. Between $15 million and $18 million
will go to MD Anderson, Gimson says.
The quick review simply shows that “we're nimble, we're entrepreneurial,”
Gimson says. If the proposal had not been “compatible with the RFA,”
Gimson says, his commercialization reviewers—venture capitalists and
biotechnology experts, many with scientific expertise—would have rejected
it. To Gilman and other academic scientists, however, the MD Anderson award
amounts to a clever run around the scientific review process. In his 8 May
resignation letter, Gilman objects that CPRIT has awarded “vast funds for
research programs” that were not adequately described and therefore “could
not have been reviewed.”
Adding to his concerns, Gilman says, Gimson did not bring to the board's
March meeting seven multi-investigator grants approved by the scientific
review council. Sharp and other council members write in their letter that
Gimson worried that some board members would block the well-reviewed grants
because most of the funding was going to UT Southwestern. This suggests “
bias,” Sharp and the councilors wrote, which “we vigorously deny.”
Gimson has a different explanation: He says he held the grants because the
board has been keen to fund more commercialization projects and, in any case
, the total funds he had available weren't sufficient to cover the $20
million incubator award, other peer-reviewed grants, and the $39 million
required for the seven projects approved by the scientific council. He
expects to bring the grants to the board in July, he says.
The former director of the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, Robert Young, a member of CPRIT's commercialization review
council, says he recused himself from the IACS review because he serves on
the board of a company DePinho and Chin founded. Still, he says the center
they're planning in Texas is “a proven model” that might look “
unconventional from the point of view of a scientific review committee.” He
says it's not the first time the commercialization and scientific branches
of CPRIT have differed on proposals.
Gimson says CPRIT is taking steps to ensure that “this doesn't happen again
.” The board may clarify the “line” between an incubator and academic
research project and in July may consider whether to set aside a fixed
amount of its budget for commercialization. Gilman says he would be
supportive, but that balance “isn't the issue.” It is “disguising” a
large research grant as commercialization to “bypass peer review.”
Gilman, 70, plans to retire on 12 October after a 42-year scientific career.
He hopes to stay at CPRIT until then in part to make sure applicants “will
still encounter a functional peer-review system,” he says in his letter.
Sharp says he and other reviewers will be closely watching the board's
actions in the coming months. | s******y
发帖数: 28562 | 2 看起来就是某大牛不忿自己的机构的钱被砍而另外的人轻松拿到钱而闹起来？
$
week
chief
Texas
leaders
Gilman
【在 s******9 的大作中提到】
: 这么轻松地忽悠了$20 million incubator grant... Science这么一写，不知道缺钱的
: PI怎么去看Lynda Chin们。
: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6083/789.summary
: On the way to becoming a world-class funding resource, Texas's 3-year-old, $
: 3 billion cancer research agency has run into management troubles. Last week
: , Alfred Gilman, the Nobel Prize–winning biochemist who serves as the chief
: scientific officer of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas
: announced he is stepping down this fall because he believes CPRIT's leaders
: are making research funding decisions that bypass scientific review. Gilman
: 's concerns have rattled CPRIT's board members. They are now scrambling to
| O******e
发帖数: 4845 | 3 不过L. Chin那两千万确实过分了。我越来越不看好这两口子了。做事情的张扬程度
严重超出他们的实际水平。以后这些都是要还的。。。
【在 s******y 的大作中提到】
: 看起来就是某大牛不忿自己的机构的钱被砍而另外的人轻松拿到钱而闹起来？
:
: $
: week
: chief
: Texas
: leaders
: Gilman
| y******8
发帖数: 1764 | 4 版大要淡定啊。20m 说多也不多，而且是一次性的。 有些PI一年烧的钱比20m还多，而
且连续几年的烧，也没什么成果不是。
【在 O******e 的大作中提到】
: 不过L. Chin那两千万确实过分了。我越来越不看好这两口子了。做事情的张扬程度
: 严重超出他们的实际水平。以后这些都是要还的。。。
| O******e
发帖数: 4845 | 5 关键是L. Chin这个水平的实验室哪怕是在德州也不少啊，偏偏给她那么多，当真是
钱多人傻速来么？^_^
【在 y******8 的大作中提到】
: 版大要淡定啊。20m 说多也不多，而且是一次性的。 有些PI一年烧的钱比20m还多，而
: 且连续几年的烧，也没什么成果不是。
| y******8
发帖数: 1764 | 6 这个就有些见仁见智了。如果比发文章的话，做translational research的有天然的劣
势。20M的一次性投入，做一些以前没有做过的事情，而且MD Anderson至少要match 50
%的吧。 以后的发展，也没有什么明显负担。
【在 O******e 的大作中提到】
: 关键是L. Chin这个水平的实验室哪怕是在德州也不少啊，偏偏给她那么多，当真是
: 钱多人傻速来么？^_^
| g*********r
发帖数: 2033 | 7 给的多不是关键
不经过peer review 是大把柄
这个无论如何解释是解释不过去的，除非你自己掏钱去给他，而不是用taxpayer的钱
【在 O******e 的大作中提到】
: 关键是L. Chin这个水平的实验室哪怕是在德州也不少啊，偏偏给她那么多，当真是
: 钱多人傻速来么？^_^
| O******e
发帖数: 4845 | 8 关键是他们两口子这么一折腾，竟然让Gilman都受不了要退休。以后CPRIT前景堪忧啊
50
【在 y******8 的大作中提到】
: 这个就有些见仁见智了。如果比发文章的话，做translational research的有天然的劣
: 势。20M的一次性投入，做一些以前没有做过的事情，而且MD Anderson至少要match 50
: %的吧。 以后的发展，也没有什么明显负担。
| O******e
发帖数: 4845 | 9 就是打了擦边球。这样挺没意思的。她的那些东西，离着药物开发都不知道有多远。。。
【在 g*********r 的大作中提到】
: 给的多不是关键
: 不经过peer review 是大把柄
: 这个无论如何解释是解释不过去的，除非你自己掏钱去给他，而不是用taxpayer的钱
| g*********r
发帖数: 2033 | 10 这个是即躲开了science的peer review,又躲开了commercial 的risk
想的倒挺美，好处全占了，lol
。。
【在 O******e 的大作中提到】
: 就是打了擦边球。这样挺没意思的。她的那些东西，离着药物开发都不知道有多远。。。
| y******8
发帖数: 1764 | 11 就算没了CPRIT，MD Anderson还是要花钱的。CPRIT建立的时候，大家就知道MD
Anderson会是最大的受益者了。
【在 O******e 的大作中提到】
: 关键是他们两口子这么一折腾，竟然让Gilman都受不了要退休。以后CPRIT前景堪忧啊
:
: 50
| h******y
发帖数: 1374 | | h******y
发帖数: 1374 | | n*********b
发帖数: 140 | 14 问题的实质是现在的peer review有多少是公正的，有益的。尤其是NIH的 review以成
为赶集拍卖。太多的非科学因素，人为因素。可以理解能够绕开Gilman的appointees当
然应该绕开。 |
|
