Sir

Recent public declarations by the Nobel prizewinner Renato Dulbecco have cast a dark shadow over Italian science. In radio and television interviews he has lamented that the Human Genome Project is not getting funds, that the project is dead and that he may return to the United States.

Funding for the Italian share of the project has so far come from the “progetto finalizzato” of the National Research Council (CNR). Because of a major restructuring of the entire institution (whose budget is more than L1,000 billion (US$560 million) a year) some ‘side projects’ have no doubt been neglected, including the Human Genome Project (which receives about L2 billion a year). Dulbecco was complaining about funding for this project but the message has been perceived and amplified by the media as a major failure for all Italian science.

I am well aware of the existence of serious problems with science policy in Italy, as I unfortunately happen to be directly involved in one of them, but I also know that measures are being taken to improve the situation (see Nature 392, 531; 1998).

Dulbecco's advice (to leave the country) to me directly, and implicitly through his speech to the research community, is defeatist and will not help the younger generation of good, honest scientists who are trying to supplant a system still largely dominated by barons. Nor will it help agencies (such as Telethon and AIRC) that have finally introduced a serious system of research funding, based on scientific peer review, and not on declarations through the media. Serious scientists should work for better management of science in Italy in general, not just worry when their own slice is threatened.

Those who know that the situation is different from that depicted by Dulbecco should make their voices heard and show that there is a way to change the system. Just leaving may be an option for some, but is certainly not the solution for Italian science.