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EMBO reports 4, 12, 1103 (2003)
doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400039
Goal-oriented research
Frank Gannon
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There is no doubt that the rate of progress has dramatically increased
over the past 100 years and has brought with it sudden and pronounced changes,
not just for individuals, but also for greater society. Even in our world of
research, there are events that bring the words of W.B. Yeats to mind:
"...All's changed, changed utterly: a terrible beauty is born." In
particular, the Human Genome Project has had a large impact on the way in which
biomedical research is now structured. Researchers defined a goal and entered
into a contract with society, to deliver the sequence of the human genome. This
project also highlighted the potential for the private sector to compete with
public research organizations, the consequences of which still rumble in the
background. For those who funded the project, the essential facts are that they
accepted the goal and they paid for it—I suspect they liked the
simplicity of this arrangement, and it is probable that they will wish to have
more of this goal-oriented research.
Those of us who benefit from the sequencing effort may still feel that
we can continue research in a 'business as usual' manner. However, even
suggesting that there could be any research 'directions' gives rise to heated
discussions. We all 'know' that top-down defined projects are wrong, because
they tend to overlook the brilliant ideas that spark when two unrelated
concepts meet in our minds. No committee can have such individual moments of
insight, and we are right to resist being reduced to mere providers of bricks
of knowledge that contribute to a building planned by some other architect. Our
bricks are really sparkling gems, mined with personal skill and produced as
individual entities, and it is better to leave it that way. The world has
clearly benefited from the unstructured work of academic scientists.
However, the bill for supporting our individualism is increasing.
Experiments are more costly nowadays, and we return to the funding well with
ever-larger buckets to fill. In the USA, this has resulted in a twofold
increase in funding for some major agencies, driven by the political will to
generate more knowledge and thus economic growth. What is sometimes glossed
over in the US system is the fact that funding is driven by a presidential
agenda—defence-related research can provide fresh money for biomedical
research, such as in the case of a smallpox vaccination programme. However,
this type of funding comes with some strings attached, which can be manipulated
at the whim of the puppet masters.
In Europe, the current hot topic is the need for more support for basic
research, an initiative with a multi-billion Euro price tag. Our arguments for
this are absolutely correct. High-quality science will give rise to more
unexpected and therefore valuable—in all senses of the
word—insights. That is less likely to occur if some savants take a
'forward look' and conclude that we should work on bionanotechnology or
RNA-control elements or systems biology. Any attempt to predefine knowledge
generation will be doomed to failure. Basic research must come from individual
investigators and must be open to the wildest ideas, no matter how far they
stray from the mainstream. I believe that more support for basic research is
needed and timely, but I would be surprised if funding of that magnitude is
handed over by some magnanimous Santa Claus with deep pockets and no
agenda.
The need for basic research does not mean, in my opinion, that we should
ignore the challenge of placing our work in some larger context. Like many
others, I could summarize my research goal as trying to understand how a
hormonal message triggers the expression of a specific subset of genes. But how
should we respond if we were asked the question: "When will you be able
to describe this process in detail for even one gene?" Should we simply
say that we do not know and that the journey of research is what intrigues us,
not the destination itself? Or should we say that we could have a 'first draft'
in, for example, five years' time? We usually give the first answer. But those
who fund us, influenced by the Human Genome Project, may put their wallets away
if the answer merely implies more unstructured information. If we give the
second answer, we may hear the comforting sound of the bank vault opening. We
could, of course, lose credibility if we do not reach our self-defined goals,
so we should carefully define 'first draft'. Nevertheless, I think that we can
accept such goals and continue to work in the way we do at present. The only
difference is that we would need to review our data such that we gain a
collective view on how close we are to our goal. In addition, this would point
to gaps in current knowledge and help others in the area to define their
research more clearly.
Such a concept, in which the researchers continue to work in the way we
appreciate, but where the randomness of information output is structured
post factum, arose when I was involved in a discussion on the big
challenges for the life sciences. The example mentioned
above—understanding how a gene works—could easily be expanded. We
could set ourselves new goals to understand how an organelle works and then how
a cell works and how an organism works, and eventually we might arrive at what,
I believe, is our collective goal: understanding life. This may be a different
way of looking at our research, but is it wrong to have such ambitions? And how
long will we be able to continue with 'business as usual' before we are being
forced to consider such options?
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