Texas-sized challenge

Postdoc Mala Pande is just one academic victim of the credit crunch. A postdoc at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, studying how gene–environment interactions lead to cancer, her upcoming search for a permanent position just got a lot harder. In March, M. D. Anderson imposed a hiring freeze, as have other academic institutions throughout the United States (see Nature 458, 372–373; 2009). Although Pande would prefer to stay in Houston, she has had to expand her job search to other regions — and even outside the United States — to any institution that specializes in her field. "I get a sense there are jobs, but then there are all these hiring freezes," says Pande, adding that she feels more pressure to publish and to write grants for funding from outside her institute to retain a competitive edge. Her story exemplifies the current financial difficulties that are affecting even world-renowned institutions in the United States.

Mala Pande: "I get a sense there are jobs, but then there are all these hiring freezes."

M. D. Anderson is part of the Texas Medical Center (TMC), a vast assortment of hospitals and labs located on an area of 400 hectares south of downtown Houston, and one of the largest medical centres in the world. The numbers are impressive: 47 member institutions, including 19 academic ones, boasting between them 15,400 physicians, researchers and other professionals, and 33,000 students from high school to graduate level (see page 896).

But even the TMC has been hit by the economic downturn. In a mid-April statement, M. D. Anderson president John Mendelsohn warned that the institute's growth in expenses had outpaced growth in revenue for six consecutive months. Revenue had dropped in part because of an increase in the number of uninsured patients. If M. D. Anderson takes no action, revenues will grow at a slower pace than costs. "We want to make sure we're in good financial strength before hiring," says Raymond DuBois, M. D. Anderson's provost and executive vice-president. "And this year, we had already hired more than we'd planned." M. D. Anderson is, however, hiring a limited number of 'mission critical' employees. There are fewer than 70 positions open, down from 1,000 in March.

Other institutions in the region are in even worse financial straits. Unlike M. D. Anderson, next-door neighbour Baylor College of Medicine has no hospital to generate income; a 'Baylor Hospital and Clinic' is under construction, but a lack of funds means that, for now, Baylor has no plans to move in individuals or equipment, only to finish the exterior. Baylor's endowment has dropped by 30% because of the downturn, the college reports, and the annual operating revenues derived from its endowment have fallen by about $16 million. There are ample research areas for investment, notes Susan Hamilton, senior vice-president and dean of research at Baylor. "But we have to get past financial challenges before we can expand too much." She adds that Baylor is still hiring in "strategic areas" that include McNair Scholars, a programme that seeks to support rising stars in biomedicine. And the college is in discussions with Rice University in Houston to complete a merger; Baylor would get the backing of a major university and Rice would get a renowned medical school. But so far, the two institutions have only a memorandum of understanding.

Rice University's new Bioscience Research Collaborative provides space for interdisciplinary research, but Jim Coleman (inset) says tenants are hard to find.

Nevertheless, despite hard economic times, the TMC is still expanding. Seven hundred thousand square metres of new build is under construction, at a cost of $3.3 billion, and one-third of this space is designated for research. Baylor recently completed the Margaret M. Alkek Building for Biomedical Research, which cost $100 million. Four floors, each of 1,850 square metres, house interdisciplinary research space focusing on cardiovascular sciences, diabetes, cancer, pharmacogenomics, imaging and proteomics. Helen Shepherd, Baylor's director of research infrastructure programmes, says that the new building is part of an effort to promote interdisciplinarity. Meanwhile, Baylor, in addition to its hospital project, is working with Texas Children's Hospital to complete a neurosciences institute, although a funding shortfall means that some floors will be left vacant and partially built for now. At M. D. Anderson's south campus, some floors of a new advanced biomedical imaging centre — a collaboration with the University of Texas Health Science Center — may also be left incomplete.

Susan Hamilton: "We have to get past financial challenges before we can expand too much."

Still, efforts to forge interdisciplinary collaborations continue. The newest addition to the landscape is Rice University's Bioscience Research Collaborative (BRC), due to welcome its first Rice faculty and external tenant on 1 July. The 10-storey building houses open-plan, state-of-the-art interdisciplinary laboratory space as well as two auditoria, and has plenty of room for core facilities and animal housing. Open-plan lounges for graduate students and postdocs — designed to encourage collaboration — overlook the manicured grounds of the university.

But finding tenants for the BRC has not been easy. Rice built the facility in the hope of promoting collaboration and cooperation with its immediate neighbours, but the only confirmed external tenant so far is the Gulf Coast Consortium, a coalition of six Houston-area research institutions aiming to build interdisciplinary collaborative research teams and training programmes, which is renting office space there. Jim Coleman, Rice's vice-provost for research, says potential tenants such as Baylor initially expressed interest, then decided against. "Economically it's a very odd time for all of us," says Shepherd.

There's also the issue of whether researchers will find the BRC set-up agreeable. Unlike most interdisciplinary open-lab forays, the BRC designers wanted labs from different institutions to set up next to each other. This could prove uncomfortable if neighbours are competing for the same grants.

Newly recruited Rice University professor and BRC occupant John McDevitt isn't worried on that score. "For the most part, the people that decide to come together in this kind of joint interaction are very much developing a co-dependence on one another," he says, adding that he thinks Rice will select tenants carefully. For McDevitt, the BRC is a dream situation. He is joining the facility after spending 20 years at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has been refining his special brand of miniaturized 'lab on a chip'. One of his chips, for example, can be used to rapidly measure the degree of immunodeficiency in HIV-infected individuals, and so gauge their progression towards AIDS. McDevitt hopes the chips will be of use in remote regions of Africa where more conventional and bulkier assay methods cannot go.

At the BRC, McDevitt will be able to draw not only on Rice's world-class nanotechnology expertise but, most crucially, he will have better access to samples from patients at the nearby hospitals. He has already established a collaboration with Christie Ballantyne, a professor of medicine at Baylor, as part of an effort to develop a chip that serves as a rapid screen for heart attacks. McDevitt is bringing 25 students, postdocs and other scientists with him from Austin. "I feel much better being at the BRC than being at a medical school," he says. "We really need the clinical piece, but we also need strength in science, engineering and nanotechnology."

Despite the vast expanse of biomedical expertise in the TMC, Houston's biotech sector is not a huge generator of jobs, especially at entry level. There are roughly 160 biotech, device and diagnostics companies in and around the TMC, three times the number six years ago, but more than half of the firms have fewer than 10 employees. And many companies are struggling financially or are more likely to seek candidates with mid-level or higher skills and experience, according to Jacqueline Northcut, chief executive of Biohouston, a non-profit organization founded by TMC institutions to raise the region's prowess in biotech. One potential shot in the arm could come with a significant wedge of state funds for industry and academic cancer research as part of the Cancer Prevention Institute of Texas (CPRIT) initiative. First approved in 2007, the institute received $450 million in funding through Texas state legislative approval early this month. But if CPRIT, inspired by the California stem-cell institute, gains its goal — $300 million in state cancer research funds per year for 10 years — that should have a big impact on cancer researchers in academia and in pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

For now, searching for a biotech job can be discouraging, says M. D. Anderson postdoc Ivone Bruno. Head of the postdoc association there, Bruno had been expecting to stay at M. D. Anderson in a full-time 'instructor' position. But the verbal offer fell through after the hiring freeze. Like Pande, Bruno does not want to relocate — she likes the area, and her high-school-aged daughter wants to avoid switching schools just as she is about to apply for college. Bruno would be interested in a biotech position, but work is scarce. She is trying to stay positive; the lack of work gives her an opportunity to expand her skills — she has already moved from molecular biology to neurobiology to stem-cell biology — and explore other research possibilities.

"This lets me go beyond my comfort zone," Bruno says. She and other Houston-area jobseekers will probably have to continue to seek the silver lining in a difficult situation.