Oncologist Mariano Barbacid is having his worst year since he returned home in 1998. After repeatedly clashing with health officials over funding for the Spanish National Cancer Center (CNIO)—of which he is director—he is facing the resignation of two prominent CNIO researchers.
Spanish spat: Calling director Mariano Barbacid (R) a "disaster," Luis Serrano (L) has resigned his post at the Spanish National Cancer Center.
Courtesy of CNIO
In an e-mail sent on 7 November to CNIO staff, Luis Serrano resigned as head of the CNIO's structural and computational biology program, complaining of Barbacid's "abuses of authority," "excessive hierarchization" and "narrow scientific vision."
Serrano, who heads a similar program at the Heidelberg-based European Molecular Biology Laboratory, devoted 25% of his time to the CNIO and was expected to move to the CNIO full time in September 2004.
Barbacid may be a good scientist, Serrano later told Nature Medicine in an interview, but as a manager, "he's a disaster." Part of the problem, Serrano adds, is that few people in leadership positions at the CNIO have led a research group abroad.
"I have an autocratic style," Barbacid admits. But he says Serrano is "immature" and that his "virulent" letter was prompted by his ambition to be the next director of the CNIO.
During his time at the US National Cancer Institute, Barbacid established a research group that was one of three in 1982 to isolate a human oncogene. Fifteen years later, as vice president of Oncology Drug Discovery at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Barbacid was approached by the Spanish health ministry to lead the CNIO.
Barbacid's personality has led to several clashes with both policy makers and scientists in Spain. His complaints in the national press about money for the CNIO have annoyed government officials who, he says, have blacklisted him for research grants. Health ministry officials declined to comment. Still, the CNIO has in the last four years obtained several grants from the science ministry and the European Commission.
Several people at the CNIO, who asked not to be named, agree with Serrano's criticisms. But Pere Puigdomenech, director of the Barcelona-based Institute of Molecular Biology, backs Barbacid. "It's normal that CNIO's quality output is still scarce since it's not been [much] time," says Puigdomenech.
In 2003, Spain published 14 life sciences papers in Nature, Science and Cell; 4 came from Barbacid's group. Barbacid says he was considering leaving the directorship because of "burnout." After a meeting on 10 December of the CNIO board, however, health minister Ana Pastor has confirmed that Barbacid will continue in the position.
In the meantime, after a "long and painful reflection," cell division expert Isabelle Vernos, Serrano's wife, who was to lead a research group in the CNIO's Oncology Molecular Programme, has also announced her resignation. "My decision is strictly independent of [Serrano's]," Vernos says.
