As a new parent, I often wonder about the challenges I face in guiding my children’s life paths. Navigating them through this complicated world, helping them develop a strong sense of self, and to identify their life’s passions are just a few things that lie ahead. While I surely don’t have a lot of the answers as to how I will approach these things, one thing I strongly believe is that being open and honest with them is a good start. Teach them the facts, have a good dialogue, and ultimately, I believe they will choose the path in life that’s best for them. I try to do the same thing in my laboratory.
As a research investigator, running a laboratory is in some ways like running a family. Obviously there are major differences, but the similarities sometimes our quite scary. In order to carry out my research, I must have a great team of dedicated, loyal people who work tirelessly everyday on the projects put before them. Before that, however, I have to have the money to support them and these projects, just like a mother or father must when raising a family. Where does that money come from? Well, in most cases, greater than 90% of that money comes from grants, and over 75% of those grants come from the federal government. A recent study suggested that the average investigator spends about forty percent of their time writing grants. FORTY PRECENT! That means, very smart, talented scientists spends 2 full days of their workweek asking people for money just to be able to do the work they believe will one day lead to a cure for millions of sick people. Now that we have that out in the open, let me explain to you a bit about the dynamics of how a lab operates, and how the current federal funding situation will affect this.
Laboratories are typically made up of graduate students (most working towards their Ph.D.), post-doctoral fellows (recently conferred Ph.Ds.), and research technicians (entry level workers who perform day to day technical tasks). A graduate student in biomedical science actually has a pretty good gig if you ask me. Yes its extremely difficult, but they get their tuition paid for and receive a modest stipend for living expenses en route to achieving the highest academic degree one can obtain. Not to shabby. Post-docs, on the other hand, not so glamorous. After 5-6 years of graduate school making no money, a recent Ph.D. post-doc gets a job in a lab earning on average $40,000 in their first year. Now, that may seem fair, but post docs are working around 60 hours a week, which works out to be around $12 per hour. $12 per hour for a Ph.D. scientist. Why so low? Well, once again, it comes back to grants. Grant funding is limited, and since most post-docs and graduate students are paid off grants, the salaries have to be capped to ensure the process remains. I should also mention that most research technicians, who by the way have either a Bachelor’s or sometimes a Master’s degrees, make about the same if not more than a Ph.D. post doc.
So you make it through your post-doc and the next stage of your career is imminent. What to do. Well, choices at this stage are mostly limited, but the major choice traditionally has been academics or industry. For the sake of continuity in this piece, lets assume your choice is academics, to become an investigator and run your own lab. Awesome. Or is it? Getting an academic position now a days is very difficult because of tremendously strong competition which means one most truly set themselves apart from the rest through their accomplishments as a graduate student and post doc. But lets say you land your dream academic job, and there you are, a newly minted, assistant professor running your own lab. Now here comes the big bucks… Sorry. The average salary at a State university for a new professor is in the 60-70K range; and this is only guaranteed to you, in most cases, for a set amount of years before you must successfully obtain a grant to pay for the majority of your own salary, and all the salaries of the people in your lab. So for example, you might obtain a grant that gives you $750,000 for three years to set up your lab and hire people. It sounds like a lot of money, but it goes bye bye quickly (paying for equipment, salaries, lab supplies, etc..) which means all you do for those three years is write grants to keep the revenue flowing.
Now, lets get to the crux of this article, shall we? The grants. In 2008, the average age of a new investigator was 36. That same year, the average age a new investigator received a NIH (National Institute of Health) R01 (the federal government’s main grant for funding a laboratory) was 42. So, that means, on average, it took 6 years for new PIs to get a grant…way over their allotted 3 or 4 years, dictated to them by their contract at the university. What happens if they don’t get a grant? Use your imagination.
So why is it so hard to get a grant? Well, the current average NIH funding rate is 18%. That is the average, which means some programs are funding at around 10%. Think about that. That means if 100 scientists submit a proposal, 10 will get it. That’s crazy. Now it’s not all NIH’s fault. They have a budget they are working with; and therein lies the problem. The NIH budget has flattened out at about 30 billion dollars. That may sound like a lot, but considering the total federal budget is 3 trillion, it accounts for much less than 1%. The people at NIH are fighting just for it to remain the same in 2013 as it was in 2012, and now with this whole sequestration mess, 10% of the NIH budget will be cut. What does that mean? Less money, less grants awarded, less investigators funded, possible layoffs, and no scientific progress. Just a quick point, in 2012, China increased its Research & Development budget by 12.5%.
So as an investigator myself, just like a parent, how can I realistically sit there and honestly tell my graduate students that discovery science is a great field to go into? You’ll work ridiculously hard, for little pay, for a small chance of getting your own lab, that in theory may never get funded, at which point you’ll lose your job. I probably wouldn’t advise my own kids to do it, that’s for sure. Our country is killing terrific, bright scientific minds and if the people in congress don’t know how to tie their shoelaces without arguing, how can we expect this to ever get fixed? The time is now, and there needs to be a change. If not, scientists will become a thing of the past, and medical breakthrough will be heard about only in other countries. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, I just hope I’ll be able to continue doing it.
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