64 Varieties of Embryonic Stem Cells
- NIH Tally (August 28, 2001)
The US
National Institutes of
Health (NIH) today announcing the names of 10 companies and research groups
that have human embryonic stem cells US government funded researchers may use,
64 lines in all, and considerably more than expected to be available to
investigators and of sufficient quality. Of those lines six will be available
from Melbourne's Monash University.
All 64 lines according to the NIH "show
characteristics of stem cell morphology" and most have exhibited all the protein
markers "known to be associated with human embryonic stem cells." NIH expects to
come up with more extensive information on the scientific quality of the cells,
including details on how they were cultivated, growth characteristics, and
evidence of pluripotency in the near future.
The funding that our Government's Major National Research
Facilities program will make available to Australia's stem cell research
initiative over the next five years together with state and private investment
will allow Australia the potential for being one of the world's leaders in this
field of research.
Excerpts from Peter Doherty's The Role of the
Public University. (August 28, 2001)
On August 24th, at the invitation of the University of Queensland, Peter Doherty U of Q alumnus and 1996 Nobel Prize winner, gave a public lecture on The Role of the Public University.
Those early politicians were very obsessed with the idea that
the Queensland government must, under all circumstance, maintain direct control
of the university.
The truth of the matter is, though, that strong external
control is inimical to the proper functioning of a university. The capacity to
tolerate, and even applaud, constructive criticism emanating from the university
sector is, in fact, a central hallmark of a sophisticated, modern state.
We [Academics] should be able to provide considered opinions in areas where we
have real expertise we do not, I believe, have the right to use the prestige and
power of our institutions to push private agendas.
The tension between the model that universities exist
primarily to provide high quality technological training in areas like
engineering and medicine and the idea that a university education is a necessary
process for the formation of a well-rounded, educated, thinking person,
continues to plague us... Americans... emphasize that [a] liberal education is
an essential pre-requisite, with training for professional skills to come later.
At its best, this seems to me to be an optimal model, though it does entail the
expense of additional years as a student. Do we need to be in such a hurry?
The balance between more practical, vocational training and
university education became hopelessly confused when the Australian higher
education sector was vandalized by the Hawke government under the so-called
Dawkins' reforms of the late 1980's. Since then, both government and the
educational institutions themselves have spent a great deal of time trying to
cope with the disaster that followed.
[L]eaders of Australia’s universities are under tremendous
pressure. On the one hand they need to innovate, while on the other they have to
deal with many entrenched political and historical realities, some of which were
exacerbated by Dawkins. The past 10-20 years have not been easy ones for the
higher education system.
The full lecture100K
The Vice-Chancellor of ANU is not a
Man Apart. (August 27,2001)
Professor Ian Chubb, Vice-Chancellor of the Australian
National University was taken to task the
other day by the Education Minister, David Kemp, for decrying the deficiencies
in university resources. However, we should point out that the Presidents of the
Australian Academy of Science, Professor Brian Anderson, and the National
Tertiary Education Union, Dr. Carolyn Allport were equally pointed.
Dr.
Allport pointed out that "the prominence given to to science in Government's
Backing Australia's Ability and the ALP's Knowledge Nation report are
very welcome ... However, we need a long-term strategy to rebuild our science
base, especially in universities which have borne the brunt of Government
funding cuts." She went on to say, "We estimate that staff salary increases
alone are costing universities $150m per year over and above what they receive
from Government... universities need a 20% increase in operating grant funding
in order to restore their capacity to meet the nations needs."
The
AAS President was no less plainspoken, "A strong education sector at all levels
is vital in creating and sustaining a knowledge-based economy. We are seeing
some very disturbing signs." Then singling out the "hard" sciences he
continued, "The declining share of enrolments in... physics chemistry and
mathematics in universities and secondary schools is of great concern; we must
reverse this trend otherwise Australia will not have the capacity to support the
skilled workforce necessary to survive and prosper in an innovative and
competitive global environment." So far history does not relate if Dr. Allport
and Prof. Anderson received notes of admonition comparable to that sent to Prof.
Chubb.
A passing note: the Department
of Finance has projected that Commonwealth expenditure on higher education as a
percentage of gross domestic product will decline 12%, from 0.59% to to
0.52%, over the coming two financial years.
It really is quite incomprehensible what all the whingeing is
about.
Enlightened Self-Interest - Pros, no
Cons. (August 27. 2001)
Over the past decade first Labor and then the Coalition
Government have squeezed universities and basic research activities
unmercifully. In stark contrast to many of the other 29 OECD counties, and of
course those comprising the European Union. A point seldom alluded to is
the debt Australia owes to the scientific and technological information as well
as online analytical tools freely provided by, for example, the United Stated
and the EU.
Just two examples:
the billions spent to sequence the human genome. Those data and much in addition are freely available online at the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI),
an interface to data collected by the DØ experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron, enabling fast and automatic testing of models predicting new phenomena at the scale of several hundred GeV (Quaero).
The mean spiritedness toward our universities
and basic research (and not only in the sciences) should it continue will
increasingly affect our international standing and will undoubtedly impinge on
the ability of our tertiary institutions to attract overseas students, a matter
dear to the heart of the Coalition.
Not really smart policy.
Bell Labs' Troubled Times and Basic
Science. (August 27, 2001)
"Of all the world's industrial research centres, Bell
Laboratories wears the crown. Bell Labs has been an icon of ingenuity ever since
its launch in 1925 by American Telephone & Telegraph." With those two short
sentences Nature introduced its August 9th
news feature. Over the course of its history
work at the labs has received six Nobel prizes and among other achievements
produced the UNIX operating system and the C programming language. In
consultation with astrophysicists at Princeton its workers deduced the presence
of the cosmic background radiation, one of the fundamental pieces of evidence in
favour of the Big Bang origin of our universe. It has served as the
outstanding interface between fundamental physics and high technology. But a
series of incompetent business decisions by its now parent, Lucent Technologies,
has put work at Bell Labs' in jeopardy. As Nature points out, "the main
concern is whether the labs' tradition of allowing researchers the freedom to
explore the areas they find interesting can survive."
Recent decisions by the Australian Research Council (ARC),
the nation's main source for non medical basic research funding, has
placed increasing emphasis on grantees showing how their work may benefit
Australia. Just how that's interpreted together with the increasing expenditure
by the ARC on so called linkage research can have far ranging repercussions on
Australian science for at least a generation, and is one of the reasons for more
than one vice-chancellor to try to get the Government of the day, the opposition
and the public to recognise that our universities are in crisis.
New Zealand's Royal Commission on
Genetic Modification. (August 24, 2001)
On the 11th of May last year the New Zealand
Government, pressed by the the Greens, published the warrant calling for a
Royal Commission
Report on Genetic Modification. Prime Minister Helen Clark referred to
it as "the most wide ranging inquiry into genetic modification ever undertaken
in any country."
Following release of the 1200 page report at the end of last
month, it was lauded in Nature's editorial of August 9th. The
journal points out that "Whatever researchers may believe about the benefits,
the future of genetically modified (GM) crops and foods depends on the
prosperity of companies wishing to invest in their development and on the
willingness of farmers, retailers and consumers to buy them. Those market forces
in turn depend critically on regulation and public attitudes. Thus it has been
encouraging to witness the constructive and sensitive approach adopted by the
New Zealand government in establishing a Royal Commission on Genetic
Modification as applied to research, medicine and agriculture." The commission's
four members were a retired chief justice, a biomedical researcher, a medical
practitioner of Maori heritage and an Anglican bishop. Nature summarises
its assessment by "In the end, a campaign to make New Zealand a
genetic-engineering-free zone has, with transparent justice, been dealt a heavy
blow from which it will be difficult for it to recover, although New Zealand's
Green Party vows to 'fight on' ". The short
executive summary in fact gives no real sense of the detail and high quality
of the report which is the basis of a
New York
Times feature article published on Tuesday.
Minister Scolds ANU's
Vice-Chancellor. (August 23, 2001)
The censure brought by the Howard Government against the
leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley, precluded any significant media coverage
that Science Meets Parliament Day might have achieved, but a public stoush, even
a small one, if it concerns a cabinet minister is news. Professor Ian Chubb,
Vice-Chancellor of ANU and Chairman of the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee
may not look much like Kerryn Phelps but he can get a bit feisty too when
roused. The normally soft-spoken V-C was quoted this morning as being
disappointed by Government reaction to his stated view that
Australian universities are in crisis.
Professor Chubb has pointed out that among a number of other problems there can
be up to 32 students taking a tutorial. Not really what comes to mind when
thinking of students and tutors. Never mind, the Federal Minister for Education
Dr. Kemp sent over a note to the V-C taking him to task for airing his views.
Professor Chubb's assessment, spoken as softly as ever, "It's a bit
disappointing. I think that we ought to get down to the substantive issues and
rise above some of the minutia."
We could get lucky. The Senate committee charged with looking
into the matter might bring forth a cracking good report, and the Government of
the day might take heed.
David King, Britain's Chief
Scientific Advisor. (August 12, 2001)
David King, like his predecessor Robert May, came to the role
of the British Government's Chief
Scientific
Advisor from academe rather than industry. He headed Cambridge's chemistry
department. King points out that an ill wind can blow some good. In his case
he's convinced that the foot and mouth epidemic which transpired almost
immediately he took over from May, "has been enormously powerful in bringing to
the attention of the prime minister how science can advise policy-making and be
effective." And for the moment at least he has regular access to Tony Blair.
King has taken advantage of his current clout by gaining a commitment that
science will be included in the next cross-departmental review of government
spending scheduled to be completed by mid-2002.
One of King's major fears is the progressive reduction of
in-house governmental scientific expertise. "The net result is that we've lost a
fair amount of the science base from within the civil service, so we don't have
these people bubbling up into top positions. The problem with an organisation
that out-sources all of its resources is that, if it does it too rigorously, it
no longer knows even what questions to ask." It has all too familiar a ring
except the bell seems to toll louder down under.
Italians Take Heed of Lack of Support
for Science. (August 12, 2001)
Government funding for Italian science is currently set at 1%
of GDP about half the European Union average. That's set to change with the
announcement that over the next five years it will double, i.e.
approaching the expected EU average for 2006. Nature commented recently,
"The [current] lack of investment, together with the excessively bureaucratic
recruitment process, has been blamed for Italy's comparatively poor standing in
international science."
Virtually the same comment could be made regarding Australian
Science. While we don't suffer to the same extent from a "bureaucratic
recruitment process" we remain not only woefully short of resources for science
- Innovation Action Plan or no IAP - far too little attention is paid to the
views of our younger scientists when allocating the meager resources currently
available. As one of our country's eminent (and older) scientists pointed out in
these pages some months ago, it's rule by the
bureausaurs.
National Missile Defense - A US
Senator Appears to Have Some Reservations. (August 12, 2001)
Describing President Bush's missile defense plan as
"the most expensive possible response to the least likely threat we face," the
US Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle (D - South Dakota), observed in regard to
the Pentagon's test of its anti-missile missile, "we knew who was launching,
where it was being launched from, when it was being launched, and the flight
path it would take. For good measure, there was a homing beacon on the target."
However, he added that he's not necessarily an opponent of the program if "our
adversaries would be kind enough to meet all of these conditions, and if we are
willing to accept a 50% success rate," he'd be in it. Thus far there's been no
public comment by members of the Australian Parliament.
"The Role of the Public University" -
Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty (August 10, 2001)
On August 24th, at the invitation of the
University of Queensland, the former U of Q student and 1996 Nobel Prize winner,
together with Rolf Zinkernagel, for work done from 1973-75 at ANU's
John Curtin, will give a public lecture
on the role of the public university. He appears to believe the matter to be
of sufficient importance to speak his mind in public.
Professor Doherty is Chair of the Department of Immunology St
Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis and a Research Professor in the
Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne. The
abstract of his lecture:
The Role of the Public University - An unwavering commitment to the health of a strong, independent, public university system is a key measure of a free and mature society. The universities have long provided much of the focus for the informed debate and critique that is so essential for the health of a democracy. The increasingly obvious reality of the past 50 years is that both economic development and social improvement are inextricably linked to the promotion of liberal education, knowledge, insight and innovation. The universities play a major part in this process, both by training the young and by providing the sites where discoveries can be made and ideas tested. Only the universities house the spectrum of expertise that is required to establish the interactive models that will drive the world of the future. Australia needs both a broadly based system of higher education, and a spectrum of first class research universities with the critical mass to be competitive in a world that will be increasingly dominated by knowledge and insight. Australia cannot, with its small population, afford to waste the potential of a single citizen.
For additional information email:
development.office@mailbox.uq.edu.au
Canada to Set Up Comprehensive and
Independent Science Advisory Body to Counsel Government (August 10, 2001)
Draft proposals for a body to be known as the Canadian
Academies, and based on models such as the US National Academies complex have
just been published by
a working party set up by the government of Canada late last year. Its members
are to include the country's three main existing organisations for science,
engineering and health: the Canadian Academy of the Sciences and Humanities
(otherwise known as the Royal Society of Canada), the Canadian Academy of
Engineering, and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, which is to be
established later this year.
According to
the statement released by the government, the Canadian Academies' mandate will
be to conduct assessments of the sciences and enhance international linkages
critical to capturing the opportunities and meeting the challenges that arise
from advances in the sciences. Its mission is to be two-fold:
1. to provide a source of credible, independent, expert assessments of the sciences underlying pressing issues and matters of public interest and,
2. to provide a strong Canadian voice for sciences, both nationally and internationally.
Gilbert Normand, Canada's Secretary of State
for Science Research and Development and a strong supporter said, "The Canadian
government has a large number of separate advisory committees, but it does not
have an independent, national organization that has the confidence both of the
Canadian people and of the international scientific community." He added that
the new body will provide a source of "credible, independent expert assessments
on the sciences underlying important issues and matters of public interest."
Running costs? About Can$3 million a year; and while the
government might decide to provide this money on an annual basis, Normand's
preference would be to set up the organisation with an initial capital
allocation from the government of Can$30 million, which would allow it to be
stable for ten years of operation and would help to nurture its independence.
With an investment of that order it's reasonable to
expect that the Canadian government is serious in its stated intent.
Irish High Technology Superstructure
Gets Basic Research Keystone (August 8, 2001)
In a move to make Australian scientists deeply envious
Science Foundation Ireland announced
significant measures to stem the country's brain drain and to put substantial
resources behind its rhetoric. The following report from Science Now
(Aug. 7) is reprinted in its entirety. The sums given are in US$.
Known for a high-tech buildup that has earned it the nickname Silicon Bog, Ireland has now taken a major step in shoring up the basic research end of its R&D pipeline. Last week, in an effort to stem the country's accelerating brain drain problem, Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the country's nascent grants agency, announced that 10 scientific stars will share $67 million.
Ireland's economy is booming. But while high-tech companies are spreading across the Irish landscape and fueling a 7.5% average rise in annual gross domestic product over the past 5 years, that prosperity hasn't extended to academia. "Ireland has not been seen as a location to carry out world-class research in the past, and traditionally the best of Irish researchers went overseas to complete their doctorates," says SFI spokesperson Martin Hynes. Even worse, few returned. Attracted by higher salaries and better grant support, many talented scientists set up shop elsewhere in Europe or in the United States.
SFI would like to counter this trend. The government set up the foundation in July 2000, handing it $600 million to spend on peer-reviewed research over the next 5 years. Now SFI's first move is to bankroll 10 world-class labs to beef up basic research connected to biotechnology or information technology--areas deemed vital to the country's economic development.
The so-called SFI Principal Investigators, selected by international panels, each will get about $6 million over 5 years, including unpublicized premium salaries said to be more in line with industry than academia. The SFI has placed no restrictions on how the scientists spend their money, although foundation officials expect the researchers to use the funds to recruit top-notch team members, refurbish aging labs, and purchase equipment.
"The winning candidates are key people in their fields," says biochemist Brian Heap, foreign secretary of the U.K.'s Royal Society, which last year launched a similar initiative to retain top scientific talent. "In terms of brain gain," he says, "Ireland will benefit substantially."
Now, anyone left with an Irish joke he
feels obliged to utter? If so, take a careful look at what
Backing
Australia's Ability has offered.
Scientists to Meet with
Parliamentarians in a Fortnight. (August 7, 2001)
The annual event staged by the Federation of Australian
Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS)
"Science Meets Parliament" day is scheduled this year for Wednesday August 22nd.
Tuesday the 21st will be a briefing day with a
projected multifaceted program.
It is worthwhile reading through the two year old report on
SmP for 1999. The
then President, Sue Serjeantson, wrote,
The steady flight of Australian scientists and technologists to better-funded, better-resourced and better paid positions overseas is stark evidence that all is not well in Australian science. Investment in science and technology should be top national priority, and FASTS wanted to take this issue up directly with Australia's 224 national Parliamentary representatives.
How effective that initiative and the one following on November 1, 2000 has been can be judged perhaps by two observations passed by the Group of Eight and the National Tertiary Education Union. In its media release of April 11th this year the Go8 pointed out:
Following the release of the Innovation Action Plan (IAP) by the Prime Minister the Go8 calculated the impact of the IAP proposals for funding R&D on Australia's projected performance.
In his address to the National Press Club in Canberra today, the Chair of the Group of Eight, Professor Gavin Brown, said: "The recent innovation commitment was a step in the right direction and I strongly welcome John Howard's personal involvement. An enormous amount remains to be done.
"Somebody must have the courage to point these things out. A huge investment in R&D such as we proposed in December would simply bring us back to the OECD average of R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP. That average is over 2% but Australia has fallen from 1.7% in 1996 to 1.4% today".
And a month prior in a submission made to the Federal Government before the publication of the 2001-02 Budget and a month following the release by Prime Minister Howard of the Government's Innovation Action Plan.
...the policy reversal by the Prime Minister in the area of research and development is insufficient to rectify the damage done during his tenure. The scale of the package required to restore the viability of an accessible and quality tertiary education sector far exceeds the commitments made in Backing Australia's Ability. In contrast to the recent realisation of the need to publicly invest in research and development, the Howard Government has put in place policies which have directly reduced access and quality. Worse still, it has chosen to do nothing to rectify the problems despite growing evidence of the damage which it has done.
The budget papers altered nothing, and the fact of the matter is that the occasional cries of anguish by what are essentially voluntary organisations and occasional efforts have sprayed onto an impervious government. Harry Robinson in his July 20th Editorial outlined just how one effective lobby operates. Perhaps now is the time for FASTS and its 60,000 members to develop a coherent plan to professionally and effectively lobby our parliamentarians. A voluntary day a year appears not to be quite enough.
Australia, the Internet and a Radical Scheme to Bring Education and Skills Training to Developing Countries
(August 6, 2001)
Late last week Foreign Minister Alexander Downer announced
together with the President of the World Bank, Australian expatriate James
Wolfensohn, what represents Australia's most ambitious foreign aid
initiative for decades. At
a cost of a minimum of $200 million over five years, the "Downer-Wolfensohn
Plan" calls for tens of thousands of teachers, students and officials in
developing countries to be given training in specific skills over the Net,
becoming "virtual students" in Australian universities without leaving home, and
studying school programs devised for the World Wide Web in Australia.
"What we're doing today," Mr. Downer said, "is planting a
seed from which a great gum tree will grow.
There will be an enormous range of
ideas and proposals that emerge from this seed. It's going to become the
fundamental point of our aid program. The scope is limitless." The Foreign
Minister went on to say that initially the scheme will focus on setting up
information and communications technology infrastructure outside the main cities
of about a dozen developing countries, ranging from the South Pacific to Africa,
South Asia and South-East Asia, and training their future teachers in these
skills so they can then teach their students.
As the Downer-Wolfensohn Plan is put into place, what
Australia provides will become increasingly important, the technology, like
cricket umpires, works best when it's unobtrusive. Therefore, if the education
provided is top class, we look and will be so; if it's mediocre, we'll be judged
to be second-rate. One thing's sure, it's a big ask and the world will be
watching.
V-C of University of Melbourne Tells
it Like it is. (August 1, 2001)
A week after Professor Ian Chubb, representing the Australian
Vice-Chancellors Committee, warned the
Senate
inquiry looking into the adequacy of Australian universities to do their job,
that the universities were in crisis, Professor Alan Gilbert, V-C of the
University of Melbourne, told an Australia Institute conference debating
The Idea of a University: Enterprise or Academy? that "The best
universities in Australia are not among the world's top 75 universities and
probably not among the top 100. Their capacity to invest in world-class
research
and teaching infrastructure cannot at present match that of the top 100
universities in the United States and lags well behind that of the best East
Asian and European universities."
Professor Gilbert's solution, by no means universally
accepted by his fellow Vice-Chancellors, is to commercialise the University of
Melbourne in order to transform it into the "intellectual powerhouse" of
Australia. "What we need to do," Professor Gilbert added," is [to] defend the
essential integrity of the university and not be hung up on one funding model or
another. The price of being a university with high levels of integrity,
standards and research is not going to be [external] influence[s], it is eternal
vigilance about institutional autonomy and adherence to standards."
Unfortunately, as in all such matters, the devil is in the
detail. Australian V-Cs may look longingly at the best of US universities and
note that among the best the private institutions predominate, but the fact of
the matter is:
1. they have sizeable endowments,
2. the best of the public universities also have considerable endowments,
3. the US Federal
government makes, by Australian standards, huge
sums available for R&D with few strings attached, e.g. NIH and NSF grants.
Even the best endowed would not hold the ranking they do without that
injection of government funding. And as to their "private" wealth, the
table
of the top 50 endowments tells its own story. In the 1998-99 fiscal
year Harvard's endowment was nearly A$29 billion dollars, Stanford over A$12
billion, and the public University of California (Berkeley), A$3.7
billion. When discussing the commercialising of Australian universities, the
leverage of those endowments plays a very significant role. In addition the
dilemma of accepting what Professor Cubb refers to as "impatient" commercial
funds has exercised and continues to exercise the administrators of both
American and British universities as witness the number of articles and
editorials in both Science and Nature on the subject. In a
phrase there is no easy and certainly not a glib solution. Whether or not the
situation can arise whereby the best of Australian universities are able to
accrue sufficient endowment to give them sufficient independence to call the
shots remains to be seen. A case could be made for the establishment of
endowment funding for the best of our universities, perhaps in a manner similar
to the Medicare Levy Surcharge. But without a marked increase in ARC and NH&MRC
grants for university research and considerably beyond the package delineated in
Backing Australia's Ability we better content ourselves with being world
swimming, cricket and rugby champions.