Headline, March 28 2025/ ''' SCIENCE WORLD SCREENS '''

''' SCIENCE WORLD

 SCREENS '''

THE WORLD SCIENCE NEEDS TO TAKE A LOT MORE RISKS : In the early 1990s - Katalin Kariko was obsessed with an idea most of her fellow scientists dismissed :

Could messenger RNA, or mRNA, a genetic molecule that helps cells synthesize proteins, be harnessed to create different kinds of treatments?

SHE BELIEVED that if used correctly, mRNA could instruct cells to produce their own medicines,  transforming how we fight diseases. But grant after grant was denied.

Reviewers at the American ' National Institutes of Health were skeptical of her work. Her career stalled. She was demoted. YET she kept going, through sheer grit with some timely lifelines from colleagues.

Her research changed the course of the COVID 19 pandemic - and she won a Nobel Prize - but only after being delayed by a decade because the system was so risk averse.

SCIENTISTS have been complaining for decades that the way we fund science is flawed. Researchers are too often waiting up to 20 months for grant funding, an eternity in fast-moving fields like genetic engineering.

Project leaders report that nearly 50-percent of their time is spent doing paperwork and other administrative tasks. The average age at which scientists receive their first traditional N.I.H. grant is 43.

Last month, thousands of scientists marched on Washington to defend science from Elon Musk's so called Department of Government Efficiency, as staff reductions at the N.I.H. and National Science Foundation and steep cuts to biomedical funding roiled the scientific establishment.

But it's difficult to fully defend the status quo, which made it hard for a scientist like Dr. Kariko to pursue her visionary work.

At the same time, I fear this administration's current approach will make things worse. The N.I.H.'s new policy to cap what it pays universities to cover indirect costs on grants [ for things like utility bills, research facilities and administrative staff ] to 15 percent will amount to a $4 billion cut in biomedical fundings per year if it holds up in court.

It could force universities to lay off researchers and shutter labs. Some universities have already frozen hiring, and important long-term studies have been cut short.

Right now, DOGE is treating efficiency as a cost-cutting exercise. But science isn't a procurement process ; it's an investment portfolio.

If a venture capital firm measured efficiency purely by how little money it spent, rather than by the returns it generated, it won't last long.

We invest in scientific research because we want returns - in knowledge, lifesaving drugs, in technological capability. Generating those returns sometimes requires spending money on things that don't fit neatly into a single grant proposal.

While it's true that indirect costs serve an important function, they can also create perverse incentives.  When the government promises to cover expenses, expenses tend to go up.

But instead of slashing funding indiscriminately, we should be thinking about how to get the most out of every dollar we invest in science.

That means streamlining research regulations.

This Master Publishing on Science, Needs and Opinion, continues. The World Students Society thanks Caleb Watney, a co-chief executive of the Institute of Progress.

With respectful dedication to Leaders, Scientists, Researchers, the Global Founder Framers of !WOW! - the eternal and exclusive ownership of every student in the world, and then Students, Professors and Teachers.

See you all prepare for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society - for every subject in the world - wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter X !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - The Voice Of The Voiceless