An encouraging report in the NY Times described a new
collaborative effort involving several major pharmaceutical companies. The
project, called TransCelerate, is intended to make clinical trials more
efficient. It would include attempts to develop standard protocols for trials
and an internet portal for sharing information. In essence, this is a first step
in bringing clinical trials out from behind the walls of corporate secrecy and
into the pre-competitive space. This is a welcome development (if it actually works).
This blog will deal with the social, economic and public policy implications of contemporary science and technology with an emphasis on biomedical aspects.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Friday, September 7, 2012
Planning Career Paths for Ph.D.s
In this week's Editorial in SCIENCE James Austin and Bruce Alberts commented on the value of individual development plans (IDPs) for postdoctoral career development. The dearth of meaningful opportunities for Ph.D. career development has been a concern of mine for a long time. Thus I was prompted to post the following comment on their editorial. These sentiments hark back to an essay I wrote about two years ago that was my first post on this blog.
Dear Drs. Austin and Alberts,
IDPs are a nice tool for career development. However, the
key obstacle for most young Ph.D.s is the lack of meaningful jobs. Ph.D. and postdoctoral training
emphasize the development of sophisticated research skills. Yet as you point
out “today, most graduates end up working outside academia, not only in
industry but also in careers such as science policy, communications, knowledge
brokering, and patent law“. Thus even if there are jobs to be had (a big if in
today’s economy) they are in fields that may require some knowledge of science,
but do not require the focus on research that is the key element of Ph.D.
training. The accompanying article
in this week’s issue of SCIENCE on East Asia's
"Reverse Brain Drain" further emphasizes the desperation of many
young scientists in the US and Europe who may have to pull up roots to look for
jobs in Asia. The ultimate solution is not IDPs, but rather scientific birth
control to reduce the number while increasing the quality of science Ph.D.s and
postdoctorals. For a fuller discussion see- “Why are there still too many
graduate students?” at
http://scienceforthefuture.blogspot.com/.
http://scienceforthefuture.blogspot.com/.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Nano-hype
A recent News item in NATURE correctly deplored recent violent attacks on nanotechnologists in Mexico and elsewhere. While there is no justification for violence, one of the readers (HT) sagely commented that public backlash against nanotechnology might derive in part from the tendency of scientists in the nano field to overstate the breakthrough nature of their work thus inspiring public fears and concerns. Sadly we have observed the same tendency in our dealings with some in the nanotechnology community and have written about the limitations of nanotech, particularly in the context of nanomedicine.
http://spp.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/1/99.full?sid=f5066aad-fd4e-4df4-821f-f4ed4642b434
The correction for any impending public backlash against nanotech is to present a sober, realistic picture of the field to the public, to the press, and to funding agencies. No more Nano-hype!
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7413/full/488557b.html
http://spp.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/1/99.full?sid=f5066aad-fd4e-4df4-821f-f4ed4642b434
The correction for any impending public backlash against nanotech is to present a sober, realistic picture of the field to the public, to the press, and to funding agencies. No more Nano-hype!
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7413/full/488557b.html
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