The University of Maryland yesterday joined a growing chorus of research institutions warning lawmakers that static federal funding for science has slowed biomedical research and threatens the careers of young scientists.
In a briefing at the University of Maryland Medical Center, UM officials told Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski that declining funding for the National Institutes of Health is forcing scientists to shy away from pioneering research.
They noted that younger, research-bound scientists and doctors rely on NIH funding to launch their careers but are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain their first grants.
"We have the talent, we have the will, but we don't have the wallet," said Mikulski, a Democrat, criticizing the drop in federal funding at a news conference after meeting with UM researchers.
She said President Bush's proposed $29.5 billion NIH budget for fiscal 2009 represented a drop in real dollars from the previous year. Senate Democrats sponsored an amendment last week to add $2.1 billion more.
Mikulski requested the UM briefing after officials from Harvard University and other top research institutions lobbied senators last week for more NIH funding. The group presented a report titled A Broken Pipeline? Flat Funding of the NIH Puts a Generation of Science at Risk, to a Senate committee.
NIH grants to young researchers dropped from 29 percent in 1990 to 25 percent in 2007, according to the report. The success rate for first-time applicants was particularly low - only 18 percent of their grants being accepted.
Dr. E. Albert Reece, the dean of UM's School of Medicine, said even established researchers are finding it tough, including one senior schizophrenia specialist at Maryland who recently had a major grant proposal accepted - but for only half his request.
Scientists' difficulty in securing funding is the result of what NIH director, Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, has called a "perfect storm" in research funding.
Hoping to bolster biomedical research, Congress boosted funding from $13.7 billion in 1998 to $27.1 billion in 2003. Universities responded by hiring more scientists and building facilities.
But funding has remained flat since 2003, as President Bush and Congress, faced with a growing deficit and war expenditures, have looked for ways to cut spending.
Dr. Chi V. Dang, vice dean for research at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, estimates that real funding has dropped by 10 percent or 15 percent since 2003, when inflation is taken into account.
"The bottom line is that we have built up the research enterprise, but funding has dropped off," he said. "There is an overwhelming sense of angst among faculty members and young investigators in particular."
To compete for money, he said, scientists are sticking to tried-and-true concepts and not pursuing more novel - but riskier - lines of research. "We need to allow people to be more adventurous," he said, "because that's how most of the breakthroughs are made."
University officials also worry that doctors may be less likely to pursue medical research at all if they decide it's too difficult to find money. "If you're talking about getting research to the bedside, clinicians are the people who are going to do much of it," said Wendy Sanders, Maryland's assistant dean for faculty affairs and professional development.
To cope with the problem, Howard Hughes Medical Institute last week announced it would set aside $300 million to help about 70 promising young researchers establish their own laboratories and launch new projects.
Hoping to compete for the shrinking pool of federal money, UM's School of Medicine has established intensive training programs to teach scientists how to write effective grant proposals.
"We are trying to support our junior faculty," said Sanders, adding that people who have gone through the courses have had a 40 percent success rate in getting grants funded. "It's a way of coping with this very difficult funding situation and trying not to lose our young scientists."
chris.emery@baltsun.com