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Translational Research for a New Administration: What Sort of Change to Believe in?
... Interestingly, and perhaps because the results are easier to measure, scientists have unabashedly accepted the value of looking for the unexpected or anomaly that may be more interesting than the expected findings. 12 In contrast, whereas most management scholars generally ignore, at best, or scoff, at worst, the notion of serendipity as an ability to cultivate and use to organizational advantage, some management literature has begun to examine the concept. For instance, Brown 13 argues that it could play a role in entrepreneurs' actions. ...
Who, over the age of 20, hasn't experienced a serendipitous event: unexpected information that yields some unintended but potential value later on? Sitting next to a stranger on a plane who becomes a business partner? Stumbling onto an article in a journal or newspaper that helps tackle a nagging problem? Creating a new drug by accident?
Serendipity, defined as the ability to recognize and leverage or create value from unexpected information, appears in all parts of life, and especially in professional fields, including science and technology, politics and economics, education administration, library and information science, career choice and development, and entrepreneurship and management. Interestingly, although scientists have moved from reluctant to open acknowledgement that serendipity is behind many an invention or discovery, few business scholars or managers have systematically studied or applied serendipity in any direct fashion. The topic, though, may be gaining more visibility and attention: a new book on luck, for example, looks at how individuals and organizations have turned good or bad luck into something of value ("return on luck").
... The relation between the pharmaceutical industry and physicians has been the subject of much recent attention. 1 The publication by Annals in November 2008 of the Boehringer-Ingleheim-supported supplement "Unresolved Issues in Parkinson's Disease" is an example of the potential pitfalls of such relationships. The usual practice is for a company or "intermediate" educational business to pay for the privilege of publishing a supplement outside the peer-review process of a prominent journal. ...
This paper tries to unravel the following question: why do we sometimes obtain results that are worse than expected despite having used technologies that are provenly efficacious or effective and having eliminated major groups of causes leading to poor performance? Inductive analysis and synthesis based on nine areas of health service research show that to effectively adopt some health technologies, it is not enough to simply choose an efficacious or effective change strategy. It sometimes becomes necessary to change the behavior of the health workers that will use it, and to modify certain environmental elements. Technology's effectiveness also depends on intervening simultaneously at various levels. Using a mix of evidence-based change (multifaceted) strategies is often mandatory. Improving health service calls for permanent, not sporadic, efforts; for ensuring universal access to information, and for adopting regulations to prevent poor or potentially harmful service delivery. A portion of the service improvements that have been attained have resulted from the use not of isolated change measures, but of combinations of the most effective measures as part of a single integrated intervention. To further reduce the gap between observed and expected effectiveness we should pilot behavior change strategies before adopting some health technologies, and to permanently install in our health system the multifactorial, integrated technology adoption mechanisms that we still lack. Failure to do this will mean being inefficient and pursuing short-term results at the expense of feasible and legitimate medium-term objectives.
An abstract is not available.
The fact is that most of us (then) doing research on poliomyelitis were motivated mainly by curiosity, and for the challenges of the many unsolved problems concerning the interaction of virus and host, rather than by the hope of a practical solution in our lifetime. —David Bodian discussing the reaction of the academic community after an outline for conquest of polio set forth by Thomas Rivers in 1938 had failed to inspire scientists to work collaboratively on a practical, pragmatic approach to a pressing health problem.
From Oshinsky, DM. Polio: an American story. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005
To estimate the level of funding for neuroscience research from federal and industry sources and to examine the therapeutic advances in the neurosciences over the past decade.
We examined financing for neuroscience research over the past decade from the following principal sponsors of biomedical research: the National Institutes of Health, the pharmaceutical industry, large biotechnology firms, and large medical device firms. We also examined US Food and Drug Administration approvals for new molecular entities and medical devices for indications within the neurosciences. Neuroscience was defined to include funding and approvals for neurological and psychiatric conditions.
Total (nominal) industry and government funding for neuroscience research increased from 14.1 billion in 2005 and doubled after adjusting for inflation. In 2005, the pharmaceutical industry and the largest biotechnology and medical device firms accounted for 58% of total funding. The US Food and Drug Administration approved 40 new molecular entities for indications within the neurosciences from 1995 to 2005, with the annual number of approvals remaining relatively stagnant during this period. From 1995 to 2005, the US Food and Drug Administration also approved 1,679 medical devices in the neurosciences for use.
Financing for neuroscience research has increased significantly over the past decade, but new approvals for drugs in the neurosciences have not kept pace with the rapid increase in funding. This lag may represent a natural delay in realizing the return in the investment in scientific research or a decline in the productivity of neuroscience research.
In 1954, John Enders, Thomas Weller, and Frederick Robbins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discovery of the ability of poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissue."5370 This discovery provided for the first time opportunities to produce both inactivated and live polio vaccines. By searching previously sealed Nobel Committee archives, we were able to review the deliberations that led to the award. It appears that Sven Gard, who was Professor of Virus Research at the Karolinska Institute and an adjunct member of the Nobel Committee at the time, played a major role in the events leading to the awarding of the Prize. It appears that Gard persuaded the College of Teachers at the Institute to decide not to follow the recommendation by their Nobel Committee to give the Prize to Vincent du Vigneaud. Another peculiar feature of the 1954 Prize is that Weller and Robbins were included based on only two nominations submitted for the first time that year. In his speech at the Nobel Prize ceremony, Gard mentioned the importance of the discovery for the future production of vaccines, but emphasized the implications of this work for growing many different, medically important viruses. We can only speculate on why later nominations highlighting the contributions of scientists such as Jonas Salk, Hilary Koprowski, and Albert Sabin in the development of poliovirus vaccines have not been recognized by a Nobel Prize.
Financial anatomy of neuroscience research
- Dorsey Er P Vitticore
- Deroulet
Dorsey ER, Vitticore P, DeRoulet J et al. Financial anatomy of neuroscience research. Ann Neurol 2007;60:652-9.
Message From the Editor: Transforma-tive Research
- Johnston
- Sc
- Hauser
- Sl
Johnston SC, Hauser SL. Message From the Editor: Transforma-tive Research. Ann Neurol 2008;63(5):A11-A13.
Sematech: Saving the US Semicon-ductor Industry. College Station: Texas A&M University Press
- Browning Ld
- Shetler
- Jc
Browning LD, Shetler JC. Sematech: Saving the US Semicon-ductor Industry. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000. A nnals of Neurology Vol 64 No 6 December 2008.
Message From the Editor: Transformative Research
- S C Johnston
- S L Hauser
Johnston SC, Hauser SL. Message From the Editor: Transformative Research. Ann Neurol 2008;63(5):A11-A13.
Polio: An American Story
- D M Oshinsky
Oshinsky DM. Polio: An American Story. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.