Biotech Centers Battle Industry To Keep Talent

"In terms of being a constituency group, the scientific community may not even exist as an organized body." That comment from neuroscientist Donald Stein of Clark University could also serve as the epitaph for the Washington. D.C based National Coalition for Science and Technology. Its demise last month marked the end of a six year effort to build a grassroots organization to lobby for more federal support for all of science. NCST never enrolled more than a few hunderd individual members and its annual budget, bolstered by corporate contirbutions hovered around $20,000. Its size became a catch-22 the mainstream scientific community refused to join in until NCST chalked up successes that could'nt be achieved without the help of many more members. "We never had adequate resources to do continuous membership building," said Stein, NCST president who, along with other former congressional science fellows, started the organization after hearing politicians complain that scientists were not an effective lobbying force. Stein, who this summer becomes dean of the graduate school and associate provost for research at the Newark campus of Rutgers University said he is disappointed but not bitter about the scientific community's lack of support for NCST. But he is worried that NCST'S failure may make it harder for other organizations to tackle such growing problems as inadequate university facilities, insufficient support for training the next generation of scientists and engineers, and pressure to reduce research budgets. "It may be harder to convince people to commit the type of sweat equity [NCST relied heavily on volunteers] needed to have an impact in Washington," Stein observed. "But I hope that it's done." The centers, built on cooperation among academe, government and industry, are an attempt to cross the threshold from basic research to widespread commercialization in a field that so far has generated few products. But they must offer salaries and facilities that compete with those at well-funded corporate research labs. Ralph Quatrano recently left his position as a director at the Center for Gene Research and Biotechnology at Oregon State University in Corvallis to become research manager for plant science at Du Pont's central research department in Wilmington, Del. Quatrano said he was attracted by the company's ability to "bring the right mix of individuals together, an interactive group of quality scientists with common interests, goals and drive," as well as by its commitment to basic research. "Any biotechnology center needs this long-term commitment," he said, "but it's not really assured with the present funding that exists at the national and state level." George Pearson, who succeeded Quatrano as director of the Oregon center, said two other center faculty members have since left to join biotech companies, and that other scientists have established close ties with such firms. "We probably look a little wistfully at the kind of resources they have at a company like Genentech," he said. At the same time, Pearson said, a center such as Oregon's "can come close" to matching corporate investment if it "bands together to go after equipment that individual researchers just couldn't afford to buy on their own." Participants at the first national meeting of biotechnology center directors and government officials, held last fall at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., heard a similar message. "Maintaining an ever-increasing level of funding is probably the major challenge facing every biotechnology center," said Thomas Wagner, director of the Edison Animal Biotechnology Center in Athens, Ohio. The average center, just two years old, draws more than half of its $2.1 million annual budget from government sources, according to Mark Dibner, director of the biotechnology information program at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center in Research Triangle. "I think the money that's coming out of the federal government may be one of the most exciting things [happening in science] because it will bring quality scientists together," said Fred Hardy, president of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University. "If a center has attracted quality scientists in a unique situation, not one that duplicates current efforts by industry or academia, then I think industry can be excited about coming into that partnership." For scientists, however money is not the sole factor in assessing a center's long-term health. "The most difficult problem is not with industry or government, but with the academic units that a biotechnology center has to deal with," said Paul Massocchi, deputy director of the Maryland Biotechnology Institute, a joint venture by the National Bureau of Standards, the University of Maryland and the county government. "We're beginning to lose people now to private companies and other institutions," admitted John Gerber, director of the Biotechnology Research & Development Institute at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "We cannot afford to dilute the critical mass of those people that we've worked so hard to bring together. On the other hand, we have to do something to move these discoveries into useful-products." Gerber said the university has resolved the, problem by creating two distinct centers: an on-campus Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research, and the Biotechnology Institute for Research & Development, located in the university-sponsored research park. "Rather than do all that with the same people, we've chosen to be closely related," he said. Those who attended the NIH meeting discussed the importance of programs to convince the public of the long-term benefits and low safety risks involved in biotechnology, recognizing that continued state funding depends on wide spread public acceptance. Dibner said the North Carolina Biotechnology Center-the first state center when it was founded in 1981-has stressed the economic benefits that accrue to the state from biotechnology. But some scientists and academics question whether economic development and good science are compatible in the long run. "Are they interested in the science," asked Cornell's Hardy about state economic development officials, "or are they in it because they think it offers an opportunity to cure a local or regional economic or social problem? I'm not sure that you can use research to solve local social and economic problems. "If universities make a strong alliance with [biotechnology centers that are funded to promote economic development] and it turns out five years from now that economic development can be better achieved by something where does that leave us?" Hardy wondered. "If the regulatory issue turns out to be very difficult what are the economic development people going to do? Are they going to wait? All of them are looking for pretty quick fixes." Herbst is a freelance writer inWashington, D.C.

Biotech Centers Battle Industry To Keep Talent

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