Letter: Senior Scientists

The Commentary "Senior Scientists Could Play A Key Role In Resolving Big Problems In Peer Review," by David Kritchevsky, and the article "Senior Scientists Face Funding Hurdles, Mandatory Retirement," by Julia King (The Scientist, Jan. 22, 1990, pages 12 and 19), deal with the very important problem of the forced retirement of senior scientists. This waste of human resources first impressed me in 1965. I was then building director of the McIntyre Medical Sciences Building at McGill University. During the planning of the facility, a floor was set aside for the McGill-Montreal General Research Institute, a very active group led by the world-renowned biochemist J.H. Quastel. The institute was the most vigorous biomedical research group at McGill and the most productive center for training graduate students and postdocs. I worked closely with Quastel, his staff, and the building architects to design and build a research facility to their specifications. These included a suitable director's office for Quastel, to replace the cramped and shabby office he occupied in a renovated old mansion on the outskirts of the McGill campus. Alas, when the building was ready for occupancy in July 1965, Quastel reached his 65th birthday and was arbitrarily replaced as director of the McGill-MGH Research Institute. On moving day his successor sat in the big office, while Quastel was relegated to a small room - too small for his many years' accumulation of books, journals, records, and mementos. I shall never forget the forlorn look on his face as he sat in the small room amid the packing cases that held his belongings. Fortunately, the University of British Columbia benefited from McGill's arbitrary move by offering Quastel research space in the Department of Psychiatry's research facility. Quastel and his group produced world class research in neurochemistry for another 20 years! In the 1960s I served on an NIH study section composed largely of senior scientists, with only a few relative youngsters like me. I was very impressed by the breadth and depth of knowledge of the veterans, and by the fair and thorough review they gave to the applications. In the late 1970s, I was appointed to another NIH study section, and the composition was different. Pressure on NIH to abolish the perception of an old boys' club atmosphere led to the appointment of a number of young investigators to the study section. They were in the midst of establishing their reputation. In contrast to my earlier study section, the reviews were superficial and scornful of the work of anyone over 40. "And another chairman bites the dust," was a remark made after the dismissal of an application by a senior scientist. My young colleagues acted as if science began when they entered graduate school. Any work more than 10 years old was not worth looking at. If a gene wasn't being cloned by the scientist being reviewed, the application was worthless. Few applications by my contemporaries were funded. The late Albert Lehninger was not only a great scientist, but also a wonderful teacher. His texts were worldwide standards for many years. After his retirement from the chair, his successor wisely used his talents to take over much of the teaching, freeing up time for the younger members of the department to pursue their research. For every Quastel or Lehninger there are tens of senior scientists, suddenly bumped from their positions by age, bereft of their laboratories and spacious offices, forced into retirement by boredom. Many are still recognized internationally for their achievements, yet are shunted to the sidelines in their own institutions. They watch helplessly as their young replacements bumble through teaching and administrative errors committed through inexperience. Society wastes valuable human resources by neglecting to use the services of these experienced scientists. Instead of side-tracking young faculty into counterproductive admin- istrative chores, older faculty, who have lived through many academic crises, can be put to effective use on these committees. They also have the time and patience to provide beginning students with solid foundations and historical perspectives of their disciplines, freeing up younger faculty for the more specialized courses that they prefer to teach anyway. MURRAY SAFFRAN Department of Biochemistry Medical College of Ohio Toledo

Letter: Senior Scientists

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