Web Only: Weaned, via Whitaker
For Alan Schneyer, everything changed in June, 2006. The scientist was running a lab in the reproductive endocrinology department at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, and had recently logged some interesting results from his knockout mice. The results suggested a protein with a suspected reproductive function could also have a significant effect on glucose metabolism - and, perhaps, diabetes.
However, one morning when he arrived at work and went online, he found that, to his surprise, the grant application he had submitted to explore this hypothesis had been returned, without review. For many scientists, this news would be discouraging. But for Schneyer, who was funded largely on soft money, it was much worse. It meant he had to close his lab.
The process was already slowly underway. One of Schneyer's technicians had decided to go back to school, ...
