NIH Eyes Unprecedented Support Of Research In Soviet Laboratory

What happens when an eminent Soviet scientist, battling for reforms in his own country, must confront U.S. peer review? WASHINGTON -- The wave of perestroika in Soviet science has crossed the Atlantic and is lapping up on the shores of the Potomac. And one of the first landmarks it has encountered is the process of peer review. Two years ago biologist Valery Soyfer was waiting to emigrate to the United States after enduring nearly a decade of isolation for his human rights activities. At the same time, molecular biologist Maxim Frank-Kamenetskii was being pressured to tone down his criticism of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and his calls for major reforms. But the world has changed a lot since then (The Scientist, Feb. 19, 1990, page 1). Today these two researchers, one finally in the U.S. and the other still in the Soviet Union, are awaiting word from the National Institutes of Health on whether it will fund work on the characteristics of the poorly understood phenomenon of triple forms of the DNA molecule. If their request for support is approved next month, it will mark the first time that the nation's leading biomedical research facility has funded truly collaborative research between investigators from the U.S. and the Soviet Union who lack a track record of NIH support. "To my knowledge we have never made a grant directly to a scientist from the Soviet Union," says James Cassatt, a grants administrator in the biophysics section of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, which is reviewing the joint proposal. "And the reason is that we've simply never gotten such a request before." Gray Handley, who coordinates international liaisons at NIH's Fogarty International Center in Bethesda, Md., says figures for the past three years show that no Soviet scientists are receiving funds under a domestic grant to a U.S. scientist. "It would be quite a remarkable event" if the Soyfer-Frank-Kamenetskii proposal were to be funded, he says. The proposal poses a sticky problem for NIH, which openly admits that it has a bias toward funding U.S. scientists. "It would have to be for a unique research proposal," says Katherine Bick, NIH associate director for extramural research, about the general criteria for supporting a scientist from the Soviet Union or any other country. "They not only have to do very well in peer review, but they have to be in a position of doing something that is very important and cannot be done equally well by an American scientist." Work involving foreign scientists must also be cleared with the State Department, whose officials weigh the foreign policy implications of the proposed collaboration. "We cable the U.S. embassy in that country to ask them if there is any reason not to support such a request," says Handley. "It almost never happens that the State Department raises a problem, but by making our embassy aware of what's going on, we can avoid a potentially embarrassing situation." Although Soyfer, 52, is now a distinguished professor of molecular genetics at Ohio State University, his political notoriety has greatly limited his recent contributions to research. Yet it is clear that Soyfer is the driving force behind this effort to merge U.S. and Soviet scientific talent. As one former Soviet ‚migr‚ scientist, now working for a major U.S. company, notes about Soyfer: "He's more well known as an activist than as a scientist on DNA structure. But he's a unique person, with an extremely dynamic personality. And he's like one of those dolls that, no matter how many times you hit it, it bounces back up." At the same time, Frank-Kamenetskii's work is widely known, and much admired, by his colleagues. "There's only a handful of people in the world doing what he is doing," notes Neville Kallenbach, chairman of the department of chemistry at New York University and a member of an NIH study section in biophysics. "His stuff is definitely first-rate." Soyfer says that the funds under such a grant would be channeled through Ohio State to avoid any obstacles posed by the Soviet system. "We want it to go straight to Maxim's lab, rather than to the bosses in the academy or the fat cats in the party bureaucracy," he says. "We will buy everything that the Moscow lab will need." Frank-Kamenetskii says that the plan is for the two scientists to visit each other's labs frequently, as well as relying on the electronic mail networks and fax lines to share their thoughts. For the Soviet Union, such grass-roots collaboration with individual scientists from the West is one of the desired outcomes of revamping the ponderous, centrally controlled network of research institutions operated by the Soviet Academy. Both Frank-Kamenetskii and Soyfer grew up in that system, training at the prestigious Kurchatov Atomic Energy Institute. Soyfer later became a laboratory chief at the All-Union Institute of Applied Molecular Biology and Genetics in Moscow before losing his position when he joined in protests against the exile of physicist Andrei Sakharov. Frank-Kamenetskii, at age 49, is currently chairman of the department of genome expression at the Academy's Institute of Molecular Genetics in Moscow. Prodded by the political changes unleashed by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet scientific establishment has begun to ease its stranglehold on how science is conducted throughout the country. Those changes have included mandatory retirement at age 65 for institute directors, a 10-year limit on their terms of office, and an infusion of younger blood into the academy. Last year, the academy said it would allot 30 percent of its funds to competitive grant proposals from rank-and-file scientists, based on a newly created system of peer review. But that system so far is not working like the one in the U.S. In fact, according to Frank-Kamenetskii, it is so flawed that the entire academy structure must be abolished to preserve Soviet science. In February, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in New Orleans, Frank-Kamenetskii offered a riveting personal account of scientific perestroika. "It's just a trick," he said, speaking first as a panelist in a symposium on scientific freedom in the Soviet Union and later in an interview from Soyfer's lab in Columbus. "All those changes have really accomplished nothing. I don't know any scientist who has lost his job because of a termination of funding, but I know many talented scientists who are unable to continue with their work because of a lack of funding, or who have left their jobs and emigrated because of the difficulties they faced." One lesson that the Soviet science establishment is being forced to learn quickly is how to handle public dissent among its members. That was demonstrated by the actions during the AAAS meeting of Academician Yuri Gulyaev, director of the Soviet Academy's Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics. At the session on perestroika, and again at another session on the possible computerization of Soviet society, Gulyaev requested permission to speak to the audience. At the one session he gave way to Pavel Bunich, a leading economic adviser to Gorbachev. In the other session he introduced A.K. Alkanazan, director of the academy's Institute of Program Systems. Although all three men support the major reforms being proposed by Gorbachev, it appeared as if Gulyaev was worried that his audience might be getting a skewed picture of progress in the Soviet Union because of the harsh criticism being offered by Frank-Kamenetskii and other panelists. In any event, it was clear from the sometimes heated exchanges that everything relating to Soviet science was fair game, even at a public discussion before an audience of U.S. scientists. --J.M. With regard to the new system of peer review, Frank-Kamenetskii says that he was given a dozen proposals last fall to evaluate, "and I did it, gladly. But then they never told me their decisions, and I learned from other people that they didn't fund some of the proposals I ranked very high, and others that I ranked very low - they were very bad science, to be honest - received a lot of money. "It was clear that they used other criteria," he continued. "There's an attempt by some people to distribute money to scientists that they like. And the people making these decisions are very powerful figures in Soviet science." The experience has left Frank-Kamenetskii with a feeling of disgust toward his country's ability to support high-quality science. "It was the first time and the last time for me," he says about being a reviewer. "I will never do it again. It is very easy to discredit the system - once scientists find out that their advice is ignored, they won't participate anymore." It has also led him to doubt that gradual change is possible. "Peer review in the Soviet Union cannot work under the present system because our science is in such bad shape," he continues. "In principle it's okay, but in practice it's contaminated with all sorts of politics." Other panel members agree with his view that change is needed, but they think that it's very unlikely to be sudden and dramatic. "The paternalistic attitudes that permeate the Soviet Union are likely to be enduring [within the academy institutes] even if the director is younger and more liberal," says Gershon Sher, a senior administrator for international programs at the National Science Foundation who closely follows events in the Soviet Union. "In fact, he may be even more powerful," because of the increased decentralization of the system." Adds American University political scientist Linda Lobrano, another panelist, "Many of the institutes still operate under the old, authoritarian system. In fact, there is a chance that the old bosses will simply be replaced by new bosses." But Lorano cautions against overreacting to Frank-Kamenet-skii's dire forecast for Soviet peer review. "The whole system is in transition," says Lobrano. "The definition of one's peers is changing. Nobody knows who the reviewers will be until the new relationships have been established. As you change science, you will change the cast of characters. And that includes their views on what defines a good proposal." Loren Graham, a Harvard professor of the history of science, says that both perspectives are valuable. "We know what the reforms are on paper, and that's all Lobrano and I can go on. But Frank-Kamenetskii sees the situation first-hand, and that's valuable, too." As for the fate of peer review itself, Graham sides with Lobrano's view that gradual change is the more likely scenario. "Peer review is both a system and a culture," he says. "Even if they've learned some of the mechanics, they're a long way from getting the culture right yet." Part of that culture may have rubbed off on a Soviet delegation of science administrators who recently received a week of training at NSF on the rudiments of peer review. "It's the same training that we offer new program officers," says Sher. "Its purpose was to acquaint them with how we operate our merit review system to learn how they might adapt it to their needs." The spirit of glasnost - and the transformation of Soviet science - has already spawned a new genre of black humor. "It's 1995 in a Siberian labor camp," Graham says in recounting one joke. "The prison guard is calling the roll, and the names he's reading are those of all the leading scientists now active in pushing for greater reforms. But nobody answers when their name is read. `Why are you so silent?' the guard asks. `It's too late now. If you wanted to keep quiet you should have done so five years ago.' "

NIH Eyes Unprecedented Support Of Research In Soviet Laboratory

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of