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Recent New York Times’s articles focused on Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center have drawn attention to conflicts when academic biomedical researchers consult for pharmaceutical companies. Such conflicts are only one symptom of an expanding “money culture,” where revenue is valued more than research and basic science is diminished. This will delay the advances needed for future clinical breakthroughs.
Academic biomedical research occurs largely at university medical schools and a few free-standing centers. Research spans clinical studies to laboratory investigations of fundamental disease processes. Clinical researchers deliver patient care at organizationally separate academic hospitals.
These institutes face significant financial pressures. They do not receive a university operating budget and must pay their own way. Some even pay a form of “rent” to parent universities. Tenure is infrequent and rarely covers a full salary. From deans to junior faculty, in times flush or lean, there is funding anxiety.
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