Salk Institute, Unable To Retain A President, Struggles With Questions Of Leader's Role

Struggles With Questions Of Leader's Role Author: Bruce V. Bigelow The Salk Institute has long been known as a premier center for biomedical research, but lately the San Diego laboratory has acquired a reputation in scientific circles as the home of hungry headhunters. Efforts by the independent, nonprofit laboratory to recruit and retain a new leader over the past seven years have repeatedly misfired. The Salk's fruitless quest hit home again on September 1, when Francis Crick stepped down from the helm after serving just 10 months. Crick assumed the presidency following the abrupt resignation of Brian E. Henderson last October, less than 20 months after Henderson was hired from the Kenneth Norris Jr. Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Southern California. At the time, Henderson said only that he wanted to return to his cancer research at USC. The institute explained Crick's resignation by saying the Nobel laureate had a heart condition and had been advised by his doctors to avoid stress. He is 79, and had undergone angioplasty in an effort to improve the blood flow near his heart. Crick had agreed to serve for a year or two, until an executive search committee could hire a permanent replacement. Yet Henderson was hired only after the institute had twice fumbled recruitment efforts in the previous four years. In each case, the Salk announced it had found a new president-only to have the candidate publicly withdraw in the 11th hour. The latest shuffle has prompted some observers to wonder if there are deeper, underlying problems at Salk that make the president's job particularly difficult or undesirable. Crick, who has resumed his research on the brain at Salk, declines to be interviewed about the situation. But other top officials at the institute insist that the only problem is finding the right kind of person for the job. John Henry Felix, a Honolulu businessman and city councilman who is chairman of the Salk board of trustees, describes the institute's head-hunting effort as a well-grounded search for a well-rounded leader. "We're looking for an individual with not only scientific credentials but administrative experience and expertise, as well as expertise in raising money," Felix says. "And those people aren't all that easy to find." Yet examples of the type of scientific leaders sought by Salk officials underscores just how high they are reaching. AIMING HIGH: Trustee Inder Verma hopes a "top-rated scientist" can be found. Inder Verma, a senior scientist and trustee, emphasizes the importance of recruiting "an absolutely top-rated scientist" by citing the example of National Institutes of Health director Harold Varmus, who won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine 1989. Others suggest Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences. Another name often brought up by Salk officials is Crick's erstwhile partner, James D. Watson, who revitalized the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y. "When you have a scientist at a scientific organization, you are more concerned with how science will be carried out," Verma says. "The general feeling is, since science is the fundamental subject we do here, it would be most beneficial to have a scientist run the institute." But some say the Salk's star search has run amok, and the emphasis on hiring a marquee name has turned the lab's recruiting priorities upside down. Such critics note that it is highly unlikely the institute can recruit a scientific superstar willing to shoulder all the administrative and fund-raising chores that go with the president's job. Part of the problem, according to institute sources, is that a handful of senior scientists now dominate the institute's operations and their influence tends to undermine the president's authority. "It's the same old story," declares a former Salk scientist, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The faculty wants a president, but they don't want a president who has any real power. "What they need more than anything is someone to raise funds because they don't have more than a fig leaf for an endowment," the former scientist comments. "But they seem to be obsessed with getting somebody who is a renowned scientist." Felix disputes such characterizations, saying: "It's very clear in the minds of the board and the faculty that we want a strong leader who will listen and evaluate and make the hard decisions." Funds A Perpetual Problem But with an endowment of only about $25 million, Salk officials acknowledge that fund-raising is a persistent problem. Verma notes that federal funding from NIH and other sources accounts for about 70 percent of the institute's $50 million annual budget. Much of the remaining 30 percent is raised from private foundations, such as the March of Dimes and the American Cancer Society. But, says Verma, "we still have to raise from $4 million to $7 million every year, at least." With federal funding increasingly unsure, that amount may rise. Verma also acknowledges that the necessity of fund-raising became a factor in the institute's failed negotiations in 1991 with Arnold J. Levine, a renowned molecular biologist at Princeton University. "When Arnie found out what the job really involved, and what his responsibilities were, that the job was really 90 percent fund-raising-I think he lost his appetite at that point," Verma recalls. "A lot of people are scared away by the fund-raising," confirms Tony Hunter, a professor of molecular biology in the institute's Molecular Biology and Virology Laboratory. "The fact that there are no internal candidates reflects the fact that none of us want the job," Hunter points out. "We're all here to do science, and if we wanted to do administration, we'd probably leave to join a university, where they have deans who do that sort of thing." But unlike a university, Hunter says, the institute does not have a natural constituency to tap for contributions. "We don't have alumni and we don't have grateful patients," he notes. "It's very difficult to raise funds for pure research." Some observers suggest that the laboratory could find financial security by joining the University of California, San Diego. But the fiercely independent institute has resisted past overtures by the university, and Felix says the subject has not been raised by the board for five years or more. At Cold Spring Harbor, director Bruce Stillman says he can sympathize with the leadership difficulties the Salk Institute has experienced. Stillman adds that he is thankful that Watson, who retired as director in 1994, continues to work on fund-raising as president of the Long Island lab. "It would certainly be difficult for one person to do all of the fund-raising, and to direct the science and the education programs that we have and to run a laboratory," Stillman states. Indeed, fund-raising has been viewed as the Salk Institute's Achilles' heel almost since the lab was founded in 1960 by the March of Dimes and the late Jonas Salk, who became a national hero for his work on a polio vaccine. "Jonas said many times, 'I am not a fund-raiser-I am a visionary,'" Verma recalls. "He said, 'There was no money when the Salk Institute was built. I created it through vision, and when these things have a vision, money will come.'" Jonas Salk had envisioned the institute as a center for culture as well as the healing arts. But it focused purely on biomedical research under the authoritarian reign of the late Frederic de Hoffman, a nuclear physicist who served as institute president from 1970 to 1988. Salk, who died in June, said in an interview last January (B.V. Bigelow, San Diego Union-Tribune, Jan. 18, 1995, page E2) that he remained unconcerned about fund-raising at the institute. But he was closely involved in the design and construction of a new $50 million building, which houses an auditorium and administrative offices and increases lab space by 25 percent. The new building, whose dedication is scheduled for November 10, became one of Crick's chief concerns after he took over, following Henderson's resignation last fall. In a January interview, Crick said the logistics of moving labs into the new building and recruiting new scientists made it "a particularly important time in the life of the Salk Institute." Some researchers say the new building also became the focus of intense turf battles among some senior faculty seeking to expand their laboratory space. These sources attribute the vigorous influence exerted by the senior researchers partly to the void that was created when de Hoffman resigned in 1988. Some staffers lament that if de Hoffman was the institute's Caesar, the pendulum of power now has swung too far toward its Roman senate. "You could make a philosophical argument that this is a more democratic approach, but that's not the way an institute of this sort should be run," says one Salk insider who requests anonymity. "The needs of the institute financially go way beyond the individual needs of the scientists." Felix acknowledges that the role of senior scientists in the institute's operations has grown in recent years. The Salk now has a total of 700 employees, including 50 senior researchers. Seats on the institute's 33-member board were opened to scientists and nonresident fellows in recent years, and Felix maintains that an academic council formed more than seven years ago has strengthened the workings of the institute. "I, for one, find them very productive and constructive," he states. "I welcome their thoughts and contribution to the institute." In any event, Felix emphasizes, the final authority in all matters is the institute's board of trustees. Through years of struggle, Salk officials have clarified the underlying problems involving the president's job, and Crick began moving to address them in his brief tenure. Crick said in the January interview that he deemed the previous quest for a president unrealistic-"That is to say, to find a Nobel laureate who wanted to abandon science and who would do all the other things, including fund-raising." Crick also contends it is clear that the job of president should be divided between two people. He tested the feasibility of the idea by splitting the president's responsibilities with Charles Massey, a longtime trustee and former president of the March of Dimes. Massey, who served as chief executive officer, resigned at the same time Crick stepped down. Nevertheless, the experiment seemed to work, and the board of trustees has instructed the search committee to also hire an executive vice president and chief operating officer. The newly created position will report to the yet-to-be-named president. "After testing the dual relationship with Francis Crick and Charles Massey, we find that this arrangement works very effectively," comments board chairman Felix. "We also are searching for an executive vice president for development to maximize our fund-raising capabilities." As for recruiting an internationally renowned scientist, Felix says, the executive headhunters have "thrown out a broader net this time," and he even suggests a candidate model of his own. "There's plenty of examples where ordinary people rise to the occasion and perform extraordinary feats," Felix points out. "Look at Harry S Truman." Bruce V. Bigelow is a reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune and a freelance science writer. (The Scientist, Vol:9, #21, pg.1, 9 , October 30, 1995) (Copyright © The Scientist, Inc.)

Salk Institute, Unable To Retain A President, Struggles With Questions Of Leader's Role

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of