Early-Career Scientists Advocate for Funding on Capitol Hill

Congress recently approved a $3 billion increase for the NIH for fiscal year 2018, the third—and largest—increase in as many years. For many young scientists, this is an encouraging trend, and one they hope will continue as they decide whether to pursue a career in research.

“Funding can't vary widely year to year—it needs to be not only sustainable, but predictable,” explains Allison Betof Warner, MD, PhD, a medical oncology fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY. She brought this message to Capitol Hill during the American Association for Cancer Research's Early-Career Hill Day, where she and 13 other early-career researchers met with members of Congress and their staffs.

George Weiner, MD, director of the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Iowa in Iowa City and the early-career group's mentor, adds that in the past, a lack of consistent NIH funding has been detrimental to the advancement of science. For example, the doubling of the NIH budget between 1998 and 2003 led to the creation of new research teams and programs, many of which could not be sustained during “a very dry period where funding was cut and the pay lines dropped precipitously.”

Weiner thinks the message is especially powerful coming from early-career scientists, who often have the most at stake. “It's fine for older folks to go up to the Hill, but when people in Congress see young scientists with great ideas and a bright future ahead of them, it's even more impressive,” he says. “The best ideas very often come from young scientists, and we've got to figure out a way to do a better job of supporting them.”

Kimiko Krieger, a 4th-year PhD candidate at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha who also participated in the event, points out that the average age at which scientists with doctoral degrees receive their first NIH R01 independent research grant has increased from 36 in 1980 to 43 in 2016, and a similar increase has occurred for scientists with medical degrees. “That's really drastic,” she says.

Betof Warner is currently grappling with this issue. “I'm at the point where I had to think long and hard about whether or not science would be a sustainable career for me, and something I could continue to do, stably fund a lab with students and technicians relying on my funding, and live the life that I had envisioned for myself,” she explains, adding that she, like many of her colleagues, is frequently recruited to industry, where money is more stable.

Industry, though, is less likely to pursue certain aspects of basic and clinical research, and community-based research on prevention and detection, Weiner says. For example, laboratory research on human papillomavirus (HPV) supported by the NCI led to the HPV vaccine.

Although stable, long-term federal funding is the goal, Weiner, Betof Warner, and Krieger are enthusiastic about the $3 billion NIH budget increase.

“This was definitely a big win for everyone,” Krieger says, adding that she was especially pleased that five out of the seven legislators whose staffs she met with voted in favor of the increase.

“It's great to have the money, but it's also pretty gratifying to be one of the issues that everybody agrees on,” Weiner adds. “When it comes to young scientists deciding what to do with their careers, hopefully knowing that the nation believes in them will influence some of them to remain in the field.” –Catherine Caruso