I would like to address my attention to the Cancer Program as seen by the basic science community, not so much in terms of dollars and cents but of the objectives; i.e., where and how the basic sciences should fit and what role they have been asked to play in the Program. I am not going to deal with specifics of appropriation from the NCI budget, nor with the scientific basis of cancer control....

The development of robust science policy depends on use of the best available data, rigorous analysis, and inclusion of a wide range of input. While director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), I took advantage of available data and emerging tools to analyze training time distribution by new NIGMS grantees, the distribution of the number of publications as a function ...

Kartik B. Ariyur, Purdue University [email protected] Introduction From a biological perspective, all human action is aimed at self-preservation. While there may be differences in the proximate goals of individuals, all their actions (whether of mice or men) can be explained by the pursuit of predictability in the conditions of their existence. The proximate goals appear to be different simply...

To combat climate change, many economists and policymakers advocate price-based approaches, such as greenhouse gas emissions taxes and emissions trading programs, or technology-based approaches, such as R&D subsidies and public-private R&D partnerships. In the end, however, both types of approaches rely on consumers and firms to make different choices: they will need to change what they do and ...

I recently participated in a daring experiment—I was a member of the selection committee for the European Commission’s functional genomics projects under the 5th Framework Programme. And my experience of this experiment was quite surprising for two reasons. The first was that the EC has obviously listened to scientists’ opinions and the second was that they have shown the ability to change the ...

Natural and man-made sources of ionizing radiation have made and continue to make invaluable contributions to society and to individuals. Radiation is part of nature. Natural sources of radiation including radon gas from the earth’s crust and cosmic radiation from outer space account for 80-90 percent of the radiation to which the public is exposed every year. Man-made sources provide hundreds ...