A recent controversy at MIT brings to light the need for scientists to renew their commitment to cooperation.

Jonathan King

The efforts of Susumu Tonegawa, the director of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, to discourage a young colleague from joining the MIT faculty is a serious violation of standards for biomedical research. Such behavior damages the academic environment at MIT, undermines scientific progress in neuroscience, and propagates a damaging myth about the character of professional science. The behavior was particularly egregious given that the target was a young female scientist, particularly vulnerable to the influence of a senior male colleague. However, while individuals are certainly accountable for their actions, aspects of modern biomedical research also influence such behavior.

Institutional and financial forces play a major role. A factor in the Tonegawa case is the unusual organization of neuroscience efforts at MIT, which are split into three units: the Picower Institute, the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. This situation arose from the influence of the Picower and McGovern families, which donated a total of $400 million to establish the two institutes. Each institute is governed by its own board of directors, which includes members of the donor family. Separate institutional appointments, which make investigators beholden to external sponsors such as a corporation, a wealthy family, or a political agenda, can undermine the underlying infrastructure of biomedical science that supports the cooperation, communication, and education needed for productive research. Indeed, e-mails from Tonegawa (published recently by the Boston Globe) to the young scientist, who was being recruited to the McGovern Institute, suggested a rivalry between the two institutes.

The spirit of cooperation is fostered by the grouping of academic scientists within departments. Through their departments, scientists work toward the same goals and share responsibilities of research, teaching, mentoring, and recruiting young scientists. Dividing investigators from the same field among separately financed entities outside academic departments can encourage excessive competition and can even drive away promising young scientists. We cannot forget that biomedical scientists are public servants, funded largely by public money to fulfill the mission of advancing scientific knowledge, transmitting that knowledge to students and junior scientists, and training them to generate future knowledge.

I was sharply reminded of this reality earlier this month as I sat in a research conference in my own area, protein folding in the cell. As in hundreds of other such conferences, participants ranging from graduate students to senior faculty were doing their utmost to communicate their most recent results and insights. Those who weren’t scheduled to speak put up posters crammed with experimental detail and interpretation. During meals, the participants engaged in passionate discussion and worked out plans to share or exchange materials.

Of course, some of the speakers were competing with each other for recognition and fame. I was competing for the attention and approval of my colleagues, but if anything, I wanted to draw them in, not drive them away. Such forms of competition are the spice, not the essence, of biomedical science. None of the interactions at this meeting hampered scientific progress. Instead, the meeting helped build a collaborative network, advancing scientific progress more rapidly than would be possible without the dynamics such interactions offer.

Periodically, individual scientists fail to understand these values and goals. They refuse to share materials, hide results, and decline to give proper credit to others who have contributed to their work. Sometimes this is recognized clearly and the individuals are marginalized in their fields, so that their misbehavior is not imitated or encouraged. Occasionally, through talent, luck, or external support from entities with different values, they emerge as influential individuals. However, cases of intense ambition and competitiveness, revealed by, for example, James Watson, in his book, The Double Helix, or by Tonegawa, in his published e-mails, are exceptions, not the rule. In the case of Watson, the essays of Max Perutz and biographies of Dorothy Hodgkin reveal far more deeply and accurately the extent to which the determination of DNA’s molecular structure from X-ray diffraction data was the product of a community of scientists.

We working scientists and academics need to defend our common mission and resist efforts to split us apart. Individuals who violate the canons of academic research should be censured by their colleagues for their disservice. However, in the absence of effective censure mechanisms, we need to reaffirm both the need to treat colleagues, junior and senior, with the utmost regard and respect and our support for our mission of advancing biomedical research and, ultimately, improving human health and welfare.