In the wake of the US presidential election in November 2017, the scientific community has recognized that it has fallen short in communicating the value of science and research. As a result, scientists are now calling for increased public outreach and communication efforts. While this awareness is important, the path forward is not entirely clear.
A guest blog by James Beck, Ph.D., Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, Parkinson’s Foundation
Dr James Beck
This year, we mark 200 years since James Parkinson published his famous monograph, An Essay on the Shaking Palsy. In that time, we have reached many key milestones in science that have dramatically improved the lives of the ten million people worldwide who live with Parkinson’s. Yet we still have nothing to slow the disease and nothing to stop it.
At the Parkinson’s Foundation, we consider the bicentennial anniversary of James Parkinson’s work a perfect time to look back at lessons learned and ahead at what’s to come. For example, looking back at the time that has passed since 1817, few milestones have been as monumental as the identification of levodopa by George Cotzias in 1967 and its subsequent confirmation as a life-changing Parkinson’s treatment by Dr. Melvin Yahr in 1968.
Today, our community still relies on levodopa as the gold-standard drug to treat Parkinson’s motor symptoms. Despite the lack of newer drugs, scientific progress has not stopped. In fact, we predict that advances in the next 20 years will likely outpace the progress of the past 200.
As we scan the horizon, we are seeing advances in healthcare and science that will lead to new ways of living better with the disease. The increasing intersections between information technology, healthcare, biomarkers, and genetics may help us to predict who will develop Parkinson’s. Meanwhile, advances in technology are portending a day when we can accurately measure the progression of Parkinson’s. Most importantly, we may be on the cusp of testing new hypotheses that will allow us to reach our ultimate end goal of stopping Parkinson’s.
This is exciting. However, if we want these advances to come to fruition, we must heed the lessons learned from Cotzias’s story — the need for human capital.
Many people may be surprised to learn that Cotzias’ key discovery of levodopa and Dr. Yahr’s follow-up study were milestones that were nearly missed. In the 1960s, funding was plentiful, and many researchers were testing levodopa. Where so many failed, only Cotzias succeeded, and he did so by taking a unique approach that no one could have predicted would work.
His story illustrates what many scientists know: that we cannot predict where answers will come from, and that we need a diverse cadre of people looking at diseases from different angles to solve them. Thus, he tells us what we need to create a world without Parkinson’s – people.
We need people who dedicate their careers to Parkinson’s research. Yet, over the past 20 years, human capital in the research community has been in jeopardy. The average age at which a scientist receives his or her first R01 (the original and historically oldest grant mechanism used by the NIH) has crept up from their 30s to their early 40s, leading droves of talented researchers to leave the lab for more stable careers.
If we don’t change our way of thinking about the next generation of scientists, we could easily lose a cadre of researchers who are at the prime of their careers. At the Parkinson’s Foundation, we are doing our part by dedicating millions of dollars to support early-career scientists and clinicians.
But this isn’t enough. As a society, we need to value the up-and-coming generation for their creativity and support their ingenuity. A few weeks from now, on June 1st, we’re bringing together some of the best and brightest of the next generation for a scientific event entitled, “World Without Parkinson’s.” We’re asking one question of each these up-and-coming leaders, “How do you predict your area of expertise will help to end Parkinson’s?”
Will any of them have the right answer? Is the next George Cotzias among our speakers?
We don’t know. But we know that we have to continue to ask the question and make opportunities available for researchers to thrive until we find him or her.
In fact, it’s the only way we can find the world we envision — the one in which Parkinson’s no longer exists.
The Parkinson’s Foundation is working toward a world without Parkinson’s disease. Formed by the merger of National Parkinson Foundation and the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation in August 2016, the mission of the Parkinson’s Foundation is to invest in promising scientific research that will end Parkinson’s disease and improve the lives of people with Parkinson’s, and their families, through improved treatments, support and the best care. For more information, visit www.parkinsonsfoundation.org or call (800) 4PD-INFO (473-4636) or (800) 457-6676.
Guest contributor Eli Lazarus
I recently found a short article my father wrote for National Fisherman, in 1988, which reported on a new kind of lobster trap with a “catch escape panel” aimed at reducing bycatch. My dad had a steady freelance gig at the time with National Fisherman, and the article was one of several he wrote while researching “ghost traps” – lobster traps, specifically, but really any lost fishing gear (nets, lines) that disappears underwater for reasons random, accidental, or deliberate.
With lobster traps, it’s easy to imagine what happens. To retrieve traps and the lobsters in them, a fisher works her way along from floating buoy to buoy. Each is connected to a heavy “sink line” that is in turn fixed to a trap, which sits on the seabed, catching lobsters. If something – a propeller from a passing boat, for example – parts the sink line, then the buoy drifts off with the current and the trap is lost.
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Communicating about science is a noble profession, and one that’s becoming increasingly and ever more popular. Yet it isn’t the right fit for everyone. I got started in this field about five years ago, and was surprised by many of the things I needed that no one had ever mentioned. Here’s what no one ever tells you you’ll need.
If you don’t care about science, you’re going to burn out fast. Science is hard, so science communication is hard, too. You’re going to have to delve into complicated issues quickly. I’ve worked on projects ranging from solar panel taxes to integrated imaging, from public perceptions of pork to international trade databases. You really have to care about good science communication to get a message across. The only thing worse than no science communicator is a science communicator who hates their job.
I didn’t have an immediate interest in food and agricultural topics when I started my job. But I audited a course on food security, read tons on the subject and sat down with my colleagues to figure out why these topics are so critically important. It made all the difference. Continue reading
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaEKtx-OfaU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2olf8ojUhXU
Hevia, professor of inorganic chemisty at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, described herself as a “molecular architect” after receiving the Society of Spanish Researchers in the UK’s inaugural Emerging Talent Award at the Spanish Embassy in London this week.
Ever wonder when you’ll publish that big paper that’ll win you the Nobel Prize (or at least a new research grant)? Turns out, it could be your next.
As Nature News reports, a new equation, developed by a team led by Albert-László Barabási at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, shows that papers published at any point in a scientist’s career have equal chance in becoming their most highly cited work. It might be sensible to keep that in mind the next time you’re struggling through centuries of data analysis, or when your thumb starts to bruise from more and more mindless pipetting.
You can watch a video explainer below, and find the paper here.
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One of the foundations of science is its reproducibility. Without it, results are not verifiable and are therefore not believable. But even if a published result is true, there is a chance it might not be reproducible, which introduces a plethora of problems for science.
Irreproducible experiments severely limit the ability of the scientific community to build on results and advance the field. This can happen when scientists don’t share enough data, or details of their experiments in papers, and it happens quite frequently.
So why might a scientist not share their data?
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Bratislava Castle, Slovakia
