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ReseaRch PhilosoPhy

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c n r B g & T r p 10:7, 1-3; o t b r 1, 2010; 2010 l nd B n

ReseaRch PhilosoPhy

Key words: public policy, training,unding, work week, pro essionalism

Submitted: 07/13/10

Accepted: 07/14/10

Previously published online: www.landesbioscience.com/journals/cbt/article/12994

DOI: 10.4161/cbt.10.7.12994Correspondence to: Scott E. Kern;Email: sk@jhmi.edu

It is Sunday a ternoon on a sunny, springday.

Im walking the hallsall o themina modern $59 million building dedicatedto cancer research. A hal hour ago, I com-pleted a stroll through another, identicalbuilding. You see, Im doing a survey. Andthe two buildings are largely empty.

Yesterday at noon, I did the same. I walked the halls. Last weekend, threedays ago at seven in the evening andthree days earlier at nine in the morn-ing and or a number o days last winter,the same. This week, I phone a numbero colleagues running success ul cancerresearch labs in other institutions; most,though not all, tell me they had observedsimilar patterns. These similarities clusterthe data and construct tentative patterns

or discussion here.Combined, I observe today 24 persons.They in orm me o unobserved others. Ire-calibrate my count. Perhaps 36 personsoccupy the two buildings or an average o three hours each, or a rough-sum invest-ment today o $470 per person on site dur-ing my walk. At night, when the buildingsare virtually empty, the calculated per-person investment estimate wouldapproach in nity. Historically, there hasnever been a more luxuriant time in whichto do biologic research. The dirty cold

attics o Marie Curie are orgotten.Depreciating over 30 years, our twobuildings represent an investment around$10,800 per day. The on-site overhead(utilities, building maintenance, animaland xed acilities, security) is another$3,000 per day. The institutional admin-istration o these persons and labs, pro-rated to these buildings, is $3,000 per day.The total$16,800 per day. This invest-ment supports the research laboratories,

Wheres the passion?Scott E. KernThe Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins; Ba ltimore, MD USA

per se, which are individually operatedby 725 employees. The laboratory salariesand bene ts total another $129,100 perday, excluding the non-research activities.

I meet exceptional people during thesurvey. Exceptional indeed, by de nition,

or ewer than 5% o the employed canceresearchers are here. In most instances, noother person is nearby, even had we yelled.I interview many o them. Why are they exceptional? What insights can they pro-vide? To avoid bias, I ask open-ended, gen-tle questions, such as Why are YOU here?Nobody else is here! I suggest potentialexplanations already gathered rom otherinterviewees. To a limited extent, I inter-view weekday workers between the hourso 9 and 5 as to their insights about early morning, evening and weekend research.

The latter were, by the present de nition,less exceptional.The buildings employees during sur-

vey hours are either absent or present.Largely absent are the aculty and hourly (generally, 37.5 contractual hrs) work-ers. The principal investigators, a ac-ulty subset, by their personal reports arecapable o per orming their duties (writ-ing, data analysis, NIH grant review andpro essional meeting attendance) o -siteindeed, they o ten moved o -site as wordeadlines approached. The hourly workers

do not work o -site, but are largely orbidden by contract or institutional poli-cies rom working during survey hours.The individuals present in the laboratoriesare largely trainees, comprising graduatestudents, postdoctoral research ellowsand clinical ellows. Over 90% o salariedresearchers, however, are absent at all timessurveyed. I observe that during weekdays,a plurality o personnel arrives near 9:30a.m., a ter the secretarial sta arrives, an

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Oh, has cancer been cured already?, itseems indeed that major endpoints in thisendeavor are being accomplished on a

weekly basis. In other words, across thisnation, tens o thousands o benchmarkso cancer research progress are reachedevery ew days. Despite the glowing news

I pause and wonder. Employing ever- astertechniques and ail-sa e commercial kitscan we soon reach the era when researchends not on Friday at 5, but Wednesday at 3, owing to having achieved our weekly breakthroughs downright breezily?

Sharing the category o eyebrow-levitating good news, the NOT-presentresearchers do appear to be good-to-go.In response to a re-wording o my open-ing question, now phrased as Where arethey?, I learn that theyre all probably resting and relaxing. From the evidence,modern research in a climate-controlled,sa ety-inspected, pathogen- ree world opre-packaged kits is simply more exhaust-ing than the pre-air-conditioned worldthat ought the unclassi ed and yet com-municable diseases o yesteryear. Today,the resting phase ensures eventual success.

These exceptional early-birds, late-nighters and weekenders are also philo-sophical. When asked to explain why thepolio researchers worked so much longerhours, while cancer kills a much higher

raction o the population and a higherraction o its victims, I am requested toconsider, Maybe when a goal is in thenear uture, it motivates you. When it isin the distant uture, it doesnt so much.Subtracting the novel temporal context,

which strikes me as a valid quali er, thissuggestion reduces to, They were moti-vated. We are not. But, we may have anexcuse.

Two graduate student separately intro-duce a blunt assessment. When I ask why one was the only person in the lab to be

working weekends, while a di erent, similarly sized lab at that time had more week-enders, the answer is, Maybe they caremore. Another busy student lays it out.Many other students are punching out at 5.They see it as a 9-to-5 job.

During the survey period, o -site lay-persons o er comments on my observa-tions. Dont the people with amilies havea right to a career in cancer research also?I choose not to answer. How would I? Do

Do we have the army we need in this war? Where is the passion?

Perhaps we are doing better than atrst impression. Consider the good news

I learn rom these exceptional researchersencountered during my survey. A numbero graduate students and ellows sheep-

ishly suggest that they had to come into manage timed experiments, such aspassing cells in culture or assaying a ter-minating experiment. A ew questionselicit that these are not in actuality reluc-tant weekend research warriors. The longdays planned, the setting up o overnightexperiments on Fridays, and the reportedtendency to plan similar weekend experi-ments as a routine practice, all betray aprivate aqui er o passion.

More good news comes my way, albeitmixed. An investigator in each buildinganswers my Why? Nobody else is ques-tion with the answer, Not in the [namedeleted] lab! A ull third o the attendantresearchers are members o two particularlaboratories. In short, they work longeron the cancer question because it is theirlabs social culture to do so. The encour-aging lesson? Rather than try to equalizeall army units, perhaps the brunt o thebattle could be brought to the right army units. Historically, when Sabin disparagedSalk as being just a kitchen chemist, he

was openly disparaging a particular prac-tice o the National Foundation, by whichthey consigned the brute- orce tasks to aninvestigator leading the most appropriatearmy or the duty (i.e., not always Sabin).

When the mothers o the Mothers Marchcollected dimes, they KNEW that teams,at that minute, were per orming di cult,even dangerous, research in the supportedlabs. Modern cancer advocates walk ora cure down the city streets on Saturday mornings across the land. They cancom ortably know that, uhlets see

here, some o their donations mightreceive similar passion. Anyway, the e ortshould be up to ull orce by 10 a.m. or sothe ollowing Monday.

Aspects o the good news concerningthe holders o graduate pro essional degreesare real eyebrow-raisers. In response to my question as to why the other pro ession-als were NOT present, I learn that they probably nished their work or the week.Turning aside the crass impulse to remark,

leaves around 5:00 p.m. Even adjusting oro -site time devoted to scienti c reading,the hourly sta works more hours on-sitethan many o the salaried research work-

orce. For the latter, this represents a pro-essional work week o less than 40 hours.

Upon refection, this is the 25 th anniver-

sary o my survey. In 19851986, RicardoLloyd strongly infuenced surgical pathol-ogy by cloning the anti-chromograninantibody and applying it to reclassi y

wide swaths o otherwise amiliar tumortypes. Surprised at the disparity betweenthis young acultys overworked nightsand weekends and the general absence o more senior aculty at these times and notyet appreciating the philosophical stancethat Ric represented, I queried him on onesuch evening as he ran between rooms,Why would a aculty member be work-ing late on a Sunday night? To whichhe answered, with a charitable smile anda so t-spoken Well, you might discoversomething, right? Rics answer was astatement o visible, sel -aware passion.

Today, would his answer sound nave?It used not to be so. Perhaps medi-cal research itsel has changed. In mid-century, Harry Weaver, the director o research o the National Foundation orIn antile Paralysis, estimated the nan-cial requirements to enumerate the num-

ber o dominant strains causing epidemicparalytic polio, requiring that a researchteam work seven days a week, 52 weeksa year, or three solid years.1 Jonas Salksgroup was chosen to do this work, and they

worked around the clock until eventually o ering a killed virus vaccine. By 1959,

A. Sabin was well-known or working sevendays a week on his competing live vaccineapproach to vaccinate against polio. The1966 Nobel laureate, Charles Huggins,discovered the basis or hormonal therapy

or prostate cancer, o which he said, One

works along at the lab bench without hasteand without rest. Time has no mean-ingThese are happy days, one ollowinganother, hope ully without end, so great isthe delight o discovery.2

Today, tens o thousands o cancerresearchers work barely 40 hours a week on a scourge that kills 30% o all persons,many o the victims young or o childrear-ing age, a puzzle involving the most severeanalytic di culties. Who is being nave?

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Or, to mix my metaphors: Is there an ele-phant in this building? I so, be care ul asyou pass. Move along, move along.

Acknowledgements

The Everett and Marjorie KovlerPro essorship in Pancreas Cancer

Research.

References1. Oshinsky DM. Polio: An American story. New York:

Ox ord Univ Press 2005.2. Huggins CB. Experimental Leukemia and Mammary

Cancer. Chicago: Univ o Chicago Press 1979.3. Ho er TB, Grigorian K. All in a weeks work: Averag

work weeks o doctoral scientists and engineersIn oBrie : Science Resources Statistics. ArlingtonVA: National Science Foundation 2005; 1-4.

week, which agrees with the gures alsoor academic tenure-track aculty. The

average work week or postdoctoral schol-ars (postdocs) reported was 50.3 hours.These overall numbers do not explain theobserved cancer research activity levels,unless one- th or more o the work is

being accomplished o -site.Perhaps the aculty know. My a ore-

mentioned colleagues suggest, Maybeits the leadership. Maybe being at home

writing grants is a bad model or trainees.Sounds reasonable. Employers dont ask these questions when hiring. In my expe-rience, true. Its the productivity, not thehours, that matters. Certainly, but canproductive passion really be doused at 35hours? In my lab, o -site data analysis isnot that high. What is it, then? Li estyleis more important now.

Could doused passion be the majorbottleneck impairing medical research?

the patients have a duty to provide thisright, perhaps by entering suspendedanimation? Should I note that examiningother measures o passion, such as breadtho reading and und o knowledge, may raise the same concern and that time islikely only a surrogate measure? Should I

note that productive scientists with ador-able amily lives may have earned theirpositions rather than acquiring them as aright? Which o the other pro essions canadopt a country-club mentality, restrict-ing their activities largely to a 3540 hour

week? Dont people with amilies have aright to be police? Lawyers? Astronauts?Entrepreneurs?

Numerically, rom where arises theemptiness o the buildings? Accordingto the National Science FoundationSurvey,3 doctoral scientists in the educa-tion sector and the biological and healthsciences average 52.5 hours o work per

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