Scientists Quit Texas Cancer Institute in Flap
AUSTIN, Texas—Thirty-three scientists resigned from a state-funded cancer research institute this month, with some publicly complaining that political appointees were trying to improperly influence how its money was doled out.
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Known as CPRIT and financed with public bonds, the institute has disbursed $755 million in cancer funding over the last three years—second in the U.S. only to the National Institutes of Health. Lance Armstrong, the now-disgraced cyclist, cancer survivor and Austin resident, had campaigned across the state to persuade voters to pass the ballot proposition that created it. But the institute has been battered by infighting between the panel of scientists who provide advice on research-grant requests—which numbered 140 before the 33 resigned—and its oversight committee, which includes laypeople appointed by state political leaders.
Some of the departing scientists—who include Nobel laureates Phillip A. Sharp and Alfred Gilman, who had been the institute's chief scientific officer—said in resignation letters and interviews with The Wall Street Journal that they were protesting a willingness by the oversight committee to fund commercial projects aimed at developing new cancer therapies, regardless of whether the projects had been thoroughly vetted by the scientists.
The dispute reflects a larger debate in the cancer-research world between groups who want to focus on scientific research to answer basic questions about the disease, and those who favor investment in commercial projects such as drug companies that can bring products quickly to market.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203937004578079033293231440.html
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