{"id":3204,"date":"2022-07-17T11:02:41","date_gmt":"2022-07-17T16:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/?p=3204"},"modified":"2022-07-17T11:02:41","modified_gmt":"2022-07-17T16:02:41","slug":"persistence-the-essence-of-science-in-a-nutshell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/2022\/07\/17\/persistence-the-essence-of-science-in-a-nutshell\/","title":{"rendered":"Persistence: the essence of science in a nutshell"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 2015, I wrote a blog that was published in The Guardian<\/i>\u00a0titled \u201cCan we expect a MIRAcle for biomedical researchers in the US?\u201d<\/a> In this blog I outlined the radical new plan of the National Institute of Health\u2019s (NIH) General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) institute to develop a new grant system for funding its investigators. To date, most of the NIH grant system is designed so that scientists are required to propose a highly focused research plan in considerable detail. The new system set up by NIGMS seeks to provide researchers more freedom and flexibility in their research, and although it requires an outline of the major research objectives, there is more emphasis on the researcher\u2019s achievements (for established investigators, at least), and encouragement for researchers to chase bold and exciting new findings\u2014even if they are tangential to the initial research goals\u2014provided that they are scientifically sound.<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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From the moment I heard of this new system, I realized that this was exactly what I had always dreamed of\u2014a sort of carte blanche<\/i> to pursue interesting scientific findings, with few strings attached. My lab has always had a major focus on what we call endocytic membrane trafficking, with a special interest in endosomes (tiny membrane-bound compartments into which receptors are sent after internalization from the plasma membrane) and anything related to endosomes and their function. But over the years, we have branched into a variety of \u201coffshoots\u201d and projects that are peripherally or laterally related\u2014often at great investment of time (and money) and through collaborations. This includes cell cycle and mitosis, mitochondrial fusion\/fission and homeostasis, regulation of the actin cytoskeleton, some signal transduction and immunology, structural biology and super-resolution imaging, as well as a longer-term new project exploring the mechanisms of centrosome duplication and primary cilia biogenesis. I have always had nagging feelings of guilt in pursuing exciting new findings, knowing that I am not explicitly addressing the \u201cspecific aims\u201d on one grant or another. But as I laid out in my recent book, \u201cToday\u2019s Curiosity is Tomorrow\u2019s Cure: The Case for Basic Biomedical Research<\/i>,\u201d<\/a> the most significant discoveries over the past 150 years in biomedical science have often arisen as a result of such \u201cnon-targeted\u201d research.<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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When this new grant mechanism was first announced, I decided that I MUST try to obtain this type of grant\u2014that it was exactly what I had always wanted: the freedom to pursue exciting new findings, even if they were not exactly what I initially set out to study. After nearly 7 years of working toward this goal, I am delighted to say that I have now received funding from this R35\/MIRA grant mechanism for 5 long years. This was my third<\/i> submission, the first being in the initial trial round where only a small cadre of established investigators were supported. It\u2019s not as though research life has stopped during these past 5 years\u2014I had other (traditional) grants during this time, and eligibility for the new R35\/MIRA form of grant is restricted to a rather short window when one of the traditional grants was set to expire.<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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My key take-home message\u2014aside from expressing my own gratitude to the NIGMS and my delight at finally obtaining this award\u2014is that success in science is all about persistence. And it doesn\u2019t matter whether this is a grant or a research project. Research is about being in it for the long haul; the marathon rather than the sprint. And even if I had to hobble to the finish line, it was worth every effort.<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2015, I wrote a blog that was published in The Guardian\u00a0titled \u201cCan we expect a MIRAcle for biomedical researchers in the US?\u201d In this blog I outlined the radical new plan of the National Institute of Health\u2019s (NIH) General … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}