6 ms·

Great story - but does 1m really move the needle in biomed/covid vaccinations? If that’s the case then shouldn’t we be seeing a lot more activity? I have seen

Great story - but does 1m really move the needle in biomed/covid vaccinations? If that’s the case then shouldn’t we be seeing a lot more activity? I have seen a carwash funded more so than this.

criddell 6y ago
She gave her gift and encouraged her fans to give what they could. She has a lot of fans, so her impact was probably significantly greater than $1 million.
michaelmcdonald 6y ago
It moves the needle more than $0.
kyleblarson 6y ago
Did you donate more than a million bucks to the cause?
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Or even just more than $0?
- rasengan 6y ago
  I didn’t have any path to getting funds into such a thing and wasn’t sure if I could move the needle so I opted to donate 100k to families in need instead.
caycep 6y ago
well, by comparison, in medicine, foundation grants go for $25-50k, NIH "training grants", about $98k/year (K23/K08), R01s which are meant to fund entire labs $750k-$1M/year? Could be why a lot of folks are leaving medicine and "going into car washing"...
- mattkrause 6y ago
  If only an R01 were $1M! The “modular” budget (which many grants use) is $250k/year, and has been for some time, inflation be damned. You can certainly try asking for more, but there’s lots of contradictory advice about whether that’s wise.
  - caycep 6y ago
    ouch....that includes funding for postdocs, grad students etc?
    - mattkrause 6y ago
      Alas! In theory, the R01 is supposed to be enough to perform all of the proposed research. In practice, however, there's a lot of subsidization from other sources: one RA is on work-study, maybe another one working for course credit (only), and some of the grad students and postdocs have individual fellowships. This really sucks: it makes it very hard to hire/keep experienced people who aren't bringing in their own money and there are fewer and fewer opportunities for those people (a lot of fellowships now cut off at <5 years post-PhD). In the grand scheme of things, this churn can't actually be that cost-efficient and if I ran the NIH, this is one of the first things I would change: you'd get better research while taking some of the strain off the job market.
Closi 6y ago
Not sure why you are getting downvoted, it's a $1m donation to a company that was then valued at c$7 billion. $1m won't change research priorities or have changed the timeline for vaccine development. It's still a very generous offer, although somewhat unusual that it went to a for-profit company.
- alex_anglin 6y ago
  From TFA, the donation was to Vanderbilt.
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  > $1m won't change research priorities or have changed the timeline for vaccine development. From 'drfuchs comment a bit higher, > “Her work made it possible to expedite the science behind the testing,” Abumrad [inventor], 76, said on Tuesday night. “Without a doubt in my mind, her funding made the research toward the vaccine go 10 times faster than it would be without it.”
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    That's obviously PR fluff.
    - compiler-guy 6y ago
      She gave a million dollars to an early research project that turned out to be a successful one. Does that really count for nothing?
- reaperducer 6y ago
  it's a $1m donation to a company that was then valued at c$7 billion. Vanderbilt University isn't a company valued at CAD$7 billion.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    Vanderbilt's endowment is $6.9B
melling 6y ago
Sure, every bit helps. Little research projects can turn into billion dollar ideas. But if you want to really move the needle if all aspects of science... Americans spend almost $100 billion on pet food every year. Imagine what we could do if we donated an equal amount to basic research every time we bought food for our furry little friends. America is a rich country and we could do so much more.
- kortilla 6y ago
  As someone who grew up with pets in a lower income household, that isn’t exactly an indicator of wealth to spare. If the cost of pet food doubled we likely would have had to put the dog up for adoption.
  - melling 6y ago
    I was simply trying to convey how much money is in America. I probably did a bad job. Was trying to relate it to someone we don’t even think about. As a country we could fund a lot more research, if we could figure out how to tap into it.
    - lazyasciiart 6y ago
      A Starbucks Coffee is the standard "unthinking spending" unit, it seems
alphakappa 6y ago
Instead of downvoting the parent (who is asking a legitimate question) or getting snarky, maybe the commenters can actually explain how such a donation makes a significant difference to an industry that operates with much larger numbers. It would be educational to hear from someone who understands this industry (as opposed to speculation) about the economics of such donations. Does this move the needle for a company as large as Moderna? Since this donation was made to Vanderbilt, does it enable multiple streams of research that gets licensed by Moderna? Does it enable the company to try out avenues that they wouldn't have done in the absence of the funding? What does this level of money actually purchase? (grants to individual researchers, equipment etc)
- perardi 6y ago
  Sing it. The parent has a reasonable question. A million dollars in a world where companies with no revenue get billion dollar valuations seems like nothing, on the face of it. But a well-targeted million dollars, to a research university, is actual real money, and can carry them through the “oh no we need another grant” stage.
- leptons 6y ago
  >Instead of downvoting the parent (who is asking a legitimate question) or getting snarky, maybe the commenters can actually explain how such a donation makes a significant difference to an industry that operates with much larger numbers. Downvotes with no explanation is all too typical on HN, just like it is on other platforms. Seems like having to comment should be required before downvoting, if only to help the commenter understand why their comment was bad and to give some justification for the downvote. If the justification for downvoting is bad, then the downvoter also deserves a downvote, and not the no-repercussion downvoting system we have now.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- leptons 6y ago
  hurrdurrr of course my comment got flagged and downvoted. There is no such thing as higher standards, especially on HN. It's a fact.
an_opabinia 6y ago
Another interpretation is, now she looks extremely good. Not in some cynical sense. If you are making an effort to seem smart, not merely generous, then donating money to a research lab - much like making angel investments - is going to work pretty well.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  Dolly Parton is beyond posturing and trying to look good like some social media wannabe. Do even the most superficial research into her past and you see she is immensely generous and doesn't give fuck one what people think of her.
  - clairity 6y ago
    dolly has a big heart and shouldn't be cynically denigrated for her contribution, but this story has been making the media rounds to parlay her fame into promoting a podcast about her by abumrad, who's part of that same media circle.
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      to parlay her fame into promoting a podcast about her by abumrad Citation needed. It's not "making the rounds," which suggests that it is a planned media campaign. He was interviewed on one show and other media companies are relating what happened on that show. Her donation was back in the spring, unrelated to the attention she is now drawing. According to the New York Times, the recent notoriety was fueled by her fans, and started when the results of the vaccine testing were revealed.
      - clairity 6y ago
        seems you answered your own question. that's exactly how you'd do a pr campaign (here, involving npr, nyt, wapo, etc.).
mattkrause 6y ago
Science funding is aggravatingly hard to bootstrap. You usually need preliminary data to get a grant, but you need a grant (or at least money) to collect that preliminary data. This is especially true for NIH funding, where the competition is cut-throat (~10% of grants funded) and the experiments are relatively expensive. At an early stage, a million dollars of foundation money (or even a lot less) can launch a research program that would otherwise not get off the ground. In a more established program, this would still open up “riskier” directions that would not be feasible otherwise. You might be thinking of actual drug development and clinical trials. There, a million bucks still wouldn’t be anything to sneeze at, but isn’t enough to run a complete Phase III trial, which usually cost in the tens of millions.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  Maybe he's being downvoted because he comes off sounding like like a jerk, and perhaps the world — and the internet in particular — could use a little less cynicism? She gave a million dollars of her own money to help start a university's research into curing a global pandemic.
  - mattkrause 6y ago
    My point, in case that wasn't crystal clear, is that $1M to a university lab absolutely moves the needle, often in a huge way. It's a fair question though, since a lot of the conversation around new drugs focuses on (very expensive) clinical trials vs basic research. Even some people in research get confused by this! As for me, personally? I'm a research scientist at a hospital and once I finish my tea, I'm getting back to work. Due to the...salary differential between this and ad-tech, I think it counts, at least a little bit.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
inglor_cz 6y ago
Depends on how you use it. If that 1 million goes towards remuneration of a hopeful postdoc who later comes with a breakthrough, yes, it could move the needle quite a bit. I still believe that human ingenuity is a large part of the whole picture. A lot of talented people with scientific education are forced (or at least highly motivated) to search for well-paid jobs outside science, so keeping them in might be a very effective investment. Or it might not. People are notoriously unpredictable and their "needle" is volatile.

Great story - but does 1m really move the needle in biomed/covid vaccinations? If that’s the case then shouldn’t we be seeing a lot more activity? I have seen a carwash funded more so than this.

criddell 6y ago

She gave her gift and encouraged her fans to give what they could. She has a lot of fans, so her impact was probably significantly greater than $1 million.

michaelmcdonald 6y ago

It moves the needle more than $0.

kyleblarson 6y ago

Did you donate more than a million bucks to the cause?

sokoloff 6y ago
Or even just more than $0?
rasengan 6y ago
I didn’t have any path to getting funds into such a thing and wasn’t sure if I could move the needle so I opted to donate 100k to families in need instead.

caycep 6y ago

well, by comparison, in medicine, foundation grants go for $25-50k, NIH "training grants", about $98k/year (K23/K08), R01s which are meant to fund entire labs $750k-$1M/year? Could be why a lot of folks are leaving medicine and "going into car washing"...

mattkrause 6y ago
If only an R01 were $1M! The “modular” budget (which many grants use) is $250k/year, and has been for some time, inflation be damned. You can certainly try asking for more, but there’s lots of contradictory advice about whether that’s wise.
- caycep 6y ago
  ouch....that includes funding for postdocs, grad students etc?
  - mattkrause 6y ago
    Alas! In theory, the R01 is supposed to be enough to perform all of the proposed research. In practice, however, there's a lot of subsidization from other sources: one RA is on work-study, maybe another one working for course credit (only), and some of the grad students and postdocs have individual fellowships. This really sucks: it makes it very hard to hire/keep experienced people who aren't bringing in their own money and there are fewer and fewer opportunities for those people (a lot of fellowships now cut off at <5 years post-PhD). In the grand scheme of things, this churn can't actually be that cost-efficient and if I ran the NIH, this is one of the first things I would change: you'd get better research while taking some of the strain off the job market.

Closi 6y ago

Not sure why you are getting downvoted, it's a $1m donation to a company that was then valued at c$7 billion. $1m won't change research priorities or have changed the timeline for vaccine development. It's still a very generous offer, although somewhat unusual that it went to a for-profit company.

alex_anglin 6y ago
From TFA, the donation was to Vanderbilt.
zimpenfish 6y ago
> $1m won't change research priorities or have changed the timeline for vaccine development. From 'drfuchs comment a bit higher, > “Her work made it possible to expedite the science behind the testing,” Abumrad [inventor], 76, said on Tuesday night. “Without a doubt in my mind, her funding made the research toward the vaccine go 10 times faster than it would be without it.”
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  That's obviously PR fluff.
  - compiler-guy 6y ago
    She gave a million dollars to an early research project that turned out to be a successful one. Does that really count for nothing?
reaperducer 6y ago
it's a $1m donation to a company that was then valued at c$7 billion. Vanderbilt University isn't a company valued at CAD$7 billion.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  Vanderbilt's endowment is $6.9B

melling 6y ago

Sure, every bit helps. Little research projects can turn into billion dollar ideas. But if you want to really move the needle if all aspects of science... Americans spend almost $100 billion on pet food every year. Imagine what we could do if we donated an equal amount to basic research every time we bought food for our furry little friends. America is a rich country and we could do so much more.

kortilla 6y ago
As someone who grew up with pets in a lower income household, that isn’t exactly an indicator of wealth to spare. If the cost of pet food doubled we likely would have had to put the dog up for adoption.
- melling 6y ago
  I was simply trying to convey how much money is in America. I probably did a bad job. Was trying to relate it to someone we don’t even think about. As a country we could fund a lot more research, if we could figure out how to tap into it.
  - lazyasciiart 6y ago
    A Starbucks Coffee is the standard "unthinking spending" unit, it seems

alphakappa 6y ago

Instead of downvoting the parent (who is asking a legitimate question) or getting snarky, maybe the commenters can actually explain how such a donation makes a significant difference to an industry that operates with much larger numbers. It would be educational to hear from someone who understands this industry (as opposed to speculation) about the economics of such donations. Does this move the needle for a company as large as Moderna? Since this donation was made to Vanderbilt, does it enable multiple streams of research that gets licensed by Moderna? Does it enable the company to try out avenues that they wouldn't have done in the absence of the funding? What does this level of money actually purchase? (grants to individual researchers, equipment etc)

perardi 6y ago
Sing it. The parent has a reasonable question. A million dollars in a world where companies with no revenue get billion dollar valuations seems like nothing, on the face of it. But a well-targeted million dollars, to a research university, is actual real money, and can carry them through the “oh no we need another grant” stage.
leptons 6y ago
>Instead of downvoting the parent (who is asking a legitimate question) or getting snarky, maybe the commenters can actually explain how such a donation makes a significant difference to an industry that operates with much larger numbers. Downvotes with no explanation is all too typical on HN, just like it is on other platforms. Seems like having to comment should be required before downvoting, if only to help the commenter understand why their comment was bad and to give some justification for the downvote. If the justification for downvoting is bad, then the downvoter also deserves a downvote, and not the no-repercussion downvoting system we have now.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
leptons 6y ago
hurrdurrr of course my comment got flagged and downvoted. There is no such thing as higher standards, especially on HN. It's a fact.

an_opabinia 6y ago

Another interpretation is, now she looks extremely good. Not in some cynical sense. If you are making an effort to seem smart, not merely generous, then donating money to a research lab - much like making angel investments - is going to work pretty well.

reaperducer 6y ago
Dolly Parton is beyond posturing and trying to look good like some social media wannabe. Do even the most superficial research into her past and you see she is immensely generous and doesn't give fuck one what people think of her.
- clairity 6y ago
  dolly has a big heart and shouldn't be cynically denigrated for her contribution, but this story has been making the media rounds to parlay her fame into promoting a podcast about her by abumrad, who's part of that same media circle.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    to parlay her fame into promoting a podcast about her by abumrad Citation needed. It's not "making the rounds," which suggests that it is a planned media campaign. He was interviewed on one show and other media companies are relating what happened on that show. Her donation was back in the spring, unrelated to the attention she is now drawing. According to the New York Times, the recent notoriety was fueled by her fans, and started when the results of the vaccine testing were revealed.
    - clairity 6y ago
      seems you answered your own question. that's exactly how you'd do a pr campaign (here, involving npr, nyt, wapo, etc.).

mattkrause 6y ago

Science funding is aggravatingly hard to bootstrap. You usually need preliminary data to get a grant, but you need a grant (or at least money) to collect that preliminary data. This is especially true for NIH funding, where the competition is cut-throat (~10% of grants funded) and the experiments are relatively expensive. At an early stage, a million dollars of foundation money (or even a lot less) can launch a research program that would otherwise not get off the ground. In a more established program, this would still open up “riskier” directions that would not be feasible otherwise. You might be thinking of actual drug development and clinical trials. There, a million bucks still wouldn’t be anything to sneeze at, but isn’t enough to run a complete Phase III trial, which usually cost in the tens of millions.

reaperducer 6y ago
Maybe he's being downvoted because he comes off sounding like like a jerk, and perhaps the world — and the internet in particular — could use a little less cynicism? She gave a million dollars of her own money to help start a university's research into curing a global pandemic.
- mattkrause 6y ago
  My point, in case that wasn't crystal clear, is that $1M to a university lab absolutely moves the needle, often in a huge way. It's a fair question though, since a lot of the conversation around new drugs focuses on (very expensive) clinical trials vs basic research. Even some people in research get confused by this! As for me, personally? I'm a research scientist at a hospital and once I finish my tea, I'm getting back to work. Due to the...salary differential between this and ad-tech, I think it counts, at least a little bit.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

inglor_cz 6y ago

Depends on how you use it. If that 1 million goes towards remuneration of a hopeful postdoc who later comes with a breakthrough, yes, it could move the needle quite a bit. I still believe that human ingenuity is a large part of the whole picture. A lot of talented people with scientific education are forced (or at least highly motivated) to search for well-paid jobs outside science, so keeping them in might be a very effective investment. Or it might not. People are notoriously unpredictable and their "needle" is volatile.