5 ms·

Sadly this stems from a structural problem in biology and medicine, and is far from exclusive to the field of Alzheimer's. Some reforms are urgent, otherwise pr

by nextos 2y ago

Sadly this stems from a structural problem in biology and medicine, and is far from exclusive to the field of Alzheimer's. Some reforms are urgent, otherwise progress is going to be incredibly slow. The same pattern is repeated again and again. Someone publishes something that looks novel, but is either an exaggeration or a downright lie. This person begins to attract funding, grant reviews and article reviews. Funding is used to expand beyond reasonable size and co-author as many articles as possible. Reviews mean this person now has the power to block funding and/or publication of competing hypotheses. The wheel spins faster and faster. And then, we know what the outcome is. The solution is to make sure reviews are truly independent plus limitations on funding, group size and competing interests. I think that tenured researchers that receive public funding should have no stock options nor receive "consulting" fees from private companies. If they want to collaborate with industry, that's absolutely fine, but it should be done pro bono. Furthermore, if you are a professor who publishes 2 articles per week and is simultaneously "supervising" 15 postdocs and 20 PhD students at 2 different institutions then, except in very few cases, you are no longer a professor but a rent seeker that has no clue what is going on. You just have a very well oiled machine to stamp your name into as many articles as possible.

echelon 2y ago
Instead of amyloid and tau, we now have a bunch of promising new leads: - insulin and liver dysregulation impacting the brain downstream via metabolic dysfunction - herpesviruses crossing the blood brain barrier, eg after light head injury or traveling the nervous system - gut microbiota imbalance causing immune, metabolic, or other dysregulation - etc. These same ideas are also plausible for MS, ADHD, etc.
- apsec112 2y ago
  curious if you could link to relevant papers? Thanks!
  - GioM 2y ago
    There’s a good discussion in the previous article discussed on HN, including links to various papers. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42893627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42893627 2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8234998/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8234998/
stefantalpalaru 2y ago
[dead]
fsckboy 2y ago
[flagged]
SubiculumCode 2y ago
I'm not a fan of many of the practices you complain about here, but I will say this: We get paid too little for what we do for way too long....6 years of grad school (24k/yr) 6 year post-doc (42k/yr) in California, when I was in those positions anyway. Today, at UC Davis, assistant professors in the UC system start at $90,700 [1, for salary scale], which is often around 12 years after their undergraduate degree. That's in California, where a mortgage costs you $3,000 a month, minimum. [1] https://aadocs.ucdavis.edu/policies/step-plus/salary-scales/october-2024/stepplussystemsalaryscales-1october2024-table2.pdf https://aadocs.ucdavis.edu/policies/step-plus/salary-scales/...
- dgfitz 2y ago
  You keep bringing up one state in the union as if the whole system is flawed because of this one state.
  - SubiculumCode 2y ago
    I was contextualizing my response because cost of living is higher in California, and some of those numbers may seem more reasonable if it were in Arkansas, for example.
    - caycep 2y ago
      I think NIH does a cost of living adjustment.
  - jdeibele 2y ago
    Picking a state that's not California nor New York, Massachusetts, etc.: https://www.indeed.com/career/assistant-professor/salaries/AR https://www.indeed.com/career/assistant-professor/salaries/A... Says $60,000 for University of Arkansas or 2/3rd of what was listed for California. I'm not an academic nor do I live in California (or Arkansas) but $90,000/year after 6 years working below minimum wage and 6 years barely above doesn't sound that great in <economic terms>. Hopefully people are getting benefits from teaching or research.
_yb2s 2y ago
The NIH already has total funding limits for grant eligibility, and the issue of competitors blocking your publications is pretty much eliminated by asking them to be excluded as reviewers, because we almost always already know who is going to do that. A competent editor will also see right through that. I did my postdoc in a very well funded lab that was larger than even your examples- and they legitimately could do big projects nobody else could do, plus postdocs and grad students had a lot more autonomy, which helped them become better scientists. The PI worked at a distant/high level, but he was a good scientist and a skilled leader doing honest and valuable research, and had economies of scale that let him do more with the same research dollars. It was the least toxic and most creative and productive lab I’ve ever seen. Banning that type of lab would be to the massive detriment of scientific progress in my opinion. I also disagree about banning consulting and startups for PIs- that is arguably where research ends up having the highest impact, because it gets translated to real world use. It also allows scientists to survive in HCOL areas with much less government funding. Frankly, I could make 4x the salary in industry, and if I were banned from even consulting on the side it would be much harder to justify staying an academic while raising a family in a HCOL area. I am also very upset about academic fraud and have seen it first hand- but I think your proposed solutions would be harmful and ineffective. I’m not sure what the solution is, but usually students, postdocs, and technicians know if their PI is a fraud and would report if it were safe for them to do so, but they don’t have enough power to do so. Fixing that would likely solve this. Even for a junior PI, reporting on a more senior colleague would usually be career ending for them, but not who they are reporting on.
- caycep 2y ago
  at this moment, what NIH? No study sections for grants since the inauguration...
- ramraj07 2y ago
  I agree with you that OPs ideas don't work. But I don't agree with you either. Let me point to a far more fundamental problem which is that even your well meaning lab is still a ponzi scheme that survives only because it gets cheap labor in the name of more trainees when there's no evidence that the academic system can handle MORE people. Even if we have the funding, the peer review systems we are dependent on are clearly becoming less effective just because of pure volume and breadth. I have other issues with the system but in the end this is the most important problem I see to be solved first.
caycep 2y ago
devil's advocate - is that not the very definition of scaling?

by nextos 2y ago

echelon 2y ago

Instead of amyloid and tau, we now have a bunch of promising new leads: - insulin and liver dysregulation impacting the brain downstream via metabolic dysfunction - herpesviruses crossing the blood brain barrier, eg after light head injury or traveling the nervous system - gut microbiota imbalance causing immune, metabolic, or other dysregulation - etc. These same ideas are also plausible for MS, ADHD, etc.

apsec112 2y ago
curious if you could link to relevant papers? Thanks!
- GioM 2y ago
  There’s a good discussion in the previous article discussed on HN, including links to various papers. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42893627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42893627 2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8234998/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8234998/

stefantalpalaru 2y ago

[dead]

fsckboy 2y ago

[flagged]

SubiculumCode 2y ago

I'm not a fan of many of the practices you complain about here, but I will say this: We get paid too little for what we do for way too long....6 years of grad school (24k/yr) 6 year post-doc (42k/yr) in California, when I was in those positions anyway. Today, at UC Davis, assistant professors in the UC system start at $90,700 [1, for salary scale], which is often around 12 years after their undergraduate degree. That's in California, where a mortgage costs you $3,000 a month, minimum. [1] https://aadocs.ucdavis.edu/policies/step-plus/salary-scales/october-2024/stepplussystemsalaryscales-1october2024-table2.pdf https://aadocs.ucdavis.edu/policies/step-plus/salary-scales/...

dgfitz 2y ago
You keep bringing up one state in the union as if the whole system is flawed because of this one state.
- SubiculumCode 2y ago
  I was contextualizing my response because cost of living is higher in California, and some of those numbers may seem more reasonable if it were in Arkansas, for example.
  - caycep 2y ago
    I think NIH does a cost of living adjustment.
- jdeibele 2y ago
  Picking a state that's not California nor New York, Massachusetts, etc.: https://www.indeed.com/career/assistant-professor/salaries/AR https://www.indeed.com/career/assistant-professor/salaries/A... Says $60,000 for University of Arkansas or 2/3rd of what was listed for California. I'm not an academic nor do I live in California (or Arkansas) but $90,000/year after 6 years working below minimum wage and 6 years barely above doesn't sound that great in <economic terms>. Hopefully people are getting benefits from teaching or research.

_yb2s 2y ago

The NIH already has total funding limits for grant eligibility, and the issue of competitors blocking your publications is pretty much eliminated by asking them to be excluded as reviewers, because we almost always already know who is going to do that. A competent editor will also see right through that. I did my postdoc in a very well funded lab that was larger than even your examples- and they legitimately could do big projects nobody else could do, plus postdocs and grad students had a lot more autonomy, which helped them become better scientists. The PI worked at a distant/high level, but he was a good scientist and a skilled leader doing honest and valuable research, and had economies of scale that let him do more with the same research dollars. It was the least toxic and most creative and productive lab I’ve ever seen. Banning that type of lab would be to the massive detriment of scientific progress in my opinion. I also disagree about banning consulting and startups for PIs- that is arguably where research ends up having the highest impact, because it gets translated to real world use. It also allows scientists to survive in HCOL areas with much less government funding. Frankly, I could make 4x the salary in industry, and if I were banned from even consulting on the side it would be much harder to justify staying an academic while raising a family in a HCOL area. I am also very upset about academic fraud and have seen it first hand- but I think your proposed solutions would be harmful and ineffective. I’m not sure what the solution is, but usually students, postdocs, and technicians know if their PI is a fraud and would report if it were safe for them to do so, but they don’t have enough power to do so. Fixing that would likely solve this. Even for a junior PI, reporting on a more senior colleague would usually be career ending for them, but not who they are reporting on.

caycep 2y ago
at this moment, what NIH? No study sections for grants since the inauguration...
ramraj07 2y ago
I agree with you that OPs ideas don't work. But I don't agree with you either. Let me point to a far more fundamental problem which is that even your well meaning lab is still a ponzi scheme that survives only because it gets cheap labor in the name of more trainees when there's no evidence that the academic system can handle MORE people. Even if we have the funding, the peer review systems we are dependent on are clearly becoming less effective just because of pure volume and breadth. I have other issues with the system but in the end this is the most important problem I see to be solved first.

caycep 2y ago

devil's advocate - is that not the very definition of scaling?