The reduction in funding for government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), more than taking career paths for our future generations; He directly threatens the well-being of people and communities around the world now.
Becoming a scientist is more an art than a science and implies much more than a laboratory blouse and gloves. Being a scientific is delivered with the responsibility of transparently communicating the impact of science on our community. Today, I write because I am deeply concerned about the current way that scientific financing takes in the United States.
I am a neuroscientist at the University of Stanford by looking for biology behind psychiatric conditions, such as OCD and dependence, to help generate new treatments. It’s really a dream job. But my dream of becoming a neuroscientist started when I was a student in Newmarket High School; I wanted a career where I could have a positive impact on the world and satisfy my perpetual curiosity. Biomedical research was the obvious choice for me.
Like many of you, I did not know how to get into scientific research or the wide range of jobs that it involved. Fortunately, I was persistent enough to get my first job after college as a research trainee at NIH. This position, funded directly by the NIH budget, allowed me to work as a research technician in a laboratory that studied dependence on opioids. This experience has launched my career and my passion to understand how changes in the brain lead to psychiatric disorders and dependence. After working at the NIH and considering the very real impact that research has had on people’s lives, I continued to continue biomedical research as a career. I obtained my doctorate in neuroscience from Brown University, where I received an “F31 NRSA” mechanism to support my research on how opioids affect plasticity in the brain. Now, I have a postdoctoral study post at the University of Stanford, continuing important research to help people affected by debilitating disorders.
In many ways, my trip from a child in the south of New Hampshire who grows in a small town to become a scientist is a success, highlighting the opportunities that scientific financing can offer, no matter where you grow. The scientific opportunities I had should not be the exception; They should be the foundation of the next generation. Recent government decisions have disrupted and delayed funding across the country. In addition, the decision -making power for which projects should receive scientific funding are torn from scientific experts and in the hands of government officials who have no expertise in making these decisions. Receiving a grant is not an easy process. The applications are rigorously examined by experts from the scientific subject and only the most critical and logically solid applications are allocated subsidies after several meticulous examination cycles. General decrees that interrupt this process will undoubtedly lead to a devastating loss of scientific innovation and medical breakthroughs.
The reduction in government support for scientific institutes will have significant implications for budgetary and public health for New Hampshire. The New Hampshire is based on public science financing to stimulate health progress and job creation, the support of NIH alone contributing more than $ 300 million to the state economy, returning more than twice to the dollar for the NIH grants granted ($ 128 million). You would certainly find it difficult to find another employment sector where the contribution injects so much in our local economy and does not type the pockets of companies at the same time. Historically, research funding has been extremely popular and for a good reason. Without this, we risk losing much more than scientific progress – compromising jobs, health care innovations, education and career opportunities, life expectancy and the development of future scientists who can create positive impacts in our communities.
This problem is particularly urgent now. With federal scientific funding at risk, it is crucial to understand what is really at stake. It is not just abstract “Research.” When we take a step back and look at what the money is spend on, it is not only people in lab coats measuring out tiny liquids and squinting thrush microscopes. Developing Pain Medications Without Addictive Properties, Designing Brain Implants To Help Paralyzed People Walk Again, Improving Access to Clean Water, Better Predicting Severe Weather, Expanding Life-Altering Treatment Options For Veterans with SSPT, and so much more.
However, science is really a living and breathable phenomenon. The elimination, even the brief break of funding, causes wreaking havoc by interrupting this continuous process. Patients are deleted from clinical trials because hospitals cannot buy supplies to deal with them, multi -year projects are ruined when times of critical data are missed and that very trained people with years of irreplaceable knowledge lose their use.
There is already a tangible and negative impact on our schools, our hospitals, our health system and our families in New Hampshire. I write today not only to communicate on what we have to lose, but rather as a plea for everyone to recognize the incredible advantages that we can still protect. We are not helpless. We can use our voices to save science and much more. I urge you to speak with your loved ones, your neighbors and your government representatives of the importance of continuing to support scientific funding. Tell them that you worry about the negative impact of the cuts. You are concerned about how they will have an impact on your community. The moment to talk about science is now because science is deeply rooted in each of our lives in many ways.
Robyn St. Laurent, Phd, is a pOstdoctoral scholar at the University of Stanford. She graduated from Newmarket High School in New Hampshire.