wasting money/Crusades for saving Grant Money?

[S L Forsburg]

Brian wrote: (taguebw at wfu.edu)
> In the time it's taken me to write and re-write the
> grants, I
> could have done half of the experiments I proposed 

Agreed.
While there is a piquancy in writing a revision in which you've 
done a number of the experiments doubted by the reviewers 
the first time through, and they worked, it wears off  fast....

> Last, let me say that it scares me a bit that someone at a great place
> like
> the Salk has funding troubles. Not to say that being at a good place
> entitles anyone to money, but to be hired by the Salk must mean you're
> doing excellent work to begin with, if you don't mind my being a bit
> presumptuous. 

You can presume that any time! :-)

Seriously, there are no guarantees anywhere. While it doesnt
hurt to be a great place, you don't get any extra points for
it.  Study sections do not say "well, this person is at Harvard,
so we should definitely fund this grant" (at least, not the
study sections I've been on ;-)   EVERYONE is suffering in 
the current funding climate, regardless of locale. Junior
people at early stages are suffering a lot more.  (And those
of us at soft money institutions have additional pressures...
like paying our own salaries.)

Obviously, I believe that there should be more small labs,
not few, large labs, but most senior people with large labs
usually don't agree.  :-)  Rather than put hundreds of thousands
into a single megalab, wouldn't you rather see the Hughes spread
it out between several different small labs?  Otherwise it's really
going  to become  haves vs. have nots, and amongst other things, 
that is terribly  wasteful of talented people.

-susan, feeling revolutionary.
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S L Forsburg, PhD  forsburg at salk.edu
Molecular Biology and Virology Lab          
The Salk Institute, La Jolla CA 
http://flosun.salk.edu/~forsburg/lab.html
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