In March last year Melinda Southey, a University of Melbourne researcher, published a paper in the journal Nature describing two new breast cancer gene mutations. Her research funding cost Australia $300,000. Since then she has attracted over $4 million dollars in funding, largely from the US.
Almost half a billion dollars will be cut over four years from a program that helps pay overhead costs for Australia’s researchers, according to a national mini-budget released last October by the Treasurer,
So, basically, to ensure universities survive you remove one of the key things that universities are known for – basic research!
Professor Southey’s basic research – apart from attracting significant funding into Australia – is highly likely to develop into a test for women who have previously remained undiagnosed for early stage breast cancer. Imagine the financial benefits (let alone the benefits to the families etc) of being able to detect a type of breast cancer early. No long-term radiotherapy, chemotherapy, days in precious hospital beds, and so on.
According to the Global Innovation Index for 2012 there are signs that – globally at least – science, technology and innovation (STI) is increasingly recognised as fundamental to achieving sustainable development. “A number of developed and developing countries have drawn on STI to improve production and productivity of agriculture and industries, to meet healthcare needs, and to overcome environmental challenges," the report says.
However, while our technical and scientific articles per capita ranks us 10th in the world of 141 countries, our “knowledge diffusion" capacity – i.e. our ability to translate that research into patents, licence fees, high tech exports etc, is ranked at 83 – with an indicator that this is a “weakness" of the Australian economy. Imagine – given the cuts announced last October – what our ranking will be in 2013?
Victoria is home to a unique initiative that allows life sciences researchers access to one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, the IBM Blue Gene/Q. Scientists at the Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative work with researchers in such fields as cancer genetics (which led to Professor Southey’s Nature paper), infectious diseases, antibiotic resistance and trying to understand the origins of epilepsy.
It is a resource that is the envy of the world. In the US and Europe similar computer facilities – and Australia’s is the only one devoted entirely to the life sciences – are considered resources that can be used by scientists across the world to further their research. At a cost. In Europe each country must pay €20 million to get their scientists access to the supercomputers, which can turn data crunching from a year-long process to an hour-long assignment.
The University of Dundee announced last month) what they called the Moneyball approach to drug development: the use of advanced computers to number-crunch enormous amounts of existing data in the hope it will reveal new drug candidates for infectious diseases, cancer and neurological problems. This work is being done here already: we are creating ultra-high-throughput technology that combines nanotechnology, microfluidics and protein engineering into one single device able to fast track drug design. This is so called basic research that clearly has enormous implications, both for the creation of new drugs as well as for the income this research will generate from the pharmaceutical industry which is desperate for new drugs.
In Australia, we have always had brilliant scientists. Periodically we have had state and federal governments that have supported these scientists, knowing that their research brings benefits – health, economic and social – down the track. Basic research has always been Australia’s strength.
It would be a government that lacks foresight if it thought that cutting basic research was a way to save money, when in fact it is a short-term solution that will mean fewer lives saved and less income generated. You don’t need to be a scientist (or a mathematician) to work that one out.
Professor Peter Taylor is director of the Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative
The Australian Financial Review