Sunday, March 25, 2012

Selfish race to be No. 1 in research

Selfish race to be No. 1 in research
In seeking fame and fortune, many are unwilling to share their findings
By Lee Wei Ling
The Sunday Times 25 March 2012

I gave the opening speech at a congress on Parkinson's disease organised by the National Neuroscience Institute (NNI) last Friday. Instead of the usual platitudes, I decided to speak about collaboration in research.
Most lay people believe medical research is pursued for altruistic purposes. That may be one reason, but it is certainly not the only reason - and often, not even the most important reason - why people do medical research.
Let's not be hypocrites: Every research centre in the world races against time to be the first to make a novel discovery in any field of research it pursues.
Some universities appraise their staff largely on the basis of their published research output, further putting pressure on their faculty to devote themselves to research. This pressure has even caused some researchers to fabricate data.
To me, the university's chief responsibility should be to teach the next generation. Unfortunately, due to the emphasis on research, a significant percentage of faculties in the best universities concentrate on research and hardly do any teaching.
One example of selfish behaviour in the conduct of research was the discovery of HIV, the virus that causes Aids. The near unanimous international consensus is that HIV was first discovered in 1983 by a team of scientists led by the French virologist Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris.
A rival claim was advanced by an American group led by Dr Robert Charles Gallow, who published details of their discovery in 1984.
It was only in 1987, following the intervention of the presidents of both France and the United States, that the two teams finally agreed to share the credit for the discovery of HIV.
It is highly likely that if both teams had worked together, the HIV mystery might have been unlocked earlier.
The award of the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine to Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV was hopefully the concluding chapter to one of the ugliest controversies in modern medical science, which included allegations of theft and deception.
It is the practice worldwide for rival research teams not to share information with each other for fear of losing the advantage in the race to be the first. However, there is a way to collaborate that will result in better understanding of a medical problem, but without giving away information that will benefit the competition.
Many diseases and problems are better understood if everyone involved possesses the bigger picture. But it is not easy for a single researcher or research group to grasp this picture.
The classic story of six blind men trying to figure out what an elephant looks like would be an appropriate analogy here.
The blind man who feels the trunk thinks the elephant resembles a snake. The one who feels the tusk thinks the elephant is a spear. The one who feels the ears thinks the elephant is fan-like. The one who feels the legs thinks the elephant resembles a tree. The one who feels the body, thinks the elephant is a wall. And the one who feels the tail thinks the elephant resembles a rope.
Each person thinks he has a picture of the entire elephant but in reality knows only one bit of it. Only if they had pooled together all their impressions, they would have been able to figure out what the entire elephant looked like.
Medical researchers can collaborate on complex problems in the same way. The win-win situation would be for different centres to agree to approach a problem from different angles - you examine the body, I'll examine the trunk, Centre C will look at the legs, and so on.
And since each centre, unlike the six blind men, would be aware it is examining just one piece of the puzzle, it would have the incentive to collaborate and not fear that by sharing information it would be giving its rivals an advantage over it.
Such sharing of information is more likely to solve the big questions expeditiously than if all the centres were to approach the problem from the same angle - all examining the tusk, say - and refusing to share information on that tiny bit of the puzzle.
It has been many years since I personally carried out a piece of research - gathering the data, writing a computer program to analyse that data and then finally writing up the research paper. Undertaking one-woman shows was tedious, but it gave me great satisfaction. I had a stationary bike with a wooden plank fixed to the handle bar so as to allow me to type, and I thus exercised as I was doing my research.
Today, it is rare in my field, as well as in many other scientific fields, for an important piece of research to be conducted by just one person. Instead, most research is undertaken by a group working together with at least one person in the group possessing a grasp of the entire effort.
Over the years, my patient load as well as my administrative work have increased. I cannot complain - any more than I think academics should complain for teaching - for this is what I was trained to do: take care of patients. But the upshot is I can no longer do as much research as I used to.
Instead, I discuss potential research ideas with my colleagues, and the younger ones among them especially run with the ball. Also, when we meet other researchers studying different aspects of the same problem, we exchange ideas.
Ideally, we should do research so as to improve medical care. To conduct research so as to enhance one's curriculum vitae, or to secure a promotion, should merely be secondary objectives - the by-products of conducting successful research.
To make fame and fortune the primary reason for conducting research is not only morally wrong, but it also wastes research funding that could have been applied to better use.
The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute. Send your comments to suntimes@sph.com.sg