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Originally published on August 09, 2016 /// The University of Minnesota is a research university dedicated to the advancement of knowledge. Our research enterprise is premised on the idea that our faculty, staff and students will pursue the truth and allow the data to speak for itself. It also relies on researchers conducting their work […]

Originally published on March 30, 2015 /// President Obama’s proposed Precision Medicine Initiative promises unprecedented support for the rapidly growing field of genome-based medical therapies.   The initiative will fund research into developing treatments tailored to patient genetics, especially to combat cancer. It will also support collection of 1 million mapped genomes along with information

Originally published on March 2, 2015 /// Biomedical researchers are training in healthy numbers, but many are finding that the transition from their first post-doctoral position to a lab of their own is taking too long, or not happening at all.   It’s a troubling development – with stark implications of American innovation — that may

Originally published on January 26, 2015 /// The biomedical research we rely on for advances in medicine, whether it be vaccines or cures for life-threatening disease, depends upon sufficient funding. Without resources, scientists cannot establish and run sophisticated labs and they cannot pay the salaries of the post-doctoral fellows and essential staff the play key

Originally published on December 3, 2014 /// When the new Congress is sworn in come January, it should add two important items for the agenda concerning higher education – both of which have a direct impact on U.S. competitiveness and technological preeminence.   Higher education has become highly regulated. It’s at the point that teaching

Originally published on October 24, 2014 /// Nothing focuses the mind like a crisis. For several years, many of us in the scientific research establishment have been warning of the potential impact on public health should the federal government continue to cut research spending.   The Ebola crisis has brought new clarity to that argument.

Originally published on October 6, 2014 /// Scientists won’t solve the world’s most pressing problems – world hunger, poor healthcare in the developing world, the spread of infectious diseases, to name a few – without industry and academia joining forces.   Industry needs the intellectual capital and research smarts embedded within the academy, while academics

Originally published on September 12, 2014 /// Scientists have a trust problem. They are viewed askance by lawmakers and workaday Americans, according to recent polls.   This diminishing trust has led to an even bigger problem. Over time it has resulted in increased regulations that stymie creativity and progress, lower productivity, and add significant costs and

Originally published on July 28, 2014 /// Lobbyists, car salespeople, reporters and members of Congress – all are viewed, rightly or wrongly, as untrustworthy professions. Gallup’s episodic polling of the public’s attitudes towards professions consistently places these disciplines close to the bottom in terms of perceived honesty.   But scientists are having their own public

Originally published on June 11, 2014 /// The world’s best research could be enhanced if academic institutions would change their approach to how they incentivize researchers. Specifically, universities should focus more on rewarding those who do transdisciplinary work –where real solutions emerge to real world problems — and less so on those researchers who remain