Opinion: The Importance of Funding Basic Research
By Elizabeth Padilla-Crespo
Originally published in SACNAS News: July 3, 2013
As opposed to applied research, basic research tries to answer romantic questions for the sake of investigation…while studying the wonders of life and the true nature of things.
The year is 2013; we walk around, eyes glued to our smart phones using our Google Maps application, while almost every car has a GPS in their dash. Global positioning systems are a normal component of our daily lives, but most people ignore that in their pockets lays a handful of equations handwritten by Einstein. GPS devices use the principles postulated in the theory of relativity to make mathematical corrections in respect to the user’s location. Einstein didn’t develop these equations with an application in mind; he did it for the beauty of scientific knowledge and mathematical certainties; wanting to explain how certain things in the universe worked, not because he wanted to implant them in your iPhone. As opposed to applied research (where studies are designed to solve a particular problem); basic research
tries to answer romantic questions for the sake of investigation. The beauty of basic research is that while studying the wonders of life and the true nature of things, we can be a scientist like Mendel, who by tracking peas developed the foundations of genetics, or Fleming and encounter a halo of inhibition that will transform how we treat infectious diseases.
Explaining and recalling the importance of funding basic research is not an easy task. Applied research is more tangible: there’s a problem and we want a solution. But how to explain the importance of studying something so minimalistic as the thermodynamics that dictate how a certain protein folds? Or something ephemeral like the social behavior of primates? How to argue the significance of these topics when we have a worldwide economic crisis and loved ones suffering from incurable diseases?
More challenging is that outcomes from basic research cannot be predicted and it may or may not lead to an application; but if we knew all the answers there would be no research.
Maybe the insights of protein folding could lead into the creation of a pharmaceutical drug that could help in the treatment of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease; and maybe by studying behavior in primates we will learn clues linked to human sociology.
Endless Possibilities That Can Address Our Most Pressing Challenges
As an environmental microbiologist I’m certain that funding basic research in the field I have made my passion will help the daunting challenges that our world faces: climate change, energy supply, and environmental degradation. For example, microbial genome-sequencing projects integrated with the emerging field of synthetic genomics can help us solve the energy crisis. By studying and optimizing cellular pathways and genomic-driven technologies we can design microbial cells capable of efficiently converting carbon dioxide and feedstock into fuels. There are microbes capable of degrading coal that can be manipulated for enhanced hydrocarbon recovery and bacteria that can immobilize uranium in groundwater, preventing it from reaching freshwater reservoirs. The possibilities are endless: 99.9% of microorganisms are poorly characterized and initiatives like Department of Energy’s “Genomes to life” funds basic research to learn the genetic traits of microorganisms beneficial for energy and environmental applications.
One of the most influential initiatives in the field of microbiology was the federally funded Microbial Observatories Program. This National Science Foundation initiative focused on basic research and revolutionized the field of microbiology and provided funding (from 1995–2005) to microbial ecologists to uncover an incredibly diverse microbial world that was previously unknown. More so, it pioneered the science of metagenomics, a field now used by clinical microbiologists in the Human Microbiome Project (HMP). The HMP funded by the National Institutes of Health aims to decipher how bacteria hosted in our body affect our health. It is believed that the Human Microbiome Project will have more impact than the Human Genome Project (the decoding of human DNA). We have 10 times more microbial cells in or body than human cells; therefore microbes may play a bigger role in human health and disease than previously thought. Although there is a biomedical application, HMP has its foundations in basic research and it would not be a reality without the advances that environmental microbial ecologists accomplished while studying microbes in their natural environments.
A Call to Action
The significance of performing fundamental research at times of economic crisis is a valid question but the US cannot afford to stop investment in research that will lead to innovation and discovery. The competitiveness of our nation in today’s economy and global market greatly depend on the advances made by our STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) workforce. Furthermore, it is estimated that only $20 per year per person goes to the National Science Foundation (the federal agency whose mission is to fund fundamental research), while $2,000 per year per person goes to our military.
At the end of the day, taxpayer money allocated to funding basic research is not much when compared to other agencies.
Aside from these facts, there is something about basic research that makes us more human, that speak to that little voice inside of us that we embraced as toddlers: Mom, why is the sky blue? Dad, why is seawater salty? Asking questions make us appreciative of our surroundings, it makes us aware of the world we live in. The physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawkins PhD has devoted his professional life trying to explain the creation and expansion of the Universe, “the mother of all theories” that lies in the center of the Cosmos. Is that going to help us find a cure for diabetes? No. Will the answer to Hawkins’ research lead to some kind of monetary remuneration? No. But the answer will shed light into our place in the universe and the laws that govern it; it will make the universe feel less immense. Last April, on the 150th anniversary of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), President Obama alluded to this while reaffirming the need to invest in research to help boost our economy, he noted that our nation needs to engage in research because “that’s who we are… is what makes us special and ultimately what makes life worth living”.
The Moment is Now
The year is 2013 and the moment is now. Funding in basic research can help us strengthen the economy,make our world cleaner, safer, enhance our national security, and help us fight disease. Therefore, inspite of the tough budget cuts and sequestration, funding for basic research must be a priori subject in federally funded science and technology programs; and scientists need to be part of the dialogue when developing science budgets since we can bring a different perspective to policy-makers based on empirical facts and critical thinking, not on biased ideologies and unjustified rationales. In this way scientists can help bridge the gap in the interface between knowledge and power.
About the Author
Dr. Elizabeth Padilla-Crespo is an Assistant Professor at the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico — Aguadilla. She has a double degree in Biotechnology and Industrial Microbiology from the University of Puerto Rico — Mayaguez, an M.S. in Biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in environmental Microbiology from the University of Tennesse — Knoxville. In 2015, Dr. Padilla decided to go back to Puerto Rico to contribute to the island’s “knowledge-based economy” by giving smart solutions to enhance detoxification of contaminated sites by applying sustainable technologies. In 2018, she participated in the Linton-Poodry SACNAS Leadership Institute.
