The Coalition for Bridging the Sciences is an organization representing over 260,000 scientists seeking to advance research at the interface of the biomedical sciences and the physical, mathematical and computational sciences. The coalition believes that by emphasizing research on the components of physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and computer science that interface with biology and medicine, we can “bridge the sciences” and fill in gaps in current scientific research and develop new tools to fuel the next generation of research in the life sciences (or some such statement). Support for this cross-disciplinary and upstream research would provide a greater understanding of biological processes and would allow for accelerated discovery of solutions to some of the most difficult problems in biomedicine. Furthermore, by enhancing federal support for breakthrough scientific discoveries, we can enhance America’s competitive edge over the rest of the world economically and intellectually.
Member organizations are: American Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences, American Chemical Society, American Crystallographic Association, American Mathematical Society, American Physical Society, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, American Society of Mass Spectrometry, Biophysical Society, International Society for Computational Biology, National Space Biomedical Research Institute Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh, Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh, and The Protein Society.
Why is it necessary to advocate for research at the interface?
The federal government funding agencies are set up as independent silos, with the National Institutes of Health funding biomedicine and the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy Office of Science funding physical science and nonmedical biology. Science at the interface falls between the cracks. A new program focused specifically on cross-disciplinary and upstream research is necessary to ensure that cross-disciplinary research is given the support in deserves.
Supporting research at the intersection of biomedical and physical, mathematical and computational sciences will facilitate groundbreaking science that lead to new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies that will save and enhance lives. Breakthroughs such as x-ray crystallography, CAT scans, and magnetic resonance imaging have had an enormous and important effect on biology. These discoveries were funded by sources, such as the Bell Labs, which are no longer in existence. Thus, it is very difficult for researchers to work on similar breakthrough technologies today.
What is the Bridging the Sciences Demonstration Program?
The Coalition’s advocacy and education efforts paid off when the Bridging the Sciences Demonstration Program was created by H.R. 6164, The NIH Reform Act of 2006. The program is funded out of the NIH Director’s Office. The program does not have its own line item in the Congressional budget. An Oversight committee, chaired by NIGMS Director Jeremy Berg and NIBIB Director Rod Pettigrew, is in charge of the program. As of May 2009, the program is under development by a trans-NIH and multi agency committee.
What Should the Bridging the Sciences Demonstration Program Look Like?
The Coalition believes an ideal demonstration program will include a statement that the NIH is serious about bringing in new communities of researchers from the physical, mathematical, and computational sciences. The program will demonstrate its commitment to these communities by setting up special review panels and application requirements. Specifically, the review panels for the program will include reviewers from the physics, chemistry, computational, and mathematics communities in addition to the biology community. When appropriate, there will be less emphasis on preliminary data in the application, which is currently difficult for scientists outside of biology to address. The program will provide grants of varying sizes and lengths to accommodate a variety of research.
Once the NIH budget begins receiving budget increases again, the program will grow to a size that allows it to be a feasible option for researchers with success rates comparable to other extramural individual investigator grant programs sponsored by the NIH.
Bridging the Sciences Supporting Documents
The Coalition has authored and collected several resources that provide more information on bridging the sciences.
Coalition for Bridging the Sciences: Supporting Cross Disciplinary and Upstream Research
Summary of the June 2004 Meeting on Federal Support for Research at the Interface of the Physical, Math, Computational, and Life Sciences
Bridging the Sciences: What Scientific Opportunities Are We Missing? Prepared for the National Institutes of Health Director, 5/30/2007
Bridging the Sciences: A Federal Research Initiative White Paper
For more information or if your organization would like to join the Bridging the Sciences Coalition, please contact
Ellen R. Weiss at eweiss@biophysics.org.