In March, California sent emails to a number of Berkeley Nobel laureates inviting them to comment on the current state of the scientific enterprise in America. Randy Schekman, a Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology and 2013 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, agreed to answer our questions. We hope to feature more of his fellow laureates here in future issues.
The Nobel Prize affords laureates a platform. Do they have an obligation to use it—even when it seems nobody’s listening?
I have signed many petitions, including, for example, to urge Congress not to confirm RFK Jr. as head of Health and Human Services. A lot of good that did. A spokesperson for the Trump team criticized the petition, arguing that Americans are tired of elitist opinions.
We may have a more effective voice in calling out problems within our own spheres of influence.
You’ve used your own platform to criticize prestige-driven publishing. How successful have your efforts been?
On the day before my Nobel ceremony, I published an editorial in the Guardian calling for a boycott of what I call the luxury journals, such as Cell, Nature, and Science, for what I feel is the toxic effect they exert on scholarship. This has become a subject of wide discussion in the biomedical research community. Efforts to diminish the impact of these highly selective journals in the evaluation of scholarship is a slow process that will take time for the culture to change, but I keep plugging away.
In an earlier email, you singled out the presidents of Harvard and Princeton as models for speaking out in defense of higher education against administration attacks. UC leadership has been notably quieter. Is that reticence understandable given the greater reliance of public universities on federal funding?
The presidents of Harvard and Princeton have just as much at stake in protecting their research budgets as do the chancellors and president of the UC system. Fortunately, UC faculty groups and our own law professor, Claudia Polsky, stepped up to fill the gap with successful litigation against the Trump administration.
The UC leadership is not alone in failing to address the mafia-like attempt to take down our academic freedoms. The most prominent organizations in support of science in this country—the National Academies of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science—have failed to adequately speak out in support of the essential role scientific research has played in the United States’ economic and technological preeminence since WWII.
Had the cuts to the NIH budget gone into effect at the scale proposed by the White House, what would be lost in cell biology and related fields?
The U.S. investment in basic research, including in areas such as cell biology, led directly to the creation of the biotechnology industry, the backbone of the trillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry worldwide. Heroic efforts of faculty groups and a few of our academic leaders have largely restored funding this year at the NIH and NSF, but the battle continues as the director of the Office of Management and Budget is determined to restrict even the funding approved by Congress.
Even if the funds return at a stable level, the damage has been done. Administrative staff at federal agencies who support the allocation of funds have been slashed, making it difficult to restore confidence in the federal government as a reliable partner.
Is private money a viable substitute for public funding of basic research?
Private philanthropy helps, but it is not generally available for blue-sky basic research and can in no way replace the role of federal and state governments in supporting truly basic research.
How has the uncertain funding picture affected your department?
Many of my colleagues are declining to consider admitting new Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows to their labs. Our departmental Ph.D. program used to admit 50 or more new Ph.D. students annually. This year our target is down to 20. This same problem plagues programs across the country. We may lose a generation of young scholars.
What’s the one big thing you want Berkeley students to understand about this moment in American science?
In spite of it all, I believe in the American spirit of ingenuity and industry. We will overcome these setbacks. We need new leadership to speak out in defense of science to counter the lies and restore truth to the American dialogue.
