The Basic Science That Is Epidemiology

A few weeks ago Alberts et al published a PNAS Perspective with the attention-grabbing title “Rescuing US Biomedical Research From It Systematic Flaws.”(1) The authors noted that we suffer from “a severe imbalance between the dollars available for research and the still growing scientific community in United States.” At the National Institutes of Health (NIH), we are painfully aware of this, as over the past 10 years we have seen a steady decline in purchasing power, while the number of grant applications has increased and success rates have decreased. In 2000, while the NIH-doubling was still underway, 32% of R01 grant applications were funded; in 2013, that proportion had fallen to 17%.(2)