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French Review Research Strategy © 1995 Nature Publishing Group http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine • NEWS is try- keen to find an acceptable and cost­ effective alternative to vasectomy (it is esti­ French review research strategy mated that a single injection would cost less than US$0.30) - Guha is pushing The French government has promised Priority programmes ahead with a clinical trial to test the effi­ FF257 million (US$51 million) more than cacy of the technique in humans. The trial Genetics - Genome structural and two years to support a new national strat­ functional analysis began in January, and surgeons at the Lok egy for research in the life sciences in a - Human genetics Nayak )aya Prakash Hospital have already move that it claims demonstrates its 'com­ - Genetics and the environment injected 30 young, married male volun­ mitment' in this area. Many researchers are teers (all with children) with the polymer. concerned, however, that the new strategy Developmental biology, reproduction and ageing A total of 120 men will eventually be re­ will represent more centralized control cruited as part of a multicentre study to test over research spending and the creation of Structural biology and pharmacochemistry both efficacy and reversibility. a 'super' research council within the min­ Badri Saksena, deputy chief of the Indian istry of higher education and research. Environmental - Microbiological sciences ecosystems Council of Medical Research, one of four Moreover, many have yet to be convinced - Systematics and institutions taking part in the study, and that much new money will be forth­ biodiversity head of the council's reproductive research coming. - Biological effects of Ionizing radiation programme, expects that it will take two Under the new plans, seven research years to determine the polymer's efficacy, areas have been singled out as priority Physiopathological - Cardiovascular mechanisms physiopathology and and another year to find out if its effect is areas, within which there will be 14 pro­ phanmacology reversible. grammes or themes (see box). Each pro­ - Prion biopathology - Cell imaging and The council funded all of Guha's earlier gramme will be administered directly by a mechanics in neuro­ work but was not willing to support for the scientific committee created within the biopathology latest trial (so the health ministry stepped ministry, such that the ministry itself will - Multidisciplinary development of in as sponsor) until his team had demon­ make calls for research proposals and will functional imaging strated that the procedure could be re­ make decisions on who gets funded. Bioinformatics versed. Members of the committee will be ap­ "The fact that it was reversed in animals pointed by the ministry from lists proposed Biotechnology does not mean it would work in humans," by the main research agencies, the Centre says Saksena. The council also insisted that National de Ia Recherche Scientifique Another concern is that these funds may Guha show that the polymer is not toxic in (CNRS), the biomedical research agency, not represent new money. "Are we talking non-target organs (the vas deferens is about the Institut Nationale pour Ia Sante et about extra money or simply a transfer of 0.6 mm in diameter and so may be difficult Recherche Medicale (INSERM), and other money [to the ministry] which would usu­ for inexperienced technicians to locate). research organizations. ally be given to the research organiza­ Guha says that the question of toxicity Reaction to the proposals among re­ tions?" asks Axel Kahn, head of the in non-target tissues was answered in the searchers has been mixed. Some observers Institute of Genetics and Molecular Biology earlier safety trial: none of the 46 male vol­ welcome the ministry's decision to focus in Paris. "We will see if this has any effect in unteers experienced any adverse reaction funding for the life sciences, which they the budget of organizations in 1996." in the three years of follow-up. Moreover, claim has become too fragmented. But Pierre Tambourin, director of life sciences Guha claims that in a few cases he has Pierre Chambon, director of the Institute of at CNRS - which has had its general bud­ shown that the technique can be reversed, Genetics and Molecular and Cell Biology in get cut 13 per cent during the past two although the data are not published. Strasbourg, also warns that the move could years - claims, for example, that some of How the polymer works as a contracep­ mean that basic research may be sacrificed the areas he had given priority to within his tive is not clear. Scanning electron micro­ in favour of research funded on a short­ institute, such as the biology of ageing and scope studies and enzyme assays have, term basis. structural biology, have almost come to a however, given Guha's team clues. From Scepticism has been heightened because standstill as a result. these studies it appears that membranes overall state funding of research, including As part of the effort to develop a national covering the head of sperm fracture on the life sciences, is being cut back. "At the strategy for the life sciences, the ministry in contract with the polymer, resulting in same time as our budgets are being low­ late February announced its plans to take leakage of enzymes that are essential if pen­ ered, we are now being told of new mea­ control of three-quarters of the FF80 million etration of the egg is to be successful. sures which won't produce any new funds (US$16 million) budget previously allocated Apart from obtaining a better under­ until the autumn," says Chambon. this year to the national genome agency standing of the mechanisms involved, Another concern is that only FF153 mil­ GREG (Groupement de Recherches et d'E­ Guha's team also hopes to improve the lion (US$30 million) of the proposed FF257 tudes sur les Genomes. "If the ministry technology for polymer delivery. Now, sur­ million will be made available for the new doesn't trust the research organizations, geons must make an incision to expose the programme this year; the remainder will then why not simply say so and appoint vas so that the needle can be inserted. still be subject to approval by parliament new directors," says one CNRS official. Guha hopes in future to be able to avoid this autumn. Adding to the uncertainty is Filion refutes such claims, and says that this minor surgery, so that the procedure is the prospect that Fran~ois Filion, science the new framework is simply more "flexible as simple as a subcutaneous injection. minister and the main architect of the new and efficient." K. S. ]AYARAMAN strategy, is likely to be replaced following CATIIERINE T ASTEMAIN New Delhi the presidential elections in May. Paris NATURE MEDICINE, VOLUME I, NUMBER 4 APRIL 1995 293 .
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