Laureates Speak at 50-Year NINDS Meeting the Lack of Sophisticated Instruments Despite Winning the Nobel Prize in Pies in a Rational Way

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one limitation in his own research is Laureates speak at 50-year NINDS meeting the lack of sophisticated instruments Despite winning the Nobel Prize in pies in a rational way. to determine how proteins fold—ad- 1997 for his work, Stanley Prusiner is Based on initial data showing that vances that can only come through still stinging from years of fighting the the antimalarial drug basic research. scientific community’s initial scepti- quinacrine could clear On the sub- cism about his research into the cause the pathogenic form ject of funding, of transmissible spongiform en- of the prion protein the Nobelists at- cephalopathies. from cells, Prusiner’s tributed much During a presentation at a two-day team has begun Phase of their own symposium at the United States III clinical trials of the success and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) last drug to treat nvCJD significant month, held to mark the 50th anniver- patients. Although a progress of neu- sary of the creation of the National temporary improve- roscience re- Institute of Neurological Disorders and ment of symptoms search to Stroke (NINDS), Prusiner showed a was seen in a 20-year Courtesty of Arthur W. Toga, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, UCLA generous fund- slide depicting his critics as sharks sit- old woman, her condition continued ing by NIH. “NIH is a model of how sci- ting around a conference table. to worsen over time. ence should be supported,” said Amid the tight security that has be- Kandel’s work into the basic Wiesel. Kandel who trained at NIH in come routine at federal buildings since processes of learning and memory—for the late 1950s described NIH as “scien- September 11, the NIH convened lead- which he won a Nobel Prize last year— tific Nirvana.” ers in neuroscience research to discuss is also leading the way to potential The praise comes at a time when the how the field has progressed in the past medicines. He has founded a New US Congress is considering the 2002 half-century and the prospects of fu- Jersey-based biotechnology company, budget for the biomedical agency. As ture neurological therapies. Memory Pharmaceuticals, which iden- Nature Medicine went to press, the Prusiner’s group has embarked on tified its first drug candidates to pre- Senate Appropriations Committee had clinical research into treatments for vent memory loss this year. approved a $3.4 billion raise for NIH, new variant Creutzfeldt–Jacob disease Despite the focus on therapies, the bringing the budget to $23.7 billion for (nvCJD), and during a panel discussion Nobelists stressed the importance of FY2002—an amount that would keep among Nobel laureates Paul Greengard continued funding for basic research. the NIH budget on track to double be- and Torsten Wiesel (Rockefeller Wiesel said that it is important to fund tween FY1999 and 2003. The Senate University) and Eric Kandel (Columbia mathematicians, chemists, physics, figure was substantially higher than University), Prusiner said that there is along with biologists, because “techni- the $2.5 billion increase proposed by

© http://medicine.nature.com Group 2001 Nature Publishing now a sufficient body of knowledge in cal developments have allowed major President Bush and approved by the so many fields of neuroscience that re- advances [in biology]”. House. searchers can start to examine thera- Prusiner agreed, pointing out that Laura Bonetta, Bethesda Wellcome combines population and disease teams Britain’s Wellcome Trust has long had group aims to foster research training plans to create a new center in Latin an interest in two separate but closely re- fellowships and project grants, and pro- America, funding applications for which lated fields: the dynamics of population vide “a reliable evidence base to enable will be sought next year. growth, particularly in developing coun- governments and health organizations •HCPC will focus on five key ‘drivers’ tries, and the control and treatment of to make the best use of scarce healthcare of population change: ‘Westernized’ diseases, such as diabetes resources.” •Estimated population growth of 2.8 and heart disease, which increasingly af- Officials at Wellcome point out that billion people in the developing world fect the industrialized world through on the global scale, sweeping demo- over the next 50 years and the extra changes in lifestyle and behavior. graphic and socio-economic changes are pressure this will place on healthcare Now the trust is to combine its support having a profound effect on patterns of systems of research in these two areas into a new disease, with significant implications for •A dramatic increase over the next 25 £65 million (US$90 million) Health healthcare delivery. “The greatest im- years both in the proportion of young Consequences of Population Change pact of these changes will be in the de- people and the size of the population (HCPC) research program. This will bring veloping world, where resources are over 65 years of age together Wellcome’s Population Studies scarce and public health infrastructure •The impact of large-scale refugee Programme, which was launched in 1995 least develop,” they point out. movements on disease partly in response to the lack of research A significant proportion of the funds •The similar impact of mass move- in the field identified after the UN for the program will be spent supporting ment of individuals from the country- Population Conference in Cairo the pre- work at centers of excellence that have side to cities vious year, with its separate already been established under the pre- •Widespread changes in lifestyle and Noncommunicable Disease initiative. vious population studies effort in behavior that are altering the illnesses Positioned at “the interface between Southeast Asia, South Africa, Singapore experienced in developing countries. biomedical and social sciences,” the and Lebanon. In addition, there are David Dickson, London

NATURE MEDICINE • VOLUME 7 • NUMBER 11 • NOVEMBER 2001 1171