NEWS IN FOCUS

INFRASTRUCTURE Labs not ready for disasters Facilities need to protect equipment and animals. NV/EPA/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK JAGADEESH

BY SARA REARDON

hen Hurricane Sandy hit New York City in 2012, it destroyed scientific Students and researchers rally for more science funding in Bangalore, India. equipment worth more than WUS$20 million at New York University’s (NYU’s) INDIA Langone Medical Center. Five years later, many research institutions in the United States are still unprepared for disasters, according to a 10 August report by the US National Acad- Thousands march in emies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report examined what happened to research facilities during past disasters, asked support of science people how they had changed their policies and procedures, and consulted with disaster and risk-management experts. It recommends Protestors in India demand respect for research. that universities and scientists protect biomed- ical research from emergencies on all scales, BY T. V. PADMA, DELHI than 1,000 people marched in the southern including natural disasters, cyberattacks and city of Bangalore, the society said. In Delhi, terrorism (see go.nature.com/2wihzko). housands of scientists, university India’s capital, some 200 people took to the Biomedical research is especially vulnerable, students and science enthusiasts streets, carrying placards with messages says lead author Georges Benjamin, execu- gathered in dozens of Indian cities to such as “Defend science, not defund science”. tive director of the American Public Health Tmarch in support of science on 9 August — Asked why IGIB scientists had been told not Associa­tion, a non-profit organization in lamenting their country’s low levels of fund- to attend, institute director Sanjay Kumar Washington DC. Insurance companies may ing for research, and complaining about said that it was a safety measure. cover expensive machinery, but resources government promotion of ‘unscientific ideas’. The March for Science events focused such as strains of engineered mice and cells are But several scientists Nature spoke to said attention on India’s stagnant investment irreplaceable, and it is hard for the companies they had stayed away, either because they in research and development. Succes- to quantify their value. Researchers at NYU lost had been asked not to attend or because sive govern­ments have promised to raise 751 lines of genetically modified animals that they feared repercussions from higher author- investment to 2% of gross domestic prod- existed nowhere else. ities. These researchers included some at the uct (GDP), but the proportion invested has The report recommends that institutions Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology remained around 0.9% for the past decade. appoint a “chief resilience officer” who can (IGIB) in Delhi, who said the institute had sent March organizers say the government should handle contingency plans for various scenarios an e-mail directing them not to take part in the invest 3% of GDP in research. But Ashutosh and institute mandatory training for staff to march, without specifying a reason. Sharma, secretary of India’s Department of prepare them for emergencies. The Indian demonstrations come Science and Technology (DST), disagrees in Researchers should take responsibility for four months after the global March for Sci- part with the complaints. Funding for India’s protecting their own work by ensuring that the ence on 22 April, which saw people gather in ministry of science and technology (which most critical data, samples and resources are at least 600 cities around the world to sup- allocates cash to the DST among other agen- duplicated and stored at other locations, says port scientific research and evidence-based cies) has risen by double-digit percentages Benjamin. It is also important that institutions policy­making. On that day, only two Indian annually since 2014–15, he points out — re-evaluate whether their current risk assess- cities, Hyderabad and Coimbatore, took part. outstripping the country’s economic growth. ments are accurate in the light of threats such “We felt that the global march was more to The marchers also protested against the as climate change, he adds. do with the [US President Donald] Trump government’s support for what they call The report says that funders such as the administration’s anti-science perspective, unscientific ideas. Rath cites a government US National Institutes of Health should do more and not related to Indian science problems,” push for research institutions to investigate to help pay for equipment and infrastructure says Satyajit Rath, an immunologist at the the health benefits of cow products such redesigns and preparedness efforts. Institutions Agharkar Research Institute in Pune who as milk and urine, apparently motivated in are becoming better about such preparation, attended a march in his city on 9 August. “In part by religious groups’ veneration of the says report co-author Bradford Goodwin, retrospect, we should have participated more cow as a sacred animal. “It is incumbent former animal-facilities director at the keenly in the global march,” he says. upon the representatives of the government University of Texas Health Science Center in Some 40 cities across India saw marches to acknowledge that scientific knowledge is Houston. But most people still think it will last week, says the Breakthrough Science based on free and open enquiry,” Rath says. never happen to them, he says. “We’ve got to Society, an advocacy group headquartered “Research should not be used for validation change that attitude.” ■ in Kolkata that coordinated the events. More of prejudices and ideology.” ■

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