NEWS&ANALYSIS

BIOMEDICINE Wellcome Puts Its Money on Elite Researchers The , the world’s largest of scientists, including its regular program, vating and regulating . “It didn’t let research charity, this week announced the project, and equipment grants, to free up you hide behind the detail of what you’re plan- first winners of a program of large single- about £110 million annually for a new pro- ning in the laboratory.” investigator awards to prominent biomedical gram that handsomely rewarded a smaller The star chamber “was completely researchers. While this is great news for the 27 cadre of scientists judged to have the poten- nerve-wracking” for molecular parasitolo- new Wellcome Investigators who will share tial to do groundbreaking research (Science, gist Alister Craig of the Liverpool School £57 million, hundreds of university-based 21 May 2010, p. 964). The plan has been lik- of Tropical Medicine, who won £1.4 million researchers stand to lose Wellcome funds as ened to the approach employed by HHMI, over 5 years to study the accumulation of the trust phases out some existing programs which concentrates most of its effort on sup- infected blood cells in the brains of patients to pay for the new category of investigators. porting 300 investigators in the United States. with cerebral malaria. Six of the awards are “It’s a very good mixture of for “New Investigators,” people with names,” says Wellcome chief Mark less than 5 years of postdoctoral Walport, who has championed the new experience. Craig, like some other awards as the best means of support- winners, says he’s “worried about ing exceptionally talented researchers people who are too old for the ‘new’ in Britain and elsewhere with globally investigator awards and not quite competitive and reliable funding. But ready for the ‘senior’ ones.” He says Paul Marshall, director of the 1994 he hopes that the trust will work out a Group of universities, warned that way to restore project-specifi c grants

other funders following the same path Favored few. Recipients of Wellcome Investigator awards: Liverpool’s in some shape or form. on June 2, 2011 could lead to “over-reliance on a small Alister Craig, Pedro Hallal from Brazil, and Oxford’s Peter Rothwell. Clinician Peter Rothwell of the number of research ‘stars,’ and fears University of Oxford thinks that he for maintaining a broad base.” Wellcome vetted the resumés of 750 appli- was helped by having a project straddling two The Wellcome Trust, whose endowment cants and chose 173 to complete an appli- fi elds—in his case, neuroscience and public stood at £13.9 billion last year, will spend cation form that asked a handful of simple health. His team will use a £2.5 million award £750 million this year on its full range of questions about what the applicant was seek- to study practical steps to avert strokes, how ships, grant programs, and research ing to investigate, how they’d do it, and why variable blood pressure contributes to them, laboratories. Its annual budget matches that it mattered. Nine review panels then picked and the nonvascular effects of aspirin. “They

of the publicly funded 55 candidates to attend a “star chamber” were willing to let me draw together these www.sciencemag.org Coun- of prominent researchers; each was given three strands,” he says. cil (MRC) and slightly 10 minutes and three slides to make his or her Hallal, 31, will study how physical exer- exceeds that of its clos- case, before a brief interrogation. cise by mothers and children affects lifelong est U.S. equivalent, the The result, announced on 2 June, was health. “Funding for research in Brazil is Howard Hughes Medi- 25 individual awards and one shared award, almost always short term,” says Hallal, who cal Institute (HHMI). over periods of up to 7 years, worth a total of came across the program while visiting the

The trust announced in £57 million. Wellcome expects to issue three United Kingdom on a Royal Society fellow- Downloaded from 2009 that it was going or four smaller rounds of such awards each ship. “Seven years of support is extraordi- to phase out several year, and if these refl ect the fi rst round, it will narily important for my career.” Edinburgh long-running fund- end up supporting more than 300 awardees at Researchers are now eager to see what ing streams that a rate of about £350,000 a year each. effect this concentration of funds will have on support hundreds The 26 awards are heavily concentrated U.K. biomedical research. Wellcome’s proj- among a handful of institutions: 21 of them ect grants “were the fi rst step on the ladder for Wellcome Backs are going to the so-called golden triangle cit- many of us,” says Jonathan Weber, director of the Golden Triangle ies of , Cambridge, and Oxford, with medical research at . Manchester Liverpool 15 going to just four universities. Four awards Applications for MRC grants have gone up go to scientists elsewhere in the United King- “markedly” since the Wellcome ones closed, dom. Pedro Hallal of Federal University of he says: “We still see that as unresolved.” Cambridge Pelotas in Brazil is the only recipient working , vice-chancellor of the Oxford outside the United Kingdom. University of Cambridge, which won four London Awardees say the selection process made awards, believes the impact will be positive: a refreshing change from conventional grant “Universities will adapt to this way of funding Brighton Pelotas, applications. The written application pro- research.” MRC Chief Executive John Savill Brazil cess “was much shorter than usual but much points out that the United Kingdom spends Senior Investigator Award New Investigator Award harder to do,” recalls , a struc- £3 billion a year on biomedical research, leav- Joint Senior/New Investigator Award tural biologist at the who ing “a lot of alternatives” to the discontinued Familiar territory. Wellcome focuses its awards on won about £2.5 million over 7 years to study Wellcome programs. –COLIN MACILWAIN

U.K. powerhouses Oxford, Cambridge, and London. the role of the Hsp90 molecular carrier in acti- Colin Macilwain is a writer based in Edinburgh, U.K. PETER ROTHWELL OF C. OF PEDRO HALLAL; COURTESY PHOTO CREDITS (LEFT RIGHT):TO ©MCCOY WYNNE; COURTESY

1138 3 JUNE 2011 VOL 332 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS