Research, Telomers and Jeans for Genes Day- Dr Scott Cohen

Scott, yourself and Professor Tracey Bryant were both the recipients of some Cancer Council New South Wales funding.

How has that assisted in your research so far?

Uh, yeah.

So it's been very crucial.

It's provided us stability and continuity in our research.

Uh, no secret research.

Expensive, it takes money.

Um, what's very important also in scientific research is the stability and continuity.

I mentioned the timescale of research.

You know, it's years, even decades.

And now the grant cycle is often, you know, every couple years, um, sort of never ending.

Um, but reality is, you know, a major research project, you know, will cover multiple grant cycles, you know? And so to have that stability and continuity to continue the research is very important.

Uh, now Cancer Council, uh, generally a- as a, as a not-for-profit, um, institution, um, is, is crucial because the competitive grant schemes that, uh, most scientists pursue through the, the federal government, um, in particular there's the National Health and Medical Research Council that's the federally funded, um, research, uh, research grant scheme.

Uh, unfortunately, those have become more and more competitive over the years.

Um, you know, rather than government funding increasing over the years, it's gone down and is continuing to go down.

Now, your listeners there might be surprised.

I mean, most people I speak to think, you know, we write our research grants, we submit them, we get the money, and off we go.

Uh, your listeners might be surprised that, uh, over, from several years now, only one out of 10, uh, biomedical research grant proposals have been funded by the federal government.

Okay? If I flip that on it- its head, nine out of 10 research applications for funding have been rejected, and it has almost nothing to do with scientific quality.

You know, most of these are sound science.

It's, essentially it's poor funding at the federal level, and this is where these nonprofit institutions like Cancer Council come in and fill the gap and are really crucial for scientists like me to give us that continuity and stability for another few more years, you know, until we can try the application process again.

So I, I might, uh, take this [laughs] opportunity.

If, if your listeners, you know, you might, they might be surprised at how, how challenging funding is.

I would, I would, uh, say to the listeners, you know, write to your federal parliamentarian and demand an answer to the question, why are nine out of 10 biomedical research proposals being rejected?

Mm.