Words of wisdom from Nobel Laureates in Lindau
Young scientists were not the only ones learning from the eminent speakers attending the 57th Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany. While the 563 talented young researchers in attendance were the target for each Laureate's words of wisdom, at least one laureate admitted that he had learnt something new and important from one of the lectures. The claim was made by Craig Mello, joint winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his RNA interference discovery. Professor Mello listened to a lecture by fellow laureate Hartmut Michel (joint winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre), who dismissed biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels. Professor Michel claimed that not only do we not have the space to grow the crops that we would need to produce biofuels in the necessary quantity, but that the process of converting crops into energy would require conventional fossil fuels, meaning that the result would not be carbon neutral. Professor Michel calculates that Germany would need an area of crops larger than the size of Germany in order to meet the country's energy needs with biofuels. 'Before today I thought that biofuels weren't perhaps the best alternative, but I didn't realise that the discussion now is over whether we should even be trying,' said Professor Mello. An exchange of views on how much information diagnostics can provide was also fascinating for many of those present. During a round table discussion on basic science in molecular medicine, Leland Hartwell, joint winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, said that he was not sure that focusing on therapeutics is always right, particularly in cancer research. Professor Hartwell is now Director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in the US. Instead he would like to see improvements in scientists' abilities to diagnose disease earlier and predict who is at risk. Timothy Hunt, who shared the 2001 prize with Professor Hartwell, suggested that Prof Hartwell might be 'overly optimistic' regarding diagnostics. 'It would be wonderful if a tiny drop of blood could tell you what is wrong and where in the body. It's a wonderful dream and we should aspire to it, but we shouldn't expect it to happen in the near future,' said Professor Hunt. This discussion led Professor Mello to the subject of gene therapy, which he referred to as 'a sleeping giant', and then to inequalities in healthcare access. 'My concern is that we will have to ration treatment, that we will have cures that will be too expensive for some,' he said. 'Everything we do will be pointless unless we address these kinds of issues. We need to broaden our thinking,' continued Professor Mello, to a round of applause from the audience of young researchers. In the defence of scientists, Professor Hartwell did point out that medical interventions do become more affordable and more available over time. Günter Blobel, winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, added: 'Scientists cannot solve everything. This is a political problem. As scientists we can only try to educate politicians. 'It is very important for the future generation to engage with the public, not in a condescending way. You must inform them what is going on,' Professor Blobel told the young researchers. 'Cells dancing are far more beautiful than any Hollywood movie. We are not trained to be actors or journalists, but you are,' he said later to journalists. He appealed to the media to perfect the art of simplification, without over-simplification, warning: 'If you don't succeed, we will have more fundamentalism, ignorance, stupidity.' Asked to elaborate further on how the Nobel Laureates use their influence, Professor Hartwell spoke of his time spent building teams and securing funding. 'I don't go into the lab and roll my sleeves up any more,' he said. Professor Mello pointed out that he is still new to the Nobel Laureate club, and said that he is still trying to navigate all of the possibilities that are being offered to him. 'One thing that is troubling is that I get asked a lot to sign up to things, usually to be against something. I would like us to get together as a group and what we can do 'for' rather than against,' he said. 'I have been lending my weight to the way the EU funds science,' said Professor Hunt. He told CORDIS News that he would like to see more emphasis on individual researchers, with pure excellence the only criterion for funding. He was very much in favour of the European Research Council (ERC), which does indeed assess funding applications solely on the basis of excellence. 'Funding bad science is a huge waste of money,' said Professor Hunt. The Nobel Laureates had sound advice for the young researchers, given in response to questions from the floor on failure, publishing and sharing ideas. The laureates were unanimous in saying that all researchers should expect failure. 'Beautiful ideas are very often killed by ugly facts,' said Professor Blobel. 'If you're not failing all the time, you're not doing research. There's a reason why they call it 're'search,' offered Professor Mello. 'Much of my time is spent troubleshooting; the clever guys are the ones who can troubleshoot quickly,' said Professor Hunt. He advised the young researchers present to always be extremely sceptical of their results, and to always carry out several controls. It is after all better that the researcher finds faults with his or her research, rather than leaving them to be found by others. 'Wishful thinking is the enemy in good science,' he said. In answer to a question on how to choose which area to pursue, the laureates advised: choosing something that is important and interesting, and then keep chipping away at it (Hunt); finding a basic problem (Blobel); and finding something that you are passionate about (Hartwell). A discussion on publishing highlighted just how much things have changed since the laureates were themselves starting out in their research careers. Publishing is now widely regarded as a measure of success and career progression. But it should not be so, the laureates agreed. 'It is unfortunate that molecular biology is becoming a career path because this brings with it ideas of what is acceptable progress,' said Professor Hartwell. 'There needs to be more appreciation of creativity without short-term measures of progress,' he added. 'It's a courageous path to not write papers for eight journals, but to wait for the answer and then publish in one big journal,' added Professor Hunt, who claimed that 'it was much easier when I was little'. Another important dilemma facing young researchers is to what extent they should share their ideas with their peers. Will their ideas be stolen if they do this? 'The benefits of talking far outweigh the risks,' said Professor Mello. 'Why waste your time trying to be the first to publish something? If you have half the picture and somebody else has the other half, collaborate and then move on to the bigger picture,' he advised. He explained that talking about your ideas will also often reap benefits later on that you were not expecting. A second researcher may not even know that he or she is working on a problem related to yours when a conversation takes place, but a few years later, that conversation could provide lead to the answer that one or both have been looking for, suggested Professor Mello.