OTTAWA The editor of the worlds best-known science journal has issued a call to avoid getting carried away with massive human biology projects that show clear signs of diminishing returns. <\/p>\n
Bruce Alberts is editor-in-chief of Science magazine, and a biochemist by training. <\/p>\n
What triggered his warning, published Wednesday in an editorial, is the latest biology megaproject: 10 years of work by 442 scientists to create an encyclopedia of DNA elements. <\/p>\n
Biology has megaprojects of all sorts. There was the 15-year Human Genome Project, deciphering three billion pieces of our DNA code. <\/p>\n
Equally massive studies keep spinning off: proteomics (identifying all the proteins in cells), transcriptomics, epigenomics and metabolomics see the creation of encyclopedia-sized works by hundreds of researchers at many universities and governments, and their staffs. <\/p>\n
Whats wrong with that? Alberts warns that the governments funding these projects are producing mountains of data, but not enough understanding. <\/p>\n
As a coauthor of a textbook in cell biology that is updated at 5-year intervals, I am painfully aware of the huge gap that remains in our understanding of even the simplest cells, he writes. <\/p>\n
For instance, he argues, after 50 years of using the E. coli bacterium as a model, nearly a quarter of its more than 4,000 proteins have unknown functions. He calls this very sobering. <\/p>\n
There are clear signs of diminishing returns from the megaprojects, he said. But the culture supporting them remains difficult to stop, and he says its grabbing all the available money. <\/p>\n
Alberts is one of the worlds most influential figures in science policy, a past president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences with a global audience. Hes also a divergent thinker who has railed against the gobbledygook of science jargon and pleaded with researchers to speak (and write) plainer English. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Read more: OTTAWA The editor of the worlds best-known science journal has issued a call to avoid getting carried away with massive human biology projects that show clear signs of diminishing returns. Bruce Alberts is editor-in-chief of Science magazine, and a biochemist by training. What triggered his warning, published Wednesday in an editorial, is the latest biology megaproject: 10 years of work by 442 scientists to create an encyclopedia of DNA elements Continue reading
\nBiology megaprojects offer \u2018diminishing returns,\u2019 warns ex-National Academy of Sciences chief<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"