Campaign to revitalise academic medicine: Is the bubble due to burst for medical research funding?

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7460.294-a

BMJ 2004;329:294 (31 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7460.294-a

Letter

Campaign to revitalise academic medicine

Is the bubble due to burst for medical research funding?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The campaign to revitalise academic medicine maywell demand radical thinking.¹ Many expect or hope for a continuationof the long term expansion of medical research funding, butconsider the fate of physics.

Physics was once the richest, most self confident, and mostprestigious science. The first half of the 20th century wasa golden age for its science, the time after the second worldwar a golden age for funding. Achievements did not match thehype, and support for physics has collapsed, fundamental physicsresearch now being pursued in only a few universities in theUnited Kingdom.

Similarly, the middle of the 20th century was the golden agefor clinical breakthroughs and biological science, which wasfollowed by massive expansion in research funding. But the rateof major clinical advances has not lived up to the spin.² TheHuman Genome Project was the costliest biological venture in. . . [Full text of this article]

Bruce G Charlton, editor in chief

Medical Hypotheses Bruce.Charlton@newcastle.ac.uk

Peter Andras, lecturer

School of Computing Science Henry Wellcome Building, School of Biology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU

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