CONTENTS
BUDGET, APPROPRIATIONS, TAX ISSUES
- Rally for Medical Research Holds Capitol Hill Day
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
- HHS Issues Proposed Rule on Human Subjects Protection in Research
OTHER
- Coalition for International Education to Hold Hill Briefing on September 21
- Fourth Annual Golden Goose Awards Honor Researchers; Odd-sounding Work Yielded Big Results
BUDGET, APPROPRIATIONS, TAX ISSUES
RALLY FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH HOLDS CAPITOL HILL DAY
More than 300 biomedical researchers, patients, and family members gathered in Washington, DC, September 16-17 to call on Congress to make funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) a national priority.
The fourth annual “Rally for Medical Research” was supported by more than 275 national organizations, including AAU, and by several AAU member universities. Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), chair of the House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee, told rally participants they should share their personal stories in order to “push Congress to a budget deal that would adequately fund NIH.” AAU Associate Vice President for Federal Relations Lizbet Boroughs also spoke at the rally.
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
HHS ISSUES PROPOSED RULE ON HUMAN SUBJECTS PROTECTION IN RESEARCH
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on September 2 released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on potential changes to federal rules governing the use of human subjects in research. The proposed changes would update the so-called Common Rule; they follow an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued in 2011. Among other changes, the rule would require institutions to use a single institutional review board (IRB) for multi-site studies.
AAU, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), and the Council on Governmental Relations are working together on a response to the NPRM. Last January, AAU and APLU filed a joint letter offering support for the concept of the single IRB for multi-site studies, but expressing concerns regarding its implementation.
COALITION FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION TO HOLD HILL BRIEFING ON SEPTEMBER 21
The Coalition for International Education and five collaborating universities on Monday, September 21, will host a Capitol Hill briefing on Title VI International Education and Fulbright Hays programs. The collaborating institutions are Georgetown University, Indiana University, The University of Arizona, University of Michigan, and Vanderbilt University.
The briefing will be 2:00-3:30 p.m. EDT in 2261 Rayburn House Office Building. Attendees are asked to RSVP to Alexandra Moran at [email protected].
The program will include a panel discussion by campus program administrators, a former student who will discuss the career impact of these programs, and a community partner who has benefitted from Title VI outreach.
OTHER
FOURTH ANNUAL GOLDEN GOOSE AWARDS HONOR RESEARCHERS; ODD-SOUNDING WORK YIELDED BIG RESULTS
Seven researchers whose work might have sounded odd or impractical at the time it was conducted, but which led to major human and economic benefits, were honored at the fourth annual Golden Goose Award ceremony held on September 17 at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
Veteran journalist and educator Frank Sesno served as master of ceremonies for the event, at which five members of the House and Senate spoke and the award winners participated in a roundtable discussion about their work. The program included a video explaining the nature and importance of the awardees’ research.
The Members of Congress who spoke were Reps. Jim Cooper (D-TN)—whose idea it was to create the Golden Goose Award—Randy Hultgren (R-IL), Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), and Robert Dold (R-IL), and Senator Chris Coons (D-DE).
During the roundtable discussion, the awardees discussed the importance to their careers of steady funding from the federal research agencies, particularly the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Awardee Joel Cohen said the award winners on the stage were no accident: there was a long ramp-up with federal research support before their takeoff.
The scientists stressed the responsibility of both scientists and journalists to make the case to the public about the importance of federal funding of basic research and of young investigators. Walter Mischel, creator of the “Marshmallow Test” for gauging self-control in young children, said he had written a book explaining his work for that purpose. Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist Torsten Wiesel noted that he had funded an international award to recognize individuals or organizations that have done extraordinary work in explaining or promoting science to the public and policy makers.
The three sets of awardees were:
- Joel E. Cohen and Christopher Small for their interdisciplinary research on how human populations are distributed by altitude. Their pioneering research on hypsographic demography has provided crucial insights in areas as diverse as food production and packaging, semiconductor manufacturing, and biomedical research and development.
- Walter Mischel, Yuichi Shoda, and Philip Peake for their creation and development of the Marshmallow Test, which has had an enormous impact on our understanding of human development, self-control, education, and the complexity of human behavior.
- Torsten Wiesel and the late David Hubel for their seminal work on neuroplasticity, which has led to extraordinary progress in understanding brain processing, and to better treatments for childhood vision disorders and teaching computers how to process images.
The Golden Goose Award was founded in 2012 by a coalition of business, university, and scientific organizations, including AAU, to recognize seemingly obscure, federally funded research that has led to major advances in such areas as public health, national security, energy, the environment, and communications. The Award was the brainchild of Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), who had the idea for the award when the late Senator William Proxmire (D-WI) was issuing the Golden Fleece Award to target wasteful federal spending and often targeted peer-reviewed science because it sounded odd. Rep. Cooper believed such an award was needed to counter the false impression that odd-sounding research was not useful.