Biomedical Research Quotes

My own experience of over 60 years in biomedical research amply demonstrated that without the use of animals and of human beings, it would have been impossible to acquire the important knowledge needed to prevent much suffering and premature death not only among humans but also among [other] animals.

American scientists make the most important discoveries in medicine and genetics and publish more biomedical research than those of any other country—but the average American’s health remains worse and slower-improving than that of peers in other rich countries, and in certain years life expectancy actually declines.

Flexner's good intentions had laid the groundwork for the specialty- and research-dominated system of medical education that still stands- the more prestigious the school, the greater the emphasis on biomedical research and the less the emphasis on pragmatic medical care.

Biomedical research is done by teams. The research is time-consuming and deeply expensive, and the results are often disappointing. With persistence, talent, and luck, and plenty of money, a biomedical research team can sometimes pull the veil off some small mystery of nature and the human body, and can find a better way to treat a disease.

He agreed that BiDil should be approved without regard to race, noting that American cardiologists “jumped on the statin drugs” once the Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study showed they were effective. “Would you restrict the results of the Scandinavian trial to Scandinavian people?” he asked. “I don’t think so.”17 Dr. Curry’s colleague Charles Rotimi, from Howard University’s National Human Genome Center, echoed this position. Rotimi warned that upholding an unproven biological explanation for health disparities would steer biomedical research in a dangerous direction. “It would be tragic not to approve [BiDil],” Rotimi said, “and it would be even more tragic just to approve it for African Americans.” 18

The body remembers. It waits, patiently, until we feel strong enough to meet the parts we have abandoned. The ones we want most to forget.

the Blank Slate had, and has, a dark side. The vacuum that it posited in human nature was eagerly filled by totalitarian regimes, and it did nothing to prevent their genocides. It perverts education, childrearing, and the arts into forms of social engineering. It torments mothers who work outside the home and parents whose children did not turn out as they would have liked. It threatens to outlaw biomedical research that could alleviate human suffering.

I think this is going to trigger ‘Sputnik 2.0,’ a biomedical duel on progress between China and the United States,” said Carl June, a noted cancer researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who at the time was still struggling to get regulatory approval for a similar clinical trial.

A second reason for declining to provide a date for superintelligent AI is that there is no clear threshold that will be crossed. Machines already exceed human capabilities in some areas. Those areas will broaden and deepen, and it is likely that there will be superhuman general knowledge systems, superhuman biomedical research systems, superhuman dexterous and agile robots, superhuman corporate planning systems, and so on well before we have a completely general superintelligent AI system. These “partially superintelligent” systems will, individually and collectively, begin to pose many of the same issues that a generally intelligent system would.

The Genetics of Asthma lab is one of countless research projects at universities and biotech firms around the country hunting for the genes that are responsible for health disparities in America. They are supplementing a large body of published studies that claim to show that racial gaps in disease prevalence or mortality are caused by genetic differences. In addition to asthma, disparities in infant mortality, diabetes, cancer, and hypertension have all been attributed in the scientific literature to genetic vulnerability that varies according to race. Most of these studies never even examined the genotypes of research subjects, as Burchard’s lab does; they just infer a genetic source of racial differences when they fail to find another explanation. As interest in health disparities converges with the genomic science of race, a new brand of racial stereotyping is gaining hold in biomedical research.

the Blank Slate had, and has, a dark side. The vacuum that it posited in human nature was eagerly filled by totalitarian regimes, and it did nothing to prevent their genocides. It perverts education, childrearing, and the arts into forms of social engineering. It torments mothers who work outside the home and parents whose children did not turn out as they would have liked. It threatens to outlaw biomedical research that could alleviate human suffering. Its corollary, the Noble Savage, invites contempt for the principles of democracy and of “a government of laws and not of men.” It blinds us to our cognitive and moral shortcomings. And in matters of policy it has elevated sappy dogmas above the search for workable solutions. The Blank Slate is not some ideal that we should all hope and pray is true. No, it is an anti-life, anti-human theoretical abstraction that denies our common humanity, our inherent interests, and our individual preferences.

Equally as intriguing as the concept of personalized medicine is the proposal to develop the first drugs based on race. Think of the paradox: a classification system constructed centuries ago to enslave people became the portal for the most cutting-edge biomedical advance of the twenty-first century. Predicting drug response based on a patient’s race rather than on genetic traits, says Lawrence Lesco of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation Research, is “like telling time with a sundial instead of looking at a Rolex watch.

Despite the advancements of systematic experimental pipelines, literature-curated protein-interaction data continue to be the primary data for investigation of focused biological mechanisms. Notwithstanding the variable quality of curated interactions available in public databases, the impact of inspection bias on the ability of literature maps to provide insightful information remains equivocal. The problems posed by inspection bias extend beyond mapping of protein interactions to the development of pharmacological agents and other aspects of modern biomedicine. Essentially the same 10% of the proteome is being investigated today as was being investigated before the announcement of completion of the reference genome sequence. One way forward, at least with regard to interactome mapping, is to continue the transition toward systematic and relatively unbiased experimental interactome mapping. With continued advancement of systematic protein-interaction mapping efforts, the expectation is that interactome 'deserts', the zones of the interactome space where biomedical knowledge researchers simply do not look for interactions owing to the lack of prior knowledge, might eventually become more populated. Efforts at mapping protein interactions will continue to be instrumental for furthering biomedical research.

Meanwhile, scientists are studying certain drugs that may erase traumatic memories that continue to haunt and disturb us. In 2009, Dutch scientists, led by Dr. Merel Kindt, announced that they had found new uses for an old drug called propranolol, which could act like a “miracle” drug to ease the pain associated with traumatic memories. The drug did not induce amnesia that begins at a specific point in time, but it did make the pain more manageable—and in just three days, the study claimed. The discovery caused a flurry of headlines, in light of the thousands of victims who suffer from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Everyone from war veterans to victims of sexual abuse and horrific accidents could apparently find relief from their symptoms. But it also seemed to fly in the face of brain research, which shows that long-term memories are encoded not electrically, but at the level of protein molecules. Recent experiments, however, suggest that recalling memories requires both the retrieval and then the reassembly of the memory, so that the protein structure might actually be rearranged in the process. In other words, recalling a memory actually changes it. This may be the reason why the drug works: propranolol is known to interfere with adrenaline absorption, a key in creating the long-lasting, vivid memories that often result from traumatic events. “Propranolol sits on that nerve cell and blocks it. So adrenaline can be present, but it can’t do its job,” says Dr. James McGaugh of the University of California at Irvine. In other words, without adrenaline, the memory fades. Controlled tests done on individuals with traumatic memories showed very promising results. But the drug hit a brick wall when it came to the ethics of erasing memory. Some ethicists did not dispute its effectiveness, but they frowned on the very idea of a forgetfulness drug, since memories are there for a purpose: to teach us the lessons of life. Even unpleasant memories, they said, serve some larger purpose. The drug got a thumbs-down from the President’s Council on Bioethics. Its report concluded that “dulling our memory of terrible things [would] make us too comfortable with the world, unmoved by suffering, wrongdoing, or cruelty.… Can we become numb to life’s sharpest sorrows without also becoming numb to its greatest joys?” Dr. David Magus of Stanford University’s Center for Biomedical Ethics says, “Our breakups, our relationships, as painful as they are, we learn from some of those painful experiences. They make us better people.” Others disagree. Dr. Roger Pitman of Harvard University says that if a doctor encounters an accident victim who is in intense pain, “should we deprive them of morphine because we might be taking away the full emotional experience? Who would ever argue with that? Why should psychiatry be different? I think that somehow behind this argument lurks the notion that mental disorders are not the same as physical disorders.

The United Nations—in its official statement for World Health Day in 2017—explained3 that “the dominant biomedical narrative of depression” is based on “biased and selective use of research outcomes” that “cause more harm than good, undermine the right to health, and must be abandoned.” There is a “growing evidence base,” they state, that there are deeper causes of depression, so while there is some role for medications, we need to stop using them “to address issues which are closely related to social problems.” We need to move from “focusing on ‘chemical imbalances’ to focusing on ‘power imbalances.

However, I have a stronger hunch that the greatest part of the important biomedical research waiting to be done is in the class of basic science. There is an abundance of interesting fact relating to all our major diseases, and more items of information are coming in steadily from all quarters in biology. The new mass of knowledge is still formless, in complete, lacking the essential threads of connection, displaying misleading signals at every turn, riddled with blind alleys. There are fascinating ideas all over the place, irresistible experiments beyond numbering, all sorts of new ways into the maze of problems. But every next move is unpredictable, every outcome uncertain. It is a puzzling time, but a very good time. I do not know how you lay out orderly plans for this kind of activity, but I suppose you could find out by looking through the disorderly records of the past hundred years. Somehow, the atmosphere has to be set so that a disquieting sense of being wrong is the normal attitude of the investigators. It has to be taken for granted that the only way in is by riding the unencumbered human imagination, with the special rigor required for recognizing that something can be highly improbable, maybe almost impossible, and at the same time true. Locally, a good way to tell how the work is going is to listen in the corridors. If you hear the word, "Impossible!" spoken as an expletive, followed by laughter, you will know that someone's orderly research plan is coming along nicely.

As two leading weight loss experts, Dr Corby Martin and Professor Kishore Gadde from Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, put it, ‘The myth that rapid weight loss is associated with rapid weight gain is no more true than Aesop’s fables.

First, there is a knowledge gap: the average doctor does not know as much about women’s bodies and the health problems that afflict them. It starts at the most basic level of biomedical research, where investigators overwhelmingly use male cells and animals in preclinical studies.

found you on the CRISP website. I was looking for someone at UCSF with an R01 doing research in kidney disease,” I said. CRISP, now called the NIH RePORTER, was the National Institutes of Health’s searchable database of all federally funded biomedical research projects. I knew that the NIH’s R01 grant mechanism, which was awarded to researchers who no longer needed a research mentor, allowed the researcher to apply for smaller research grants to support someone from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine—Blacks, Hispanics, or Native Americans, individuals with a physical or mental disability, or those who grew up in poverty—at every level of education, from a high school student to a college student, a medical student, resident, or fellow.

biomedical view, for its part, increasingly recognizes the power of things like meditation and traditional talk therapy to render concrete structural changes in brain physiology that are every bit as “real” as the changes wrought by pills or electroshock therapy. A study published by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in 2011 found that subjects who practiced meditation for an average of just twenty-seven minutes a day over a period of eight weeks produced visible changes in brain structure. Meditation led to decreased density of the amygdala, a physical change that was correlated with subjects’ self-reported stress levels—as their amygdalae got less dense, the subjects felt less stressed. Other studies have found that Buddhist monks who are especially good at meditating show much greater activity in their frontal cortices, and much less in their amygdalae, than normal people.n Meditation and deep-breathing exercises work for similar reasons as psychiatric medications do, exerting their effects not just on some abstract concept of mind but concretely on our bodies, on the somatic correlates of our feelings. Recent research has shown that even old-fashioned talk therapy can have tangible, physical effects on the shape of our brains. Perhaps Kierkegaard was wrong to say that the man who has learned to be in anxiety has learned the most important, or the most existentially meaningful, thing—perhaps the man has only learned the right techniques for controlling his hyperactive amygdala.o

The idea of race was in retreat in the second half of the 20th century in the aftermath of the defeat of Nazism and discoveries in the science of genetics, although the 21st century has seen (unconvincing) attempts to revive the notion. Nowadays, there is a tendency to regard intercommunal hostilities as stemming from issues of cultural rather than racial difference, except on the very far right and among some who (misleadingly) base their assertions on recent biomedical research.

Although she has a reputation as a serious and hardworking professional in her field of biomedical research, Trisha Pfluger, M.S., PMP, a Northwest Arkansas resident, still thinks of herself as a fun, approachable person. When not working, Trisha Pfluger of Northwest Arkansas takes the time to meditate and hike with her dog on the beautiful trails of Northwest Arkansas (NWA) near her retreat home. Since founding Juno Biomedical in 2014, Trisha Pfluger, a Northwest Arkansas businesswoman, has led the company to great success in developing next generation deep brain stimulation (DBS) technology in close collaboration with a team of experts at the FDA.

Grant Talab's strategic thinking extends seamlessly to his role as a Research Scientist at Biomedical Engineering Institute.

If today’s biomedical researchers were required to test their theories first on people they know, there would be a lot less crap making it into the scientific archives.

Our focus, however, should not be on the differences among our sectors, but rather on supporting and promoting the entire innovation economy — from tech to bio to clean energy to health care and beyond. In fact, in its recent Impact 2020 report, the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council highlighted the interrelationship of these vital sectors working together, combining cutting-edge biomedical research with new information technology tools for capturing and integrating data, conducting sophisticated analytics, and enhancing personal connectivity. Massachusetts is a national and world leader in the growing field of life science information technology.

We define empirical research in biomedical ethics as the application of research methods in the social sciences to the direct examination of issues in biomedical ethics

For the APA and pharma companies, the emergence of NAMI could not have come at a more opportune moment. This was a parents’ group eager to embrace biological psychiatry, and both the APA and pharmaceutical firms pounced. In 1983, the APA “entered into an agreement with NAMI” to write a pamphlet on neuroleptic drugs, and soon the APA was encouraging its branches across the country “to foster collaborations with local chapters of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.”61 The APA and NAMI joined together to lobby Congress to increase funding for biomedical research, and the beneficiary of that effort, the NIMH—which saw its research budget soar 84 percent during the 1980s—thanked the parents for it. “The NIMH in a very meaningful sense is NAMI’s institute,” Judd told NAMI president Laurie Flynn in a 1990 letter.62 By that time, NAMI had more than 125,000 members, most of whom were middle-class, and it was busily seeking to “educate the media, public officials, healthcare providers, educators, the business community, and the general public about the true nature of brain disorders,” said one NAMI leader.63 NAMI brought a powerful moral authority to the telling of the broken-brain story, and naturally pharmaceutical companies were eager to fund its educational programs, with eighteen firms giving NAMI $11.72 million from 1996 to 1999.64

The situation has deteriorated substantially. In 1980, 32% of biomedical research in the United States was financed by the industry, and in 2000, it was 62%.21 Currently, most trials are industry sponsored, both in the EU and in the United States.18,22

Dr. Fauci’s direct and indirect control—through NIH, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust of some 57 percent of global biomedical research funding19—guarantees him this sort of obsequious homage from leading medical researchers,

The Icarus Project represents a new wave of resistance, one that shifts from the ontological questions of the definition of disease and illness, to the epistemological questions of whose stories and voices are considered in the production of psychiatric knowledge.

Ethan Watters published a book called Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche, which details how psychiatry and psychopharmacology have collaborated to basically make the rest of the world as miserable as America,

The voice of those with “lived experience” can be broadly grouped into two types, depending on whether they understand their own lives within the context of the conventional medical paradigm, or in resistance to that paradigm, and it is only the first group that is well heard by society

Beyond its effects on health and the health care industry, COVID-19 has empowered the global elite more than ever before to manufacture lies and half-truths. Uber-powerful Silicon Valley Big Tech corporations (Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon), Big Pharma, the World Health Organization (WHO), and philanthropic giant Bill Gates have indentured politicians and scientists from across the political spectrum. The result is fearmongering, political polarization, and social engineering—all wrapped in a disguise of protection. A shadowy network of military contractors and bioweapons specialists are hiding behind the façade of biomedical and vaccine research while Big Tech silences their critics.

We are in an exciting new era of biomedical research. Scientists can now read the entire sequence of someone’s genome, all 4.6 billion letters spread across the forty-six chromosomes, in a process that takes just a couple of weeks and costs about a thousand dollars. (The first complete sequencing of a human genome took over a decade to finish and cost nearly three hundred million dollars.)

where Endre, a biomedical researcher, worked at finding applications for hyaluronic acid, a collagen-like lubricant that occurs naturally in the eyes of cows and the combs of roosters and was proving useful in combating such ailments in humans as burns, arthritis, and cataracts.

Indigenous peoples' DNA is seen as a resource for use in medical, behavioral, anthropological, and genetic variation studies. Kanaka Maoli DNA has been sought for research at UH. For example, Dr. Charles Boyd, who was a researcher at UH's Pacific Biomedical Research Center, drafted a proposal for a Hawaiian Genome Project seeking $5–10 million to produce an annotated map of the entire genetic makeup of the Hawaiian people. Boyd stated, “There are many communities now with their own unique genetic history imprinted into their genomes and these include Asians, Europeans and the peoples of Oceania. The Hawaiian genome represents an important example of one of these communities of the Oceania people.”12 Boyd was hoping to target residents of the Hawaiian Homestead communities because they are seen as being the most purebred native Hawaiians. He hoped to find a genetic basis for the high rate of obesity, diabetes, renal disease, and hypertension in Kanaka Maoli.13 This type of research essentializes the role of genes, while devaluing key environmental and lifestyle factors, including the role dispossession of land has had in traditional diet and activities.

After a decade of using the medical profession, I had concluded that it was much better to research your own sickness using the internet and books, and to self treat with over the counter drugs, supplements and commercially available biomedical devices.

Pearl combines aspects of structural equations models and path diagrams. In this approach, assumptions underlying causal statements are coded as missing links in the path diagrams. Mathematical methods are then used to infer, from these path diagrams, which causal effects can be inferred from the data, and which cannot. Pearl's work is interesting, and many researchers find his arguments that path diagrams are a natural and convenient way to express assumptions about causal structures appealing. In our own work, perhaps influenced by the type of examples arising in social and medical sciences, we have not found this approach to aid drawing of causal inferences, and we do not discuss it further in this text.

In the domain of mental health, huge pools of data are being used to train algorithms to identify signs of mental illness—a threat I call “surveillance psychiatry.” Electronic health records, data mining social networks, and even algorithmically classifying video surveillance will significantly amplify this approach. Corporations and governments are salivating at the prospect of identifying psychological vulnerability and dissent.

Embryonic stem cells have made a major impact on biomedical research over the past decade or so. Scientists routinely make specific, designed alterations to the genes of mouse ES cells and then inject some of these cells into the inner cell mass of a normal mouse embryo. The mouse that results has a body that is a mixture of normal cells, from the un-manipulated inner cell mass, and the genetically modified cells from the engineered ES cells.

Whatever characteristic we identify as possessed only by humans will not be possessed by all humans. Some humans will have the exact same deficiency that we attribute to animals, and although we may not allow such humans to drive cars or attend universities, most of us would shut out the prospect of enslaving such humans, using them as unconsenting subjects in biomedical research, or otherwise using them exclusively as a means to an ends.

Before 1980, ownership gridlock was not a major problem for drug developers. Scientists published their research findings more or less freely and were rewarded for their labor with academic tenure, peer recognition, lecture invitations, awards, and maybe even a Nobel Prize. Recognition (and not ownership) was enough to spur the great twentieth-century biomedical innovations—humanity-transforming discoveries from penicillin to the polio vaccine.

The charity was for the Autism Speaks Foundation. It was to support the biomedical research for the causes and treatments of autism in both children and adults.