PNNL

Abstract

Biologists are defined by both their field of investigation and where they work. When I was a tenured university professor in the pathology department of a medical school, my colleagues scientists seemed to understand what I did for a living. Now that I work at a national laboratory, I am more likely to be greeted with blank stares. The questions that I do get, such as whether I need to write research grants (I do) or whether I work on the energy problem (I don’t), indicates a pervasive lack of understanding of the nature of national labs and their important roles in biological research. The national labs were largely responsible for a new phase of biology. DOE started the Human Genome Project to understand the molecular basis of radiation damage. GenBank began at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the early 1980s to manage the increasing amounts of DNA sequence data. The high-intensity x-ray sources found at national labs began being used to rapidly solve protein structures. These projects required a level of technical sophistication and scale that were well beyond most universities. This, together with a lack of departmental boundaries and a tradition of multidisciplinary teamwork, made national labs an excellent environment for tackling challenging problems in biology. I believe that most academic scientists are unaware of the research that goes on at national labs, mostly due to our small size and general focus on advanced technology. Biology has traditionally been more labor intensive than technology dependent, which plays to the natural strengths of universities. However, this is likely to change in the next several years.