My Journey to Accelerate the Pace of Science
Learning the ropes in academia
While I was an associate professor of biomedical engineering at The University of Alabama at Birmingham, I was asked to give a talk about my cancer research to a group of women who were (and still are) survivors of metastatic breast cancer. I was unusually nervous walking to the podium that day because I knew they were pinning their hopes on any research finding that would offer some hope for their survival and the survival for the millions of other women suffering from this devastating disease. These hopes were placed in a very imperfect system that might someday deliver promising treatments but no one could say when or how.
After my presentation, the questions started flying about when I thought a cure would be forthcoming. The best answer I could give was 10 years, maybe 20, without really knowing when. It was an impactful moment for me as a researcher supported by federal grants because I knew my answer of a timeline stated in decades was rooted in the inefficiencies of the system that actually slowed the pace of research. I knew that if enough money could be matched to the right people working on this devastating problem, this timeline could be dramatically accelerated.
Writing federal grants is a soul-crushing activity
Most university research faculty spend about 40% of their time writing research grants to fund their laboratories as well as to fund portions of their own salaries (Dr. No Money: The Broken Science Funding System, Scientific American, 2011). This activity must fit into teaching courses, training students, attending departmental meetings, and engaging service activities to the university and the profession. Generating good grant proposals takes months. This is followed by funding agency reviews and resubmissions of rejected proposals.
Proposal rejection plays a huge role delaying the pace of science. If a grant proposal is funded on the first submission, it is at least 18 months from uploading the grant application to a notice of award in the best case scenario. Resubmitting proposals extends the process by years. There is much competition for federal grant money and only a minority of applicants win awards (10% or less). This can be a soul-crushing activity especially for new university faculty.
My success with federal grants earned me awards from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. I also received foundation funding from the American Heart Association and the Radiologic Society of North America. I was not a rock star when it came to grant funding but I was able to support my research and my students over 3 decades. In my particular area of science, the biomechanics of tumors, it became increasingly important that I justify the translational relevance of my work. That is, how would my results make it into a clinical setting and help actual human beings?
Industry has something to teach academia
Industry-funded science was also part of my funding portfolio. After receiving several industry grant awards, I found that I really enjoyed these collaborations to help develop processes or products that might have commercial potential. My industry collaborators were especially adept at clarifying how my research fit into the larger picture of their commercialization plans. These were the people who knew how to take science from the bench to the bedside. My federally-funded proposals only speculated about translating science to clinical practice. My industry partners showed me how it could happen.
When Mark Two Ventures approached me about leading Astound Research, I made the decision to leave academia. The CEO role represented an opportunity for me to discover more about the roadblocks to scientific discovery and learn the pain felt by others who are also committed to scientific progress. I have learned much simply by asking people on both sides of industry-academic relationship what they see as the barriers to progress. The answers ranged from simple to complex, but they all lead back to a lack of structure in how relationships between industries and universities are formed and managed.
The development team at Astound is participating on the front lines of our customer discovery process. I am so fortunate to be working alongside them and benefit from their collective experience in building tech solutions to manage relationships between people. Their insight is hugely relevant to the fundamental friction points in industry/academic partnerships. We are committed to accelerating the pace of science by lowering the barriers to finding the right people for the right job at the right time.
