Blog Comments

Kinetica Online is pleased to provide direct links to commentaries from our senior editor Dr. Steven Pelech has posted on other blogs sites. Most of these comments appear on the GenomeWeb Daily Scan website, which in turn highlight interesting blogs that have been posted at numerous sites in the blogosphere since the beginning of 2010. A wide variety of topical subjects are covered ranging from the latest scientific breakthroughs, research trends, politics and career advice. The original blogs and Dr. Pelech’s comments are summarized here under the title of the original blog. Should viewers wish to add to these discussions, they should add their comments at the original blog sites.

The views expressed by Dr. Pelech do not necessarily reflect those of the other management and staff at Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation. However, we wish to encourage healthy debate that might spur improvements in how biomedical research is supported and conducted.

Grant review

Global Scientific Principles

The Nature News blog reported the creation of the Global Research Council (GRC) by a group of research agencies leaders from nearly 50 countries. The GRC plans to discuss "shared goals, aspirations, and principles, and provide a vehicle to unify science across the globe." op, where research agencies agree on broad-brush issues but do little to resolve practical differences." S. Pelech questions whether further politicization and standardization of scientific research is so desirable. While a strong case can be made for international funding of a few large scale projects for the common good, he argues most research in academia and industry should be investigator-driven and collaborations should be dynamic and naturally arise from the science rather than the desires of politicians and bureaucrats to see further interactions with their favoured countries. He describes three trends related to the financing of scientific research endeavours that he finds particularly disturbing. Read More...