[HN Gopher] Arc Institute - for curiosity-driven biomedical scie...
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Arc Institute - for curiosity-driven biomedical science and
technology
Author : _Microft
Score : 105 points
Date : 2021-12-15 16:49 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arcinstitute.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (arcinstitute.org)
| vosper wrote:
| Patrick Collison appeared on EconTalk a few years ago a
| similar/same topic. I recall it was a good episode, might be
| worth a listen for those interested in these kinds of efforts.
|
| > Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe, talks with
| EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the pace of innovation. Collison
| argues that despite enormous increases in the numbers of
| scientists and researchers, the pace of progress in scientific
| and technological understanding does not seem to be increasing
| accordingly. The conversation looks at the challenge of measuring
| innovation and whether the pace of innovation should be a matter
| of concern and if so, what might be done about it.
|
| https://www.econtalk.org/patrick-collison-on-innovation-and-...
| dash2 wrote:
| Man, I just finished a day polishing our paper [1] as a response
| to the latest round of reviews, which were idiotic. A place for
| curiosity-driven research sounds great to me. If I could escape
| the politics, stupidity and bullshit of academic research! But
| I'm social science/behaviour genetics & these guys are curing
| cancer....
|
| [1] https://ueaeco.github.io/working-papers/papers/ueaeco/UEA-
| EC...
| rscho wrote:
| Don't worry and no need for FOMO. I'm in clinical medicine and
| the situation is no better.
|
| And people thinking that curiosity is bankable in biomed
| research strike me as idealistic...
| beakerbreaker wrote:
| I'm curious what you mean by bankable here? While I'd agree
| that there is idealism, it seems like reasonable efforts to
| cut through the catch-22 of funding nascent ideas
| (exemplified by the old chestnut about getting funding for
| work already done to do your new work under the table) and
| making stable career positions for folks who don't want to
| become a PI. I'd like to see what this really looks like
| after a couple years, but it doesn't seem completely naive.
| rscho wrote:
| I mean that the way we assess research output in the
| current system makes curiosity a liability. This means that
| even if investors are interested, the scientific community
| will judge the output from this institute as inferior.
| Except if the curiosity part is just for show, which I
| strongly suspect. Investors want results.
| beakerbreaker wrote:
| I broadly agree, and it's clear they are limiting the
| scope of curiosity to some directed areas and the long
| term research agenda makes me think there is an
| expectation of more directed follow-up. "Curiosity" is
| likely code for "many more 'fishing expeditions' from low
| friction funding with the expectation that the likely low
| hit rate will still have reasonable number of repeatable,
| translatable findings after eight years". I would
| personally wager that is correct.
|
| It will be interesting to see the output of this funding
| mindset more reminiscent of VCs but with a timespan that
| biological research programs require.
| dekhn wrote:
| The issue is going to be that this institute will have a very
| small number of positions for what is incredibly desirable
| research circumstances, so it will be highly selected, and only
| the "best" or "hottest" researchers will qualify.
|
| I would get great work done under these conditions but I'd
| never rise high enough in the application pool to be noticed.
| rscho wrote:
| > only the "best" or "hottest" researchers
|
| I'm pretty sure this subset is very similar to the 'least
| curious' subset...
| DantesKite wrote:
| What a cool idea.
|
| It looks like they're going to be heavily investing in CRISPR
| too, by the choice of schools and personnel.
|
| Stripe really is obsessed with pushing progress forward huh? Even
| their books are dedicated to that genre.
|
| Looking forward to the innovation and the culture this project
| produces.
|
| If anybody can do it, it's Patrick and the extraordinary
| individuals behind this.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| so much money, so few results
| dang wrote:
| Blog post at https://arcinstitute.org/blog/introducing-arc-
| institute.
|
| (Via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29568478, but we merged
| the threads.)
| [deleted]
| forgotmyoldacc wrote:
| > Arc Institute is partnered with Stanford University, UC
| Berkeley, and UCSF. This means that our Core Investigators can
| hold tenured, tenure-track, or adjunct faculty appointments
| within relevant academic departments at partner universities
| [...] Additionally, Arc is starting an Affiliate Investigator
| program to support faculty who are primarily located at Stanford,
| UC Berkeley, and UCSF, expanding the connection among the four
| institutions.
|
| If someone is a professor at a top bio-med university, do they
| really benefit the most from some additional funding, versus
| funding people from institutions that aren't as well known?
| pchristensen wrote:
| From the article, they said they would substantially change
| their research goals and projects if they didn't have the
| restrictions of the current funding process.
| moab wrote:
| This is a great idea, and I hope they will be able to scale it
| beyond UCB/Stanford/UCSF. A little cynically, I wonder whether
| PIs at these #1-ranked universities in CS/Medicine actually need
| an additional funding program since they are probably doing just
| fine with NSF/NIH and other existing funding agencies. On the
| other hand they are offering more services than your typical
| funding agency (planning to help with spin-outs, etc). Also being
| geographically close together and being near the valley all make
| sense from the POV of quickly pushing research from academia to
| industry.
| randomsearch wrote:
| Professors at top universities waste the majority of their time
| writing grant proposals.
| DantesKite wrote:
| I'm almost sure they picked it because that region has a lot
| institutional power around CRISPR. And when you look at the
| people they hired, you'll find nearly everyone has dabbled with
| it.
|
| I expect a lot of the funding and research to be directed in
| those areas.
| ethanbond wrote:
| NSF/NIH are great funding sources but: overhead! Straight up
| _less paperwork_ is a serious improvement.
| rackjack wrote:
| Also, budgeting instability due to political delays in the
| American government.
| Symmetry wrote:
| Grant writing takes up, what, half of a PI's time typically?
| Reducing that would be huge.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| From the blog on the Fast Grants program they did earlier-
| "57% of respondents told us that they spend more than one
| quarter of their time on grant applications."
|
| Also, "According to the NIH, a grant application will
| typically result in a decision after something between 200
| and 600 days."
|
| The whole post is worth reading in light of this new
| announcement. https://future.a16z.com/what-we-learned-
| doing-fast-grants/
| _Microft wrote:
| Some information about the structure and founding, copied from
| their About-page [0]:
|
| _How much funding is behind Arc?_ - Arc's donors will contribute
| more than $650M to the Institute to allow it to fully sustain
| scientists and their research for renewable eight-year terms.
|
| _What is Arc's growth plan?_ - The Institute's growth through
| 2025 will be gradual, with the goal of building a culture and
| organization that can scale. Phase 1 of the institute will
| involve hiring 10-15 Core Investigators, each of whom may employ
| 10-20 trainees, researchers, or engineers. We envision the 5
| Technology Centers to be of similar size, for a total headcount
| of approximately 150-350 scientific personnel. We expect to get
| there within 5 years.
|
| [0] https://arcinstitute.org/about
| nharada wrote:
| Gotta say, it's refreshing to see a gradual and sustainable
| growth plan, especially when it's mainly tech/startup folks
| behind the foundation. None of this "let's hyperscale" stuff.
| cinntaile wrote:
| You can't really hyperscale research I think. Throwing more
| money at a problem isn't a solution. A viable approach is
| probably to try and remove as many administrative barriers as
| possible so that researchers can focus on interesting
| problems instead, which is what they seem to be doing.
| exolymph wrote:
| Reminded of a friend's scrappier project: https://newscience.org/
|
| Similar but distinct thesis: "We should not be surprised then
| that the majority of even the most talented and passionate about
| science young scientists are not supported by the current
| structures and do not see their future in academia."
| jhgb wrote:
| And here I was thinking it would be about the language! Still
| interesting, of course...
| neves wrote:
| Who is funding this institute.
|
| Looks like the Brazilian Serrapilheira Institute:
| https://serrapilheira.org/
| hwers wrote:
| Patrick Collison, that's why it's at the top of HN rn
| ethanbond wrote:
| This seems excessively reductive. A new life sciences funding
| and translational model _should_ be at the top of HN.
| Especially with these institutions onboard.
| hwers wrote:
| I didn't mean my post to be conveyed in the cynical curt
| tone that I appear to have presented :) I was just being
| compact. (Lovely initiative by Collison!)
| hncurious wrote:
| "Arc gives scientists no-strings-attached, multi-year funding, so
| that they don't have to apply for external grants, and invests in
| the rapid development of experimental and computational
| technological tools."
|
| Fantastic. This is desperately needed. Thanks Patrick C, Vitalik,
| et al, for funding this.
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| The about page says that not only did many of the funders make
| their money in tech (Patrick Collison, Vitalik Buterin, Ron
| Conway, etc.), the idea for the institute came from the Fast
| Grants initiative, which offered rapid (<2 weeks) turnaround
| times for Covid-related projects.
|
| I wonder if this type of independent research institute with a
| generous budget is becoming more common. [0] Perhaps it's in
| response to current conditions in Academia. I hope it becomes
| more widespread.
|
| [0] The model reminds me of the Allen Institutes, e.g. the Allen
| Institute for AI: https://allenai.org/
| ak217 wrote:
| The Wellcome Trust, HHMI, Allen Institutes (there are several
| aside from Allen AI), Gates Foundation, and CZI/Chan Zuckerberg
| Biohub are all important prior efforts in this space that each
| made significant innovations in funding and evaluation of
| scientific output. At minimum, Wellcome and HHMI have "made it"
| in the sense that they built large parts of the public/private
| organizational infrastructure that most scientists rely on;
| their legacy is integral to modern science. The promise of Fast
| Grants/Arc Institute is technology to speed up the funding
| cycle itself, as well as experimental iteration time, which is
| fantastic.
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