PRIESTLEY MEDAL ADDRESS
Basic Research—A Perspective Howard E. Simmons, senior science adviser for DuPont in Wilmington, Del, is scheduled to present the Priestley Medal Address this week at the awards ceremony during the American Chemical Society's 207th national meeting in San Diego. Simmons received the Priestley Medal, ACS's highest award, for his services to chemical science and industry and to society. He spent his entire
career at DuPonïs corporate research laboratories, contributing to significant advances in fundamental chemistry while rising to vice president of research. Although formally retired since 1992, he remains a consultant for DuPont and continues his work for the National Academy of Sciences, the National Science Board, and the University of Delaware in Newark.
t is, of course, a great honor to receive the Priestley Medal—one that I hardly anticipated. It is a source of special pride for me whose chemical career has been in industry. In fact, it was all in one place—a large corporate research laboratory in DuPont, where we were encouraged to explore many new ideas. We did not so often become scholars of the academic variety—and I confess to no little chemical dilettantism in my career. My excuse has always been that I found chemistry too exciting to be satisfied with only one or two tastes of its wonders. I felt less concerned about this when I found that Joseph Priestley's work and meditations ranged over theology, chemistry, physics, linguistics, and psychology among others. I searched the archives, unsuccessfully, for a connection between Priestley and the founder of my company, Eleuthére Irénée du Pont, who came to America not long after Priestley. I like to imagine that Irénée, a student of Lavoisier with whom he learned much about the manufacture of gunpowder, may have met Priestley—but unfortunately we may never know. My remarks will cover some issues that I feel are important to chemistry today, but first I want to say something about two people who have helped me so much. My mentor, Jack Roberts, had a powerful influence on my love for and tastes in chemistry. Besides his scientific brilliance, he is a superb teacher and fast friend, who tirelessly tries to instill more compassion in me. Ted Cairns brought me to DuPont where he was creating the "modern industrial chemical university," in the words of Rolf Huisgen. Many of our careers in the old Central Research Department owe much to Ted's guidance and zeal for good research. My coworkers there were numerous, and their contributions certainly equaled or exceeded my own. The environment in industry not so long ago gave many chemists an opportunity for exploration, and the 30 years from 1955 to 1985 were truly the golden age of chemistry for
us who were involved. Those halcyon days are gone, but we can hope they will return for another generation. Nevertheless, this should be a time for those of us involved in chemistry to cheer. Scientific progress is being made at an accelerating rate that is broadening our capabilities to probe new fields and make new discoveries ranging from the molecular level in the cell to the beginnings of the universe. Technology, much based on chemistry, permeates all aspects of our lives. But many members of the chemical profession don't feel there is a lot to cheer about. Rather, they feel under siege with many of their current scientific activities being closely scrutinized and criticized. This is not in itself such a bad thing, but it can, unintentionally or not, contribute to an erosion of the faith that the public has long held in American science and technology and the support the public has given it. A recent report from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) stated: "In the past, this support has rested largely on the assumption that science and technology would contribute to national objectives by helping to ensure security and by generating new products, services, and economic growth. Today, these assumptions are being questioned. Primacy in science has not prevented loss of international market share. Continued biomedical advances have failed to produce uniformly affordable health care. Environmental threats exist in spite of our greater ecological knowledge and analytical skills." This questioning is occurring in an environment of rapid economic, political, and organizational change. Much of the impetus for change is being provided by the apparent end of the Cold War. The pervasiveness of this situation and the impact on science and scientists was described in stark detail in the Feb. 20 edition of the New York Times. At the federal level, government support for basic research is being constrained. The missions of the federal labs
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are being redirected, not unreasonably, to serve more civilian needs, but often this is being done at the expense of basic research. More alarmingly, serious attempts are being made to direct more National Science Foundation (NSF) funding to applied areas. In addition, there is a growing antiscience, antitechnology feeling in parts of society and Congress. In the past quarter century, technology, per se, has too often become a convenient target for many groups seeking a scapegoat for complex societal issues. In academia, funding for basic research is tight and likely will get tighter. This crucial research is being questioned, and there are increasing demands for greater accountability with more attention to current economic and social problems. Current research funding policies may be leading to too much emphasis on short-term, quick-results research. These are times, perhaps, that Norbert Wiener had in mind when he warned that "science is a tender plant which does not take readily to a gardener who is in the habit of taking it up by the roots to see if it is growing properly." Industry, under the pressure of global competition, is going through major restructuring. Every company is seeking the most effective way to serve its many different customers and their diverse needs. This has had a major impact on R&D, on the level of basic research carried out in industry, and on relations with universities. Many perceive in these changes that industry has lost faith in research. The slowing growth for scientific research, both by industry and government, and the current lack of new job opportunities are placing great stress on current graduate and postgraduate students. If these trends continue, they will almost certainly require significant changes in the academic system that has produced them. In addition, all parts of the chemical enterprise are faced with increasing regulation, much of which is related to environmental and safety issues. Phil Abelson has recently pointed out in an editorial in Science that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now administering 11 major statutes and 9,000 regulations with 125,000 bureaucrats who even now are working to create more statutes. The direct annual costs of meeting these mandates has been estimated at more than $500 billion. This may be a small price to pay if these regulations are warranted, but disastrous if they are not. Sometimes such regulations are not based on sound science and many have not been adequately submitted to rigorous cost-benefit analysis. It is significant to note that environmental law is now the fastest growing sector of the American Bar. I cannot, of course, deal with all these issues. I plan to focus on two that I believe are central to the health of the chemical profession and the chemical enterprise—the first in more detail, maintaining a strong basic research effort, and then a few comments on improving mathematics and science education to raise scientific literacy. I will consider these from my experience as an industrial scientist. Let me provide some perspective about the enterprise we are part of. By any measure, the chemical industry is highly successful with a strong intellectual and industrial base. It has grown tremendously since the 1950s and is now a $1 trillion worldwide giant. It also has been and continues to be R&D-intensive. From 1971 to 1991, chemical industry R&D grew at a rate one- and one-half times the national rate for all R&D, with expenditures rising from $1.8 billion 28
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in 1971 to almost $15 billion in 1993. While the most recent data in Chemical & Engineering News now show a marked flattening of such growth or even a downtrend, this is nevertheless a real, long-term success story. What has been the role of research, and specifically of basic research, in this story? I am most familiar with our experience in DuPont and will use that as an example, but other industrial scientists could tell similar stories for their companies. DuPont has been practicing synthetic chemistry for more than 100 years, starting when we began nitrating glycerin for dynamite manufacture and cellulose for smokeless powder. In the early part of this century, we diversified into both industrial chemicals and what we now know as polymeric products derived from cellulose-rayon fibers, cellophane film, and celluloid plastics. The DuPont Experimental Station, which continues to be the main site for our R&D, was established in 1902. In the mid-1920s we took the unprecedented step of establishing a small group, led by Wallace Carothers from Harvard, to carry out fundamental research of academic quality related to our interests. This included work aimed primarily at increased scientific understanding and that of an exploratory nature which investigated new areas of science. The outcome of this radical—for then—decision was research that played a key role in opening up the new world of polymer science and technology and led to the introduction of such synthetic materials as nylon, neoprene, and Teflon. A major factor in this success was undoubtedly the quality of the individuals involved. But another factor was that the people in basic research were in close contact with those who dealt with the applied aspects of polymer technology. They recognized the importance of understanding the fundamentals of polymerization and the need for better methods to characterize and understand polymer properties. They were aware of the problems and limitations of such natural materials as cellulose and rubber and, more importantly, saw the potential inherent in the preparation of synthetic polymers. I doubt whether I have to tell this audience that the actual R&D process that occurred in going from Carothers' early fundamental understandings to commercial application was very nonlinear, with many digressions and numerous feedback loops, nor that discoveries were just as likely to come from the applied work as from the fundamental research. This is a reality that is still valid today in the development of new technology. It is reality that emphasizes that all parts of the process from basic research to application need to be strong and interacting to succeed. We weaken the whole process if we weaken one part of it. The chemical industry experienced rapid growth following World War II, becoming even more R&D driven, bringing many useful chemical technologies, products, and services to the marketplace. The laboratories at the Experimental Station gave birth to many new products and industries in which basic research had an important role. Many companies expanded their commitment to basic research during this period. If this were the end of the story, we indeed would be cheering. In the past decade, however, DuPont and its R&D have had to make significant changes as we responded to more
aggressive global competition, rising customer expectations, the need to globalize our manufacturing facilities and our technical support, and meet emerging environmental concerns. In this new environment we, like every other chemical company, had to become more productive to survive. Whether it is called downsizing, right-sizing, or whatever, every part of the company, including R&D, had to be freshly scrutinized. This scrutiny has led to a significant reorganization of our R&D effort to better leverage our geographically dispersed resources across the corporation and to eliminate many redundancies that had been built up over the years (often deliberately) that were now not adding the value they once had. We also had to shift our funding priorities, increasing R&D in direct support of existing products significantly and centralizing and reducing our basic research. These organizational changes are already improving our responsiveness to customer needs. However, we remain concerned about the long-term impact from the reduction in basic research. We value such research not only intrinsically but mostly based on what we know it has contributed to our company in the past and how it has shaped the chemical industry. There is a perception among some very influential people—and this includes leaders in business and in government—that industry can safely outsource much of its research, and especially its basic research, to universities or to government laboratories as we have done with some of our other functions. This is plain hogwash. Basic and applied research together support and sustain the core competencies of a technological company—its very ability to react and respond to a changing environment. Long-term competitive leadership in highly technical industries cannot be achieved by farming out these foundations. Consider the issue of ozone-safe chlorofluorocarbon
(CFC) replacements. Once sufficient data showed that these chemicals were a threat to the stratospheric ozone, we launched an intensive R&D effort to develop replacements versus demanding schedules that were internationally established and agreed on. We met every objective in record time, substantially accelerating final phaseout and exceeding the expectations of every group involved. We could not have done this if we had not had an established research organization, including a strong basic effort. Many critical advances came from our fundamental catalysis group and our computational scientists. How long do you think would have been required for DuPont, or any company, to accomplish this if we had to start by putting out a request for proposal for contract research? I can say with considerable confidence that EPA would not have now asked us to delay our planned phaseout of CFC-12 through the end of 1995. For us, basic research has been a business necessity, not a luxury or something done out of curiosity. In the current competitive environment it must also become an important element of strategic planning and be closely coupled with a company's core competencies. Many companies facing such complexities have decided to simply reduce research. The net result has been a significant decrease in the level of basic research in industry, especially that concerned with new areas of science. This is a serious situation if you believe, as I do, that the U.S. must maintain its leadership in basic research. It is why we are concerned when pressures are placed on universities to reduce or redirect their fundamental research and to limit their work in new areas of science. For us in industry, successful basic research programs are, however, no guarantee of ultimate competitive advantage. They certainly aren't sufficient, but they are arguably necessary. John Armstrong, former vice president of science and technology at IBM, recently noted that leadership in basic research can constitute a competitive advantage for the U.S. if it is effectively "coupled with world-class performance in the much more extensive set of skills, institutions, and investments that are required for the creation of economic wealth and a rising standard of living/' What can we, as a profession, do to help achieve this advantage? What specifically do we need to do to strengthen our basic research so that it contributes both to our national competitiveness and to quality academic training of the new students who will provide our future scientific leadership? First, we must work together to ensure a longterm national commitment at the federal level to support a comprehensive basic research effort.
Our world and our society have been moved forward by increased understanding of the uni. verse—the lever has been basic science. NSF has long sustained American universities in their vital part of this work. This has been achieved with a very small fraction of the nation's overall R&D budget. Currently, a significant portion of the NSF budget is allocated to technology and technological initiatives. Today, poliMARCH 14,1994 C&EN
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ticians who may be unable to differentiate science from technology and who do not fully understand how science makes its contributions are seeking to shift this balance even more at the expense of basic science. This could erode the well-established NSF practice of supporting outstanding science in a wide variety of fields, a practice that recognizes the value of discipline-driven research and acknowledges our inability to predict where new discoveries and major scientific breakthroughs will occur. There are already existing federal organizations, such as the National Institute of Standards & Technology and the many national laboratories, that are better suited to focusing their efforts on strategic technological issues. To obtain this long-term national commitment for support of basic science, our profession must, however, become more objective and realistic about the expectations for basic research. Too frequently in the past, we have oversold it as a solution (and sometimes the solution) to short-term needs. As Ian Ross, former president of Bell Labs, recently pointed out, basic research is not intended, nor should it be expected, to advance short-term goals of the nation. Second, industry and individual chemical companies need to support and reinforce the importance of the educational function of the university.
Universities, which after all carry out the largest fraction of basic research, are the primary source of new knowledge and, more importantly from industry's perspective, the source of high-quality young scientists. Research and education are synergistic, not competitive, activities. There is little gain if commercial development becomes the primary focus of these institutions to the detriment of education, whether this be driven externally by demands for narrowly focused contract research, or internally by individual faculty interest in proprietary development. I believe that the most important product of the university from an industrial perspective is bright young scientists, broadly trained, but solid in the fundamentals, whose curiosity about the world has been piqued. Basic research is an excellent way to achieve that product. Third, all parties need to be more innovative and flexible in their interactions to utilize the unique strengths of each in contributing to society.
Although education is the paramount objective of our universities, the times call for an expanded role in understanding and interacting with industry. These interactions are being driven in part by emerging national policies that encourage and even require greater collaboration by both universities and government laboratories. They are complicated by the shortening time frame for development in industry. Universities are now facing many of the same market forces industry has had to deal with in the past decade. Funding for research will likely be restricted, there are already fewer jobs for Ph.D.s, science faculty will face increased competition from foreign universities to supply the people and services they currently offer, and corporate sup30
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port for research will be more selective and come with more expectations. From my experience, fruitful interactions with industry come about when the partners have complementary roles to play; highly integrated activities are generally less successful. This is because the natural goals, missions, and time lines are quite different among participants. The ultimate role of industry in this process is development and application in a competitive market. The university role is education and fundamental knowledge through research. Government laboratories, with their combination of basic research and engineering capabilities, are well situated to contribute to precompetitive research and technology development. There is no "one size fits all" answer to effective collaborations. Many people have written and spoken about the critical success factors in such collaborations, and I have nothing new to add. It will certainly require more changes on the part of universities than on the part of industry, but these changes are needed. The frontier described by Vannevar Bush many years ago is still endless. There are many discoveries and scientific breakthroughs to be made. Some of these will certainly be important to industry. If we are to make these discoveries and utilize the knowledge, we need to find ways to build enduring relationships that accommodate both the differences in roles and time constraints. Finally, let me close with some comments on science and mathematics education. Here I speak both as a scientist and as a parent whose grandchildren recently entered school. This issue is not unconnected with that of basic research because it deals with the foundations of the chemical enterprise and of the public support we increasingly need to operate in society. But it is very different in scope, because we are concerned here with the education of the great majority of students rather than the small percentage who will end up doing science. These students, both as workers and as citizens, will have a significant voice in our operation and our survival. The chem-
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ical enterprise will find it increasingly difficult to operate effectively in a society that does not understand more than ours does about science and the scientific process. This is not a public relations issue. This is an education issue that is most serious at the elementary level where it is estimated that fewer than 25% of students get science on a regular basis; but it stretches through high school, where science requirements in most states are far behind those of other developed countries, and even to undergraduate education. This is not a simple task. It will require sustained efforts both at the national and at the local level where education is actually carried out. National leadership might best come from the NAS and the National Research Council, which have the scientific legitimacy and organizational capability to build consensus for change at the national level. ACS has provided strong leadership in helping to reform high school chemistry through such texts as "Chemistry in the Community/' This innovative approach is now being emulated by other disciplines and being extended to undergraduate chemistry. But broad-based systemic change of education will ultimately require active and informed participation by those of us in science at the local community level, either as individuals or through our professional organizations or our institutions. Few actions are more likely to create public support for the chemical enterprise and for research than making science more accessible and more understandable to more people. Few actions would help reduce the current gap between the research community and much of society than a recognition that science is a fundamental human activity embedded in our desire to understand the world around us. Science, and especially the central science of chemistry, must be identified as something that is part of life and is done by real people. It is not something isolated to science museums and remote laboratories or limited to long dead scientists presented only in textbooks. This is a challenge for everyone in this room and for every member of ACS. It is a challenge worth taking on, and one that Joseph Priestley would have understood and urged. •
Formulation Development off Therapeutic Proteins ! and Drug Delivery Systems for Peptides and
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Mail to: American Chemical Society, Dept. of Continuing Education, Meeting Code PPDD94,1155 Sixteenth Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20036. MARCH 14,1994 C&EN
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