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APPENDIX D 90 one to two summers of research in a university or government or industrial laboratory made a big difference in their aspirations. Some opted to leave science, but most decided to become scientists. We could have given the scholarships to almost any of the more than 100 applicants. Perhaps the NRC may want to consider some undergraduate scholarships for high potential high school students who have participated in programs at colleges before graduation from high school. The most significant challenge for maintaining an adequate supply of qualified biomedical scientists is to reverse the view that we (the teachers) have managed to communicate a fear of science, coupled with the ability to make science appear difficult and, even worse, dull. This needlessly decimates the pipeline. The elementary school teachers we turn out do not have a strong science program. Since many of our beginning science courses are used to weed out students, they learn to fear science and pass this fear on to their own students. In chemistry, we tend to emphasize theoretical fundamentals in the beginning courses and often do not teach anything about the excitement of doing science. For example, we insist that students memorize âessential factsâ, such as quantum numbers, but we rarely get to talk about new and exciting developments, such as MRI, high temperature superconductors, Buckminsterfullerenes, etc. Many of our first year laboratory experiments are âcookbookâ and students leave with the wrong attitudes. We often succeed in turning off the future teachers and, in addition, we also turn off those students bright enough to succeed in science. If we can modify our beginning science courses to motivate students to become interested in science, the pipeline problem can be addressed. One way I attempt to do this is to take on freshman science students into my undergraduate research group (and I have had high school students from the American Chemical Society Project SEED (Summer Educational Experience for the Disadvantaged) and high school teachers from the Research Corporation Partners in Science Program). Students who get involved in doing science early often either become scientists or lose their fear of science. Insufficient funds are available to solve all of the problems. There are two fronts that the NRSA program could work on. First, more high school teachers and students should be exposed to science. Either new programs should be initiated, or better yet, find the small successful programs and pool resources to expand the scope. Three programs have already been mentioned in this letter (ACS Project SEED for economically disadvantaged students, Research Corporation Partners in Science, NIGMS MARC). Each is doing a good job, but needs to be expanded to encompass more teachers and students. We do not need to reinvent the wheel, maybe just give it some more grease. If a mechanism could be found just to get more university faculty to interact with elementary, middle school, and high school teachers, we could remove some of the barriers for students to get involved in science. If these awards are to reach out to students at many different kinds of institutions, it is critical that proposal review contain representatives from the minority institutions, urban comprehensive universities, and the well- known private liberal arts colleges, as well as first-rate scientists from prestigious institutions. By opening up the review process, a wider range of students may be recognized. The NRC already helps review special grants for minority students. We need expansion of these programs as well as the extension to other student categories as mentioned in this letter. STATEMENT BY HAROLD SLAVKIN, D.D.S. I am Professor of Craniofacial Molecular Biology at the School of Dentistry of the University of Southern California. I come here today as President of the American Association for Dental Research, representing 4,500 professionals involved in oral health research throughout the United States. Our Association promotes research to improve oral health and also fosters dissemination of scientific advances relevant to oral health. My Association has already submitted a statement to the Committee and has given its views on the four questions raised by your Committee. My remarks today are in addition to our initial statement. I also speak on behalf of the American Association of Dental Schools, which represents all of the dental schools in the United States, as well as advanced education, hospital, and allied dental education programs. It is within these institutions that researchers are trained and the majority of dental research conducted. From the perspective of oral health research needs, we believe that in order to ensure a viable scientific effort in oral, dental, and craniofacial health in the coming decade, we need a sufficient number of
APPENDIX D 91 well-educated and well-trained dental scientists in the most relevant areas of basic and clinical research related to oral, dental, and craniofacial diseases. I have been an independent investigator for 25 years and have served as principal investigator on several NIH-supported training grants in cellular, molecular, and craniofacial biology designed to improve the scientific work force within oral, dental and craniofacial research. My own experience illustrates the wisdom of federally- sponsored research training opportunities specifically for dentists seeking additional education and training to become biomedical research scientists. As a sophomore dental student, I became engaged in biomedical research with anatomy, biochemistry, and oral surgery faculty members and remained involved for the remaining three years of my dental education. My mentors were Lucien Bavetta and Marsh Robinson. I was the first dental student at the University of Southern California ever to pursue post-doctoral training in biomedical research (that was as of 1965). Curiously, at that time our USC School of Dentistry had essentially one NIH-sponsored grant and an academic culture which did not include scientific research; the mandate of the school at that time, like that of so many Schools of Dentistry and Medicine receiving federally-derived capitation funds, was to focus on producing large numbers of clinically-trained practitioners. Biomedical research was not mainstream, nor were the cultural derivatives of inquiry-based, problem-solving learning. Through National Institute of Dental Research (NIDR)-supported training programs, either leading to the Ph.D. in basic or behavioral science, or through post-doctoral training experiences, a small cadre of individuals was educated and trained to provide the core of the American dental research community. The yield from the Federal investment in dental intellectual capital has been remarkable. Dental scientists trained through these mechanisms now populate a number of outstanding Schools of Dentistry and Research Centers in the extramural community and also provide the leadership for the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Dental Research. Our current USC School of Dentistry now ranks 9th in the nation in terms of NIDR-supported biomedical research, through the efforts of dental faculty trained through the various predoctoral, post-doctoral, and research career development mechanisms. It became readily apparent--in the 1960s, 1970s, and unfortunately, now--that graduates from most American dental schools require extensive additional education and training after dental school if they are to become competitive within the larger American and international biomedical research communities. The fruits of these fine training programs could subsequently be assessed in terms of trainees gaining academic positions in basic science and clinical science departments, gaining extramural grant support through peer-review processes, publishing their research findings in excellent peer-reviewed scientific journals, and fostering improvements in the scientific culture at increased numbers of dental schools. Graduate dentists with advanced education and training began to publish in major scientific journals (PNAS, J Biol Chem, Immunology, Microbiology, Neurosciences, Developmental Biology, Materials Sciences, Anthropology, Behavioral Sciences, JDR, etc.), and began to serve on the editorial boards of major scientific journals. The wisdom of that time was to create a custom program for graduate dentists to produce a modest number of well-educated and well-trained independent biomedical research scientists who could have a direct impact on the educational and scientific culture of dental education in America. That need of the late 1960s remains today. Whereas a number of American dental schools truly reflect the highest standards in the biomedical sciences, far too many have yet to obtain scientifically-trained manpower sufficient to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 1990s. As a consequence, five American dental schools have been forced to close, the major reason being a deficit in the biomedical research activity of the faculty. The unique need for dental education in this country is a federally-supported mechanism to continue to educate and train graduate dentists for careers in biomedical and behavioral basic and clinical science. However, to achieve a reasonable and continuing number of dental biomedical research scientists is a complex challenge. It is readily apparent to all of us that there is a paucity of historically underrepresented minorities in the biomedical and behavioral research work force. Several variables--such as declining parent involvement, school readiness of the child, the quality of administrators and teachers in K-12 education, declines in federal and state standards for academic performance, the challenges of multicultural diversity as readily apparent in California and other major states, along with increased violence in our urban settings--all reflect significant declines in American secondary education. NSF studies indicate that children can be
APPENDIX D 92 identified as competent for science and mathematics by the fourth grade. Numerous national studies indicate that middle school algebra is often the gatekeeper for who will become college-bound and science- and math-literate. Too few Americans graduate from high school with scientific, mathematics, and cultural literacy. Of course, the pool of individuals who will seek careers in dentistry falls within our national pool of high school graduates who are prepared for college and who possess a science and math background sufficient to pursue careers in biomedical sciences. That pool is diminishing. All health-science-based professions are discovering that home-grown American children are not being nurtured and prepared for careers in biomedical and behavioral science. Our nation is still at risk ten years after the Carnegie Report! Of the high school graduates from American secondary schools, very few are formally prepared. Moreover, of the annual 17 percent of all freshman college students who declare a scienceor math- based major (such as engineering, premed, predent, prepharmacy, chemistry, physics, etc.), nearly one-half of these students change their majors out of science by their second year of college. Therefore, the projected pool of science-and math-prepared undergraduates who could consider pursuit of professional or graduate school education is remarkably small as we ponder who will serve in the American biomedical and behavioral research work force in the 21st Century. Our nation has a challenge that includes both precollege science and math preparation as well as undergraduate university science and math pedagogy. The Committee is encouraged to look at the sequence and scope of the American educational pipeline in order to ensure increased representation of women and minorities in the biomedical and behavioral sciences. We need national âmentor programsâ to couple young children, especially females and historically underrepresented minorities, with established biomedical and behavioral research scientists as role models in order to nurture the next generations. Further, we need a national coalition among federal agencies (within the Departments of Labor, Education, Energy, Defense, Health & Human Services, including the NIH and the NSF), the National Academy of Sciences, the private industry sector, and state and local government to analyze âour nation at riskâ in terms of early childhood, preschool, K-12, and college learning in the sciences with implications for the pool of future biomedical and behavioral research personnel. Finally, I wish to close my remarks with several specific recommendations essential for our dental research community: First, the number of training opportunities and the research funding levels must be coordinated to provide sufficient stability for developing clinical biomedical and behavioral research scientists capable of addressing the broadened oral health research agenda. Unlike medicine, the NIDR is essentially the only sponsor for dental research training through its NRSA post-doctoral programs. Training efforts must be closely linked to opportunities for research funding, federal and otherwise. Second, because of the broad scope of oral health research, personnel of all types need to be considered and a multidisciplinary approach adopted, with an increased emphasis on clinical research. Third, particular efforts should be made to enhance the stipend levels for individuals seeking careers in clinical research. The current dental degree graduate from an American dental school is often in debt for $55,000, which is 20 percent more than for physicians. We need a process either to forgive student loans for those individuals entering careers in clinical research, or to increase the stipend level sufficient to provide the individual with the means to pay off loans and pursue his/her career development. A National Health Service Program to permit professional school graduates to repay educational loans by serving as post-doctoral fellows or the establishment of a Dental Scientist Training Program (DSTP), analogous to NIHâs current MSTP program is an additional mechanism to be explored for removing financial barriers to research careers. Fourth, NRSA policies should be changed to (a) raise the level of support for investigators, (b) lengthen the time of service (i.e., 3 years for a graduate dentist to earn a Ph.D. is not sufficient), and (c) remove pay-back obstacles. NRSA policies should serve to induce individuals to pursue this career objective and not serve as an obstacle. The most significant challenge we face in maintaining a critical supply of qualified dental research scientists is the ability to break through the financial barriers which inhibit even the most motivated young people to pursue a career in dental research. Fifth, it is important that minorities and women are adequately represented in the research fields. All NRSA training programs should require defined âoutreachâ programs to the K-12 educational
