When pure research suffers budget cuts, we all pay the price

The discovery of a new gene mutation linked to breast cancer risk highlights the need to fund pure research in the new federal budget — funding that is at risk thanks to an emphasis on publicprivate partnerships.

Researchers at Women’s College Hospital and McGill University collaborated with scientists in Poland to identify a key mutation in the RECQL gene that is associated with a five-fold increase in the risk for breast cancer in Polish and French-Canadian women. Mohammed Akbari, one of the leads on the project and a co-author of an article on the subject recently published in Nature Genetics, estimates that the risk posed by a mutation on RECQL is equivalent to that posed by mutations on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.

These are the genes that are commonly tested when women suspect that they may be at a greater genetic risk for breast and ovarian cancer. Although a test has yet to be made widely available for mutations on the RECQL gene, the publicity surrounding the results of this study will doubtless lead to significant demand. The “Jolie Effect,” as genetics counsellors refer to it, is not to be trifled with. More and more women are taking charge of their health, and whether Canada’s research and healthcare infrastructure can meet that demand is up for debate.

The most recent federal budget barely balances, and while it does return to the surplus promised in 2011, it does so at the expense of science spending. This is a tricky bit of arithmetic, because in pure numbers terms, the spending has remained the same. What has changed is inflation, and the basic cost of doing research. Just like inflation has an impact on your household’s budget and spending, it also has an impact on that of laboratory work. The cost of doing science does not remain fixed from year to year — labs take up real estate, the teams that work there need wages that are at least passingly competitive with private sector jobs, and there are material costs to be mindful of.

The latest budget does make allowances for more research — the Canada Foundation for Innovation scored big, as did CANARIE. The former is a nonprofit established by the Canadian government in 1997 to invest in state-of-the-art research. The latter develops digital infrastructure for use in entrepreneurial environments, and is part of the larger National Research and Education Network. Both of these agencies will benefit from a $46-million increase intended to create partnerships between academic researchers and the private sector.

But the discovery of the RECQL mutation wasn’t due to a publicprivate partnership. It wasn’t done in collaboration with a patent-holder like Myriad, which until recently held all the cards in testing for mutations on BRCA1 and BRCA2. It wasn’t done with the aid of a direct-to-consumer genetics tester like 23andMe, or Color-Genomics, or any of the others offering spit kits for athome genetic testing.

It was the result of pure research, which is something the Conservative government has done everything it can to halt, silence or otherwise end — especially when it relates to the environment. Scientists at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans can’t speak to the media without permission. Scientists at Environment Canada were prevented from doing interviews with Nature magazine. Stories about environmental science in Canadian media dropped by 80 per cent after 2006.

Against this kind of funding landscape, how many more discoveries like RECQL can be made? And even if they are made, must they immediately be monetized? Could they be used as the basis for genetic discrimination by insurance providers? If we rely solely on public-private partnerships, the cost of doing science could go beyond mere dollars and cents.

Madeline Ashby is a strategic foresight consultant and novelist living in Toronto. You can find her on Twitter @MadelineAshby.