A lesson for Ottawa
The 2017 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, awarded earlier this week, holds a lesson for Ottawa as it tries to determine the best way forward for Canadian science.
The selection of three American scientists who discovered how our biological clocks are synchronized with the Earth’s revolutions is a reminder of the power of pure curiosity, divorced from any practical imperatives, to change the world. Let’s hope the federal science minister is paying attention.
The three newest laureates in physiology, Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young, isolated the gene in fruit flies that controls the insects’ so-called circadian rhythms, a roughly 24-hour cycle of biological changes that occurs in many multicellular organisms, including humans.
It is our circadian rhythms that make us, for instance, alternately sleepy and energetic at regular intervals throughout the day. The three scientists explained how our physiology adapts to the day’s phases and, in so doing, opened up a vital field of research into what this means for our health and well-being.
Curiosity, not commercial interest or the promise of any immediate application, drove these researchers to explore the physiology of fruit flies. But their discoveries have not only enriched our understanding of ourselves and the world around us, but also hold far-reaching practical implications, promising treatments for jet-lag, obesity and a host of other ailments.
As the Trudeau government contemplates an overhaul of federal science funding, it ought to pause on the meaning of this prize. Over the last decade in Canada, grants available for independent, basic science — the sort of funding that allowed the new Nobel laureates to play around with fruit flies — has shrunk by about 35 per cent per researcher.
As critics have long argued, by abandoning basic research in favour of more industry-driven science, the government has scorched the very earth from which innovation grows. Hall, Rosbash and Young weren’t looking for a way to treat heart disease, for instance, though their discoveries promise to yield breakthroughs in that area.
This is typical of how innovation works. There would be no television without Albert Einstein’s theoretical physics, no computer without Kurt Godel’s recondite math. Yet no technology company would have had the patience or forethought to pay for such abstract research.
Only government can foster the culture of fundamental science from which innovation arises, and only when it does can we attract the top talent we need to succeed in the knowledge economy. This is why, in his recent report on federal science policy, former University of Toronto president David Naylor recommended a $485-million boost in basic-research funding. Science Minister Kirsty Duncan initially welcomed the report, but has since suggested the money may not materialize after all.
As she decides, the minister should consider the case of circadian rhythms. The timing of this award, like so much scientific discovery, is serendipitous.