The past year has been an eventful one both for The American Association of Immunologists and for the scientific community. We have seen controversy about the use of scientific information and advice in government, efforts by life scientists to prevent inappropriate information from falling into the hands of would-be terrorists, and a dramatic reduction in the increases in federal support for biological research. These events in the world of science and other events in the world at large continue to pose challenges for the Association and for all of us. Still, I think it has been a great year for the AAI, in large part because we continue to see breathtaking science done by outstanding investigators who continue to push back the frontiers of immunology. One of the best things about being President of AAI, besides the fact that it is almost over, is that I get to preside over this marvelous gathering during which that research is presented—not only by senior scientists but also by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, the next generation of immunologists.
I have been extremely fortunate to have two inspiring mentors in my scientific career: Harvey Cantor and Bill Paul, both of whom have greatly influenced my own path. I have also been extraordinarily lucky in the group of young scientists—graduate students and postdoctoral fellows—whom I have been privileged to train. My comments herein concern the decisions that shape the development of young scientists.
Significant obstacles still exist for the successful training of the next generation of scientists. Many of these relate to managing an intensive professional life while simultaneously coping with burgeoning family obligations. At a time when they need to spend long hours working in the laboratory, young men and women in postdoctoral fellowships are often coping with both young children and elderly parents.
The seriousness of this problem is exemplified by the fact that gender disparity in the academic arena is still very much with us. A recent study from the National Science Foundation attests to the persistent loss of young women at all stages of career development, including the postdoctoral to assistant professor stage. One explanation for this is that women bear children and are almost always their primary caregiver. Not always, though. I know several men, for example, who share equally in the care of their young children. Taking care of children or an ailing parent presents significant obstacles to the career advancement of young men and women. The playing ground cannot be level for postdoctoral fellows with significant family obligations compared with their peers without such. Given the unalterable biologic facts, how can we best help young scientists during their postdoctoral training period, a time when many of them start their families or assume responsibility for aging, ill parents?
As their supervisors, we need to be effective mentors for them. While intellectual and emotional support for these young scientists struggling to be productive at work and at home is all very well, it does not actually “put bread on the table,” as it were. In other words, postdocs who are primary caregivers cannot easily put in the long hours required to achieve the success necessary to be competitive for junior faculty positions. It is difficult to work evenings and weekends with small children to look after. With three children myself, I can personally attest to that! Postdocs with children are thus at a disadvantage compared with their male or female colleagues without children who have fewer or no time constraints.
One approach to reducing barriers for these new investigators is to provide them with some much-needed “extra” hours in the form of another pair of hands. From my own experience, providing primary caregiver postdoctoral fellows with full-time technical help has been an enormous boost in fostering their careers. In my laboratory, postdoctoral fellows who are the primary caregivers for small children are allowed to hire a full-time technician to work with them on their projects. This did not mean that the postdoctoral fellow just supervised while the technician worked. It meant that there were two full-time people devoted to that project. These postdocs were able to continue their careers unabated when family responsibilities were extremely consuming. The result? Although the sample size is small, all four of these postdocs have gone on to be productive faculty members with assistant/associate professor positions at prestigious universities. This worked equally well in my own experience for both male and female postdoctoral fellows with significant childcare responsibilities. Supervising a research assistant provides other benefits as well. It helps these young scientists learn how to organize their own and others’ time most effectively as well as how to develop productive relationships with their own trainees, which is good training for the future.
So, why has this not been done more frequently? There are several reasons; one is money. My laboratory has been fortunate to have the financial resources to provide such technical help, but many Principal Investigators (PIs) do not. Some PIs might consider that the resources they have could be spent better elsewhere. Some PIs might believe that an unfriendly and envious atmosphere is created in a laboratory where only some postdoctoral fellows are given this opportunity. I do not agree. It has been my experience that the colleagues of these young scientists are highly supportive of such efforts to equalize postdoctoral experiences. Be that as it may, I would suggest that it is wisest to take this out of the hands of individual faculty mentors and make it available to all qualified applicants.
Twenty years ago, the National Cancer Institute began the Minority Investigator supplement program. Any PI with a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded RO1 can simply contact the Program Officer to have the salary of a minority graduate student or postdoctoral fellow added on to an existing RO1 or Career Development Award. The addition of the supplemental funds is handled by administrative staff, and takes only about 6 weeks. This program has been a huge success and was rapidly emulated by all other Institutes at NIH and is now NIH-wide. We considered that it would be beneficial to do something similar for supplemental technical support for postdoctoral fellows who are the primary caregivers of children or of elderly parents. Appropriate documentation will be required of course, but it should be easy to emulate the already well-established Minority Investigator program. The cost to NIH should be minimal since the pool of qualified applicants is not large, and the cost of a full-time technician is quite modest.
Therefore, I am very pleased to announce to you a new program, HANDS-ON: Primary Caregiver Technical Assistance Supplements (PCTAS), created with the advice of Dr. Dinah Singer and made possible by the support of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The announcement was recently published in the NIH Guide and is summarized in Table I. For details, please go to the website <http://www.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/training/pctas.htm>. This is a simple, inexpensive suggestion that adds financial vigor with a concrete mechanism for assisting valuable young scientists. In addition to making a real difference in their lives, I hope this program will be seen as the kind of creative use of resources that will enhance the image of NIAID—and other NIH Institutes which will hopefully adopt it—with its constituencies in government and the public as a leader in removing obstacles that impede the training of the next generation of health researchers.
Primary Caregiver Technical Assistance Supplements (PCTAS)
Purpose . | Features . |
---|---|
This pilot program will provide technical assistance to NIAID-funded extramural postdoctoral fellows taking care of young children or ailing parents. | PCTAS will enable postdoctoral fellows to obtain technical assistance by providing a supplement to a PI of an NIAID RO1 grant. |
Successful applicants will obtain either a 1 or 2 year award up to $50,000 a year. | |
The supplement is not renewable. |
Purpose . | Features . |
---|---|
This pilot program will provide technical assistance to NIAID-funded extramural postdoctoral fellows taking care of young children or ailing parents. | PCTAS will enable postdoctoral fellows to obtain technical assistance by providing a supplement to a PI of an NIAID RO1 grant. |
Successful applicants will obtain either a 1 or 2 year award up to $50,000 a year. | |
The supplement is not renewable. |
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This paper represents a portion of the Presidential Address entitled “Cell Fate Decisions in Lymphocytes: All’s Well That Ends Well” presented at the Annual Meeting of The American Association of Immunologists, April 17, 2004, in Washington, DC.