Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
SIR LESZEK
BORYSIEWICZ, DR
MARK WALPORT,
PROFESSOR MALCOLM
GRANT, AND
MRS LYNN
ROBB
17 DECEMBER 2007
Q20 Dr Gibson: When Paul Nurse thinks
about excellence in science—and I mean the details of the
science—what is going to happen, and maybe you could tell
me if Wellcome still does not touch cancer. There was a time when
you did not fund cancer.
Dr Walport: No, it has always
been a misapprehension that the Trust does not fund cancer. For
example, we have a partnership in Cambridge with CRUK, funding
the Gurdon Institute, and we are the funder of the Cancer Genome
Project which is led by Mike Stratton at the Institute of Cancer
Research and the Sanger Institute.
Q21 Dr Gibson: Just for the record
I remember somebody saying in 1998 that that was not the case.
Dr Walport: That has always been
a misapprehension. What the Trust does not fund is clinical cancer
trials comparing one chemotherapy agent with another; we have
always funded a large body of cancer research and we are continuing
to do so.
Dr Gibson: How are you going to make
British science sing by this venture?
Q22 Chairman: Excuse me, could we
just have the answer to your question about Sir Paul Nurse and
his committee?
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: Sir Paul
Nurse's committee is going to be the science policy committee
and they will look at the detail of the science that is actually
being proposed. They will look clearly as to what is going on
in NIMR, they will actually look also at what is going on in the
London Institute of Cancer Research UK, together with the work
that is going on at University College, and the importance is
actually to begin to develop a cohesive unit to ensure that those
elements that can actually work very well in a complementary fashion
are the ones that are actually being brought together on this
site, to help determine how best to use the capacity of that site
to further the sort of integrated science that we would like to
see.
Q23 Dr Gibson: Will he bring people
into that committee from other parts of the world, from the USA?
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: Yes, he
will.
Q24 Dr Gibson: We do not know how
many of them there might be in balance.
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: At the
present time, no, we do not know, because he is at the present
time literally over here. Our first discussions were last week
with him in terms of the membership of that particular committee
and he is actually going to come back to us with proposed membership.
Q25 Dr Gibson: What science is the
UK going to gain and what are we going to lose by breaking up
some of these world class institutes?
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: Firstly,
let us not make the assumption about breaking up. What we are
looking at at the present time is a site with a very large capacity,
so the first thing that we will need to look at is what is actually
world class, how well does it actually become cohesive and we
get added value between scientists on two different areas. For
example, the science that is being done at the London Institute
is very much cancer-focused. The obvious synergy with the work
being done in terms of development and developmental biology on
the Mill Hill NIMR campus is pretty clear, bringing those two
together is actually going to have enormous benefits to both areas.
There is also the fact that what we are able to do as we build
up this institute is to ensure that the infrastructure is world
class and is maintained as being world class. That is key, because
if we are going to train some of the very best scientists for
the future what we actually need to do is ensure that we have
actually got the world class science there and that then we provide
the infrastructure and the opportunity for young scientists to
train in that environment.
Q26 Dr Gibson: Let me contrast this
tension that you are having with Cold Spring Harbor, for example;
Jim Watson, when he set that up, went for the best people in the
USA to do the best science, because he knows as you know that
you can never quite predict what is going to happen and what is
going to be important—prions, or bird flu or whatever. We
are excellent in this country of seemingly closing things down
just as it is starting to become important, so how are you going
to avoid that happening again? How do you know that work in these
other places that you are amalgamating is not going to be really
important in the next five or ten years; how do you make that
judgment?
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: It is
a difficult judgment to make, I would accept that, but at the
outset what I have to say is we are dealing with institutions
which already are assessed as having world class science actually
inherent in them, there are world leaders in these various areas,
so we are actually bringing together a synergy of people already
at the forefront. I cannot predict, in terms of the duration and
time it is going to take to develop this particular institute,
that huge things are not going to come along; the importance of
having a science policy committee set up by somebody as renowned
as Paul Nurse actually ensuring that it is made up of strong people,
is that they will have the capacity to make alterations and changes
as we go along, such that it remains responsive. Ultimately, the
structure that will be created is always going to be the same
sort of structure as we have at NIMR, but it needs to be responsive
to new directions whilst maintaining an underlying theme of giving
people, in an institute-type model, the opportunity to pursue
difficult and long term questions. It is a balance.
Q27 Dr Gibson: What will we lose
from the NIMR in your opinion?
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: In my
opinion I think it would be very wrong for me to sit here and
actually predict what might be lost; that is precisely why we
are asking for that independent opinion.
Q28 Dr Gibson: I see; nothing is
ruled in and nothing is ruled out at this stage.
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: Nothing
is ruled in and nothing is ruled out at this stage at all.
Dr Walport: Science is an organic
process. If you actually look across the States, in Boston there
is the Broad Institute, there is the Picower Institute, there
are new institutes cropping up all the time, because science has
to evolve. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has just established
the Janelia Farm Research Campus[2].
Q29 Dr Gibson: Private institutes, on
the whim of a Howard Hughes or somebody.
Dr Walport: If you view the Howard
Hughes, which is a philanthropic organisation, as having whims.
Q30 Dr Gibson: I am on about Howard
putting the money in.
Dr Walport: I do not think these
are whims, they are actually about providing the very best facilities
for science. Science is organic, it is something that changes,
and what we need to be sure of is that we are competitive. Look
at what has been happening in Singapore with Biopolis, look at
the recruitment that they have achieved there through building
outstanding facilities. We have to provide scientists with outstanding
facilities and this will be a terrific opportunity to do that.
Q31 Dr Gibson: The difference, Mark
Walport, you know, is that Britain started off at a high level
and we have got to stay there; in Singapore they started off at
an exceptionally low level and built up from that with government
support.
Dr Walport: But Boston started
off at a pretty high level and Boston is not standing still. If
we sit on our laurels we cannot take it for granted that UK science
will be at the apex for ever, we have to be challenging.
Q32 Graham Stringer: Two questions
really. Following Ian's original question, you said you had considered
places outside London and the South East for this; how did you
consider them?
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: They were
considered as part of the business case that we developing for
this particular area. They were actually considered by a group
of scientists who looked at the particular opportunities that
would be offered by alternative sites.
Q33 Chairman: Is this subsequent
to Temperance Hospital or before that?
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: Subsequent
to Temperance Hospital from my understanding.
Q34 Graham Stringer: In considering
them, did they know they were being considered, was there a competitive
process, were they consulted, how did this consideration take
place?
Professor Grant: There was of
course a process before the Temperance Hospital which involved
a series of options and appraisals, going over at least a decade.
There was a time at which it was proposed, for example, that the
NIMR laboratories should move to Cambridge. There was then a decision
taken by a special scientific committee that had been set up by
the MRC to reconsider that decision and to look at possibilities
within London, and then eventually to run a competition between
King's College, London and University College London, and a decision
was taken in February 2005 that the London option should prevail
and that it should be a site in central London adjacent to UCL.
That was the culmination of a process of decision-making that
had taken place over a decade or more.
Q35 Graham Stringer: You have really
not put too much flesh on your answer to Ian's questions. You
said you had considered places outside London and you have just
told me that it was a competition between two parts of London
and the process went on for ten years. Did you, for instance,
talk to or consult people in Newcastle or Manchester or Dundee?
Dr Walport: With respect, you
are trying to have your cake and eat it because on the one hand—
Q36 Graham Stringer: I am just trying
to get an answer to the question. We will save the Christmas cake
until later.
Dr Walport: Okay, I will give
you a simple answer.
Q37 Chairman: That is what we are
actually here for.
Dr Walport: One is starting with
two great institutes at NIMR and the London Research Institute
at Lincoln's Inn Fields; therefore, in a sense, thinking that
one could as it were pluck those institutes up and plonk them
down in Newcastle or elsewhere in the country is not very realistic,
so if we are to achieve and ensure the best of both worlds then,
in fact, a London location is a logical location.
Q38 Graham Stringer: I understand
that as an answer, it just does not fit very easily with the previous
answer that places outside of London were considered. Which is
the more accurate answer?
Dr Walport: I have given my answer.
Professor Grant: I do not see
any inconsistency between the answers. The choice has to be made,
not only on scientific merits, and the scientific merits are not
purely a matter of shifting an institute to a university that
already has strong science or weak science. If you start allocating
science on a regional basis you will not necessarily get the best
answer for the UK. The answer has to be predicated on where scientists
can most readily go or where they would most readily wish to be
located. The institutions that are being brought together here
are actually already based within close reach of the existing
site.
Q39 Dr Gibson: It was nothing to
do with the research assessment exercise and keeping your score
up with Oxford and Cambridge and even looking across the pond
at MRT? Was that not seen as a pay-off?
Professor Grant: From the point
of view of any university that was approached by MRC, as was the
original competition, then of course that was a very important
set of considerations, absolutely, but I have to stress that the
new project is completely different from the old. The old project
was an attempt to renew NIMR by looking at comparisons as to whether
it should remain on its existing site or should move to another
location. The new project is about bringing together an additional
institute, Cancer Research UK's laboratories in central London,
to try to see what could be brought out of bringing these two
together and co-locating them. It is very, very different from
the original project that we were talking about here in this Committee
two years ago.
2 Note from the witness: http://www.hhmi.org/janelia Back
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