Students and faculty advocate for medical research funding in D.C.

Twenty graduate students and faculty members headed down to Washington, D.C. Monday to advocate for funding for medical research.

The team, led by the Penn Science Policy Group, a group started last December, attended a rally for medical research sponsored by several prominent medical organizations, including the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Heart Association. Then, decked out in lab coats, they trekked up Capitol Hill to meet with a variety of congressional staffers.

“I was trying to get people to go because I think it’s unacceptable that the [National Institutes of Health] is going to continue to lose money this year, especially after the budget has been flat for 10 years,” said fifth-year immunology doctoral candidate Shaun O’Brien, the academic director of the Penn Science Policy Group. “We can’t let this happen anymore. We can’t roll over.”

NIH, as well as most other branches and programs of the federal government, are facing automatic spending cuts under a provision known as sequestration. The group both pushed for a restoration of previous funding levels for NIH and for increased funding for academic research.

O’Brien stressed the view that research creates jobs and should therefore be viewed as an investment. He and fourth-year cell and molecular biology doctoral student Michael Convente praised Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) for his support of research funding. O’Brien also praised Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) for changing his pessimistic views on research.

“He’s really changed his tone in the last six months,” O’Brien said. “He’s seeing how important biomedical funding is to Penn and the community. So I feel like we’ve done a good job advocating. He’s hearing from us.”

The group met with both Casey and Toomey’s offices, as well as offices of other Congressional representatives from across the country, including Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), who represents the area surrounding Penn.

Veterinary student and developmental biology doctoral candidate Erika Lin-Hendel said that she was pleased to hear support from politicians on both sides of the aisle.

“It was very interesting to have a discussion, and both communicate our positions and hear some of their concerns when it comes to finding medical research,” Lin-Hendel said.

She added that she was pleased with the turnout at the rally earlier in the day, and was happy to be a part of the relatively new advocacy effort.

“It was really exciting to see so many people engaged in support of medical research,” she said. “It was one of the first really big rallies held in support of basic scientific and biomedical research, so it was really great to be a part of that.”

Convente added that he would like to see the trip become an annual event.

“I’m very encouraged with the amount of students and faculty that came on something that we really started organizing less than a month ago,” Convente said. “I think we’ve laid the groundwork for that.”

Penn regularly lobbies the federal government on issues related to funding for academic research, but most often does so through the Office of Government and Community Affairs and other full-time staff members. This time, it was the researchers themselves making the pitch to Washington.

“We can personalize our stories better,” O’Brien said of the impact the group had. “We’re the ones in the trenches working in the labs. We see the effects of shrinking funding. I think that’s what they need to hear.”

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