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How an outsider bucked prevailing Alzheimer's theory, clawed for validation

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Re: How an outsider bucked prevailing Alzheimer's theory, clawed for validation

#11

Post by delbel »

eganist wrote: post #2

This seems to be referencing the path to mainstream exposure for the infectious theory of Alzheimer's. Prior discussions (not the same link) on HN, posted for reference because they touch on the past research that was previously posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18306381 (this one's a comment I made associating the cortisol/Alz risk to the microbial Alz connection; it's nothing more than a hypothesis)…

if you have a blood parasite, the virus will hide inside the parasite and re-infect you, and it won't matter if you are on a drug that kills the virus (unless the drug can get into the parasite and kill it as well). Even worse the virus could theoretically hide in your DNA or immune system as instructions-to-run-later, and your system could screw up and accidentally re-create it -- I am not sure how exactly that would work but it is worth exploring the possibility. If it was easy to kill, it'd be dead by now.

Re: How an outsider bucked prevailing Alzheimer's theory, clawed for validation

#12

Post by untilHellbanned »

rpedela wrote: post #7

One of things I like about the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is that they find great scientists and just fund them. The scientists can research whatever they want as long as they keep producing. I always wondered if a hybrid approach to funding would work well at the government level. The current, permission-based process would remain in place for new researchers to prove themselves, and then an HHMI-style p…

Disagree vehemently. HHMI funds what’s fashionable. Find me a HHMI investigator without a recent CNS paper. As with Nobel prizes, the true innovators always seem to make their discoveries outside the power circle.

Re: How an outsider bucked prevailing Alzheimer's theory, clawed for validation

#13

Post by WalterBright »

rpedela wrote: post #7

One of things I like about the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is that they find great scientists and just fund them. The scientists can research whatever they want as long as they keep producing. I always wondered if a hybrid approach to funding would work well at the government level. The current, permission-based process would remain in place for new researchers to prove themselves, and then an HHMI-style p…

Reminds me of Lockheed's Skunkworks. I've heard lots of businessmen say they're going to recreate skunkworks, but with improvements.

The improvements, of course, make it not a skunkworks and these efforts never deliver skunkworks performance.

Could the government create a skunkworks? Not likely, because they fought against Kelly Johnson constantly over how he ran it.

I bet Paul Allen could have done it, because he had a track record of funding competent people and letting them do what they wanted.

Re: How an outsider bucked prevailing Alzheimer's theory, clawed for validation

#14

Post by gameswithgo »

untilHellbanned wrote: post #12
rpedela wrote: post #7

One of things I like about the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is that they find great scientists and just fund them. The scientists can research whatever they want as long as they keep producing. I always wondered if a hybrid approach to funding would work well at the government level. The current, permission-based process would remain in place for new researchers to prove themselves, and then an HHMI-style p…

Disagree vehemently. HHMI funds what’s fashionable. Find me a HHMI investigator without a recent CNS paper. As with Nobel prizes, the true innovators always seem to make their discoveries outside the power circle.

How do the many innovations of bell labs fit your hypothesis?

Re: How an outsider bucked prevailing Alzheimer's theory, clawed for validation

#15

Post by neuromantik8086 »

gameswithgo wrote: post #14
untilHellbanned wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree vehemently. HHMI funds what’s fashionable. Find me a HHMI investigator without a recent CNS paper. As with Nobel prizes, the true innovators always seem to make their discoveries outside the power circle.

How do the many innovations of bell labs fit your hypothesis?

He (or she)'s not disagreeing with the notion that unfettered funding produces innovation, he (or she)'s disagreeing with the notion that HHMI provides unfettered funding.

Part of the beauty of Bell Labs was that it wasn't necessarily all about fame and grandstanding- a lot of folks who were working there were just normal, unassuming New Jersey folk who put in a good days work messing around with whatever they were tasked with. The only analogous example to that sort of dynamic today might be amongst the workers at large government agencies like NIST and the NIH; it's unlikely that many of them will ever become rockstars in today's research climate, but they dutifully carry out experiments nonetheless.

Re: How an outsider bucked prevailing Alzheimer's theory, clawed for validation

#16

Post by iscrewyou »

WalterBright wrote: post #13
rpedela wrote: post #7

One of things I like about the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is that they find great scientists and just fund them. The scientists can research whatever they want as long as they keep producing. I always wondered if a hybrid approach to funding would work well at the government level. The current, permission-based process would remain in place for new researchers to prove themselves, and then an HHMI-style p…

Reminds me of Lockheed's Skunkworks. I've heard lots of businessmen say they're going to recreate skunkworks, but with improvements. The improvements, of course, make it not a skunkworks and these efforts never deliver skunkworks performance. Could the government create a skunkworks? Not likely, because they fought against Kelly Johnson constantly over how he ran it. I bet Paul Allen could have done it, because he ha…

I’m in the midst of listening to the Skunk Works audiobook. And it’s fascinating. It had been on my list of things to read but I just couldn’t wait. I bit the bullet and bought the audiobook. It’s worth every penny.

Re: How an outsider bucked prevailing Alzheimer's theory, clawed for validation

#17

Post by neuromantik8086 »

jcranmer wrote: post #6
pasta1212 wrote: post #3

> Complaints about being denied NIH funding are as common among biomedical researchers as spilled test tubes after a Saturday night lab kegger Is this supposed to mean complaints are common?

Yes. It's not particularly surprising, though, since research grants is basically a field with much higher demand than supply.

Yup. And the NIH even has pretty reports to hit you over the head with just how depressing the situation actually is for researchers (especially if you're young).

https://report.nih.gov/NIHDatabook/Charts/Default.aspx?chart...

https://report.nih.gov/DisplayRePORT.aspx?rid=827

Re: How an outsider bucked prevailing Alzheimer's theory, clawed for validation

#18

Post by neuromantik8086 »

stephengillie wrote: post #5
pasta1212 wrote: post #3

> Complaints about being denied NIH funding are as common among biomedical researchers as spilled test tubes after a Saturday night lab kegger Is this supposed to mean complaints are common?

The article is littered with references to beer. As though the target demographic alcoholics who enjoy PopSci.

Scientific / conference culture has a somewhat concerning relationship with alcohol, which was a contributing factor to my ultimately leaving science. The amount of pressure to go out to a pub with your colleagues was much higher for me than it was in my current job, in large part because serious discussions and informal deals that could directly impact your academic career tend to happen in these sorts of contexts. I suspected that a lot of my co-workers in science were high functioning alcoholics.
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