Professor of Bioengineering
University of Washington ghp@u.washington.edu
FAX: 206-685-3300
14 July 2009
Barack Obama, President
The White House
Dear President Obama:
As an active and successful member of this nation’s scientific research community, I come to you with a bold plan for advancing our country’s interests: a new institute that will invest deeply in science with breakthrough potential.
The proposed institute would focus on high-risk, high-return research only. As you know, DARPA has exploited this approach for producing dramatic results, including the Internet. By similarly investing in the many high-risk ideas that exist across the scientific disciplines, we have an opportunity to make giant leaps
— leaps that can advance our country’s scientific leadership, fuel our economic engine, and promote our security by being the first to discover, develop, and exploit potentially strategic findings.
People often think progress in science has been substantial; yet, during recent decades breakthroughs have been few and far between. The war on cancer for example was declared 40 years ago. At that time, available therapies for breast cancer were surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy; today, the therapies remain the same, with only incremental improvements. Breakthroughs of the magnitude of the polio vaccine, the laser, the antibiotic, or the transistor are simply not coming — and there is a reason.
In past eras, breakthroughs were commonly made by scientists free to explore where their curiosity led. An unexpected observation could be followed through toward possible breakthrough — e.g., Fleming and penicillin. Today, a top-down bureaucracy increasingly constrains scientific efforts into acceptable niches
(e.g., stem cells, nanotechnology, genomics). Administrators decide which areas of science are likely to bear fruit, and scientists hoping for solid support are obliged to work within those defined niches. They must then show steady progress within their respective niches to assure future funding. Deviating to pursue some unexpectedly interesting observation has become risky, and with widespread risk aversion, it is no surprise that breakthroughs have become rare while incremental science flourishes.
Also contributing to the dearth of breakthroughs is the vetting process itself. For the review of grant applications, administrators seek the most established leaders in their disciplines. Such leaders have a natural proclivity to support applicants whose views agree with their own. Applicants understand this; and as a result, they submit “safe” incremental proposals, while avoiding those that dare to challenge the status quo .
Thus, the funding system inadvertently suppresses the very types of research that might bring the longsought breakthroughs, leaving them to languish in the shadows as a huge untapped resource.
Science-agency administrators acknowledge these impediments. Seeking to address the issue, NIH leaders recently convened a workshop entitled “Fostering Innovation.” Highest-level directors attended, eager to hear the many suggestions for restoring innovation, including some that I, the main academic speaker offered.
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A few of the implemented suggestions might patch particular defects. However, crafting a
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comprehensive solution requires dealing with the elephants in the room: the mainstream scientific leaders who are reluctant to consider ideas that threaten their own well-funded efforts, which invariably represent the status quo . These scientists gain nothing from radical innovations. Yet, obtaining their consideration and their willingness to debate is a key step in bringing revolutionary advances to realization. If status-quo challenging ideas are to emerge from the shadows, something must be done to leverage the reluctant majority’s attention.
The proposed institute is designed to do just that. Meaningful paradigm-challenging ideas in diverse fields exist in abundance. Investing in the best of them is a sound strategy for testing their merit. Such an investment can build sufficient momentum to make ignoring them no longer feasible; mainstream scientific leaders would then be obliged to debate their merits. It’s like investing in a promising new product: By default, the public will stick with the old and familiar product. Any realistic hope of entering, let alone dominating, an established market must include a plan to develop and advertise the new product, for without public awareness, its advantages cannot be weighed.
To effect the needed action, I propose augmenting the existing scientific agencies with a new one chartered expressly to invest in creative, “out-of-the box” ideas that challenge conventional views. The institute could be added as an independent arm of an existing agency, but I believe that a fully independent institute, unencumbered by past philosophies and procedures, would function best. The new institute would be charged with identifying promising status-quo -challenging ideas in all areas of science. Reviewers would see proposals from outside their respective fields; a pool of the most highly rated ones would receive substantial funding. A dozen research groups with complementary expertise pursuing the same potentially earth-shaking idea could not be ignored. Orthodoxy and challenger would compete on equal footing, and the better of the two approaches would soon win. Were a challenger to win, this strategy will have brought about a realized revolution of potentially large magnitude — a cure for cancer, a solution for AIDS, a reliable predictor of earthquakes, a cheap form of clean energy, etc .
This new institute, perhaps called the “Institute of Venture Science” because of it’s high-risk orientation, could accomplish this goal with a budget of about ten percent of the combined NSF and NIH budgets, or about $4 billion per year. The IVS would be set up for a test period of ten years. If it fails to produce scientific revolutions during that period, it could be dismantled — the investment having been modest relative to current scientific investments, which have produced few revolutions. If it succeeds, as some of us think inevitable, then it will have restored science to the richly bountiful enterprise it was before the funding agencies began imposing top-down management and inviting mainstream scientists to judge their challengers. With proper investment (in part perhaps from private sources) in the most promising and farreaching breakthrough ideas, science should once again revolutionize human existence.
While the IVS should invest in science alone, any investments in high-risk, high-return science will inevitably bring the technological advances that follow scientific breakthroughs. Think of the laser, the transistor, the Xerox machine, the Internet, all based on revolutionary science — but from more than 30 years ago. Bold new scientific breakthroughs cannot help but bring more such astounding technologies, which in turn should bring an impressive return on investment.
Much more can be said. This letter’s purpose is to test your interest in exploring a high-risk, high-return investment strategy for achieving long-sought scientific breakthroughs. To assist with your consideration, I have appended a document outlining the possible workings of the proposed institute.
Sincerely,
Gerald H. Pollack, PhD

cc: John Holdren, OSTP; PCAST; Ranking members of Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation; Ranking members of House Committee on Science and Technology.
We, the undersigned, concur that the issues brought forth in this letter are serious, and endorse the suggested approach toward resolution:
Mikel Aicken, PhD , Research Professor, Family and Community Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson.
G. Graham Allan, PhD , Professor of Chemical Engineering and Forest Resources, Univ. of Washington.
Hakima Amri, PhD , Assistant Professor, Physiology and Biophysics, Georgetown University.
David Anick, MD, PhD , Research Associate, McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Gustavo V. Barbosa-Canovas, PhD , Director, Center for Nonthermal
Processing of Food, Washington
State University.
Henry Bauer, PhD , Dean Emeritus of Arts & Sciences, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry & Science Studies,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University.
Robert Root-Bernstein, PhD , Professor of Physiology,
 Michigan State University; MacArthur Fellow.
Thomas Bonnicksen, PhD , Professor & Chair Emeritus, Forest Science, Texas A&M University; Visiting
Scholar, Forest Foundation.
Dorothy Bowers , BA, BS , former Chair, National Advisory Council for Environmental Science and
Technology; former Vice President, Environmental Policy, Merck & Co.
Guozhong Cao, PhD , Professor of Materials Science, University of Washington.
Robert L. Carneiro, PhD , Curator of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History; Adjunct
Professor, Columbia University. Member, National Academy of Sciences.
Wei-Chun Chin, PhD , Assistant Professor, School of Engineering, University of California, Merced.
James Clegg, PhD , Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, former Director, Bodega Bay Laboratory,
University of California, Davis.
L Eric Cross, PhD , Evan Hugh Professor of Electrical Engineering Emeritus, Penn State University.
Diana Darnell, PhD , Research Assistant Professor, Cell Biology and Anatomy, University of Arizona
School of Medicine, Tucson.
William Denevan, PhD , Carl O. Sauer Professor Emeritus, Dept of Geography, Univ. of Wisconsin.
Allan Dobbins, PhD , Associate Professor, Vision Science Center, University of Alabama.
Michael E. Dubrasich, PhD , Executive Director, Western Institute for Study of the Environment.
Pat Frank, PhD , Staff Scientist, SLAC, Stanford University.
Jeff Fredberg, PhD , Professor of Bioengineering and Physiology, Harvard University.
Laurence Fredrick, PhD , Research Professor, Dept of Astronomy, University of Virginia.
Chaim Frenkel, PhD , Professor of Plant Physiology and Pathology, Rutgers University.
Csaba Galambos, MD, PhD , Assistant Professor of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh.
Warren Guntheroth, MD , Professor of Pediatrics, University of Washington.
Boyd Haley, PhD , Professor and Chair Emeritus, Department of Chemistry, University of Kentucky.
Arie Horowitz, ScD , Assistant Professor, Molecular Cardiology, Case Western Reserve University.
Eileen Jaffe, PhD , Senior Member, Fox Chase Cancer Center.
Tomas Jilling, MD , Research Associate Professor, Northwestern University School of Medicine.
Carl Johannessen, PhD , Professor Emeritus of Geography, University of Oregon.
Pete Jumars, PhD , Director, School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine.
Charles Kay, PhD , Professor of Wildlife Ecology, Utah State University.
Vinod Khosla, MS, MBA , Founding CEO, Sun Microsystems; co-founder, Daisy Systems; Founder, Khosla
Ventures.
A. Denny Kirwan, PhD , Mary A. S. Lighthipe Chair of Marine Studies, University of Delaware.

T. Fettah Kosar, PhD , Principal Scientist and Nanotech Facility Manager, Harvard University.
Robert Lee, PhD , Professor Emeritus, College of Forest Resources, University of Washington.
Michael Levin, PhD , Director, Forsyth Institute, Harvard University.
Subhash Mahajan, PhD . Director, School of Materials, Arizona State University.
Donald Miller, MD , Professor of Surgery, Former Chief, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, University of
Washington.
Garret Moddel, PhD , Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Colorado.
Howard Moskowitz, PhD , President and CEO, Moskowitz Jacobs Inc.
Michael Mross, PhD , President, Vermont Photonics Technologies Corp.
Amar Neogi , PhD , Director, Renewal Research, Weyerhauser Co.
Michael Newton, PhD , Professor Emeritus, Department of Forest Engineering, Resources and Management,
Oregon State University.
Wm. Ogle, PhD , Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida.
Charles Ordahl, PhD , Professor of Anatomy, University of California, San Francisco.
Mόnica V. Orellana, Ph.D, Senior Research Scientist, Institute for Systems Biology
Eric Posmentier, PhD , Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics and Department of Mathematics, Long
Island University; Visiting Professor, Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College.
William Reif , President, Wausau Coated Products.
R. Michael Roberts, PhD , Professor and Chair, Department of Oral Biology, University of Missouri. Member,
National Academy of Science.
Catherine M. Roberts , Co-Founder, Rutherford B.H. Yates Museum Inc.
Scott Roberts, PhD , former Vice President, Shell Oil Co.
David Rosen, PhD , Vice President, Applied Optics, Physical Sciences, Inc.
Rustum Roy, PhD , Evan Pugh Professor of the Solid State Emeritus, Professor of Geochemistry Emeritus,
Professor of Science, Technology, and Society Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University; Visiting Distinguished
Professor of Materials, Arizona State University.
Morton Satin, PhD , Founder and President, FoodAdviz LLC.
George Seidel, PhD, University Distinguished Professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State
University. Member, National Academy of Science.
Norman Singer, PhD , former Director of R&D, NutraSweet.
Lee Smolin, PhD
, Faculty, Perimeter Institute, and Author “The Trouble with Physics.”
Peter Stark, MS , Research Associate, Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical
School.
Brent Stewart, PhD , Professor of Radiology, University of Washington.
Ernest Stokely, PhD , Emeritus Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Emeritus Associate Dean of
Engineering, University of Alabama.
George Sugihara, PhD , McQuown Chair of Natural Science Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego.
Yolene Thomas, PhD , former Assistant Professor of Medicine and Microbiology, Columbia University
(now: Research Director, CNRS, Univ. Paris).
James Tucker, MD , Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, University of Virginia Health
System.
Donald Twieg, PhD , Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Alabama.
D. Eric Walters, PhD ,
Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology,
Rosalind Franklin University of
Medicine and Science.
William Woods, PhD , Professor of Geography, Courtesy Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas.
Garret L. Yount, PhD , Scientist, California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute.

Robert Zyback, PhD , Program Manager, Oregon Websites and Watershed Project.