Eric Lander of Broad Institute named White House science adviser to president elect Joe Biden.
A short thread w/ a few observations about Eric Lander who i have previously called "the single most influential and powerful scientist in America." 1/n
2/n first of all, i work for MIT and Lander's institute, the Broad Institute, is a big deal on campus, maybe the most important deal, bringing in much funding, prestige, and shaping great events.
In comparison, I am a mere munchkin. Context
3/n Lander is a "geneticist" but he wasn't always. He was a a mathematician and economist I think, before moving into bio.
Historic insight: computation to revolutionize genetics/biology. This move is chronicled in an MIT documentary "Controversy to Cure" about Kendall Square
4/n
Kendall Square is the supercluster of biotech companies, univ labs, students, VCs, on the edge of MIT Campus.
But it wasnt always. As documentary says, "Kendall was once a desolate landscape" of shuttered factories.
Watch it here.
5/n Long story short, and from memory: Lander and David Baltimore put a computer (gasp!) in some closet upstairs in the Whitehead Institute
Thus the genome era begins---it's going to be big data era, a computer era.
6/n Lander's mark on the physical space in Kendall is unmistakable.
As we once wrote "He’s the creator of an immense research empire at MIT" and the "his latest research building in Cambridge towers above the previous two as if they were so many Russian dolls"
7/n Lander is widely viewed as a genius and also as a somewhat Machiavellian figure ... he's real, real sharp and strategic.
Good to have him on your team.
"Science profits from the ambitious" was how someone once described it.
8/n Lander in the '99-'02 period, during the Human Genome Project, pretty much was the one who fended off J. Craig Center, who threatened to create a commercial gene map before the public sector could. wsj.com/articles/SB981…
9/n Important to know that in the HGP Lander closely allied with Francis Collins, then director of the NIH genome branch, and now the director of the NIH, to get stuff done.
Any story about Lander's power is also about Collins' power.
Here they are with Obama.
10/ Cleverly, very cleverly, and importantly, Collins survived at NIH Director throughout Trump Administration. Hard to think of any head of a big agency that survived.
And imagine. Fauci reports to Collins.
11/ What does Lander represent? To biologists he is "Big Science". Big labs, lots of sequencing machines. That's good because makes a lot of data. Bad because sucks up all $$ for "industrialized, mindless science"
14/sidenote: You may have noticed that the Broad Institute appears with unusual regularity as glowing subject of stories in The New Yorker. I am told this is because Eric Lander ('78) went to Princeton and so did NYR editor David Remnick ('81). Some kind of supperclub deal.
15/ Whereas I went to Stuyvesant H.S. in New York City and so did Eric Lander. Stuyvesant is a math and science magnet school that has been in the news recently because it uses tests for entry and as a result has >75% Asian students.
Somewhat contrary to the New York Times headline of today, the CDC models show b.1.1.7 replacing other strains, but do not show a "huge spike" in cases.
3/4 models show a decline in overall vases and 1/4 shows a flat trend.
Lab-origin theory is a gathering of "overzealous activists, self-appointed detectives, unqualified writers, and politically motivated conspiracy theorists."
Still this thread author goes on to say it's possible sars-cov-2 is a lab accident; offers criteria for how to discuss.
COMPLAINT "Since in or about 2013, CHEN’s research at MIT has been funded by more than $19 million in grants awarded by .. U.S. Department of Defense (“DOD”), the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) and the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (“DARPA”).
"investigating CHEN for several violations of
federal law, including wire fraud due to his failure to disclose contracts, appointments, and awards
from various entities in the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) in connection with his receipt of
federal grant funding from DOE"
Russian Federation public relations sent me a statement from Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, crowing about how U.S. may follow their license-first, see if it works later, coronavirus vaccine strategy.
Read on to see how they troll:
1/9
Dear all,
Please see below the quote by RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev:
“The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) notes the desire of the US and British authorities to follow the fast-track registration procedure for coronavirus vaccines ...applied in the Russian Federation.
2/9
"Our partners in the United States and the United Kingdom have recently aggressively criticized Russia for registering the world's first vaccine against COVID-19, Sputnik V.