Anything but Basic

As the federal administration has moved to slash public funding for research and education at all levels, and as the government now enters into what could be a prolonged shutdown, many researchers are left worrying whether their grants will be attacked and their projects terminated. Alongside governmentally initiated ideological attacks on research grants, the administration seeks to reduce funding for basic science by one-third.

We are researchers and professors of anthropology; because our research generates hypotheses about human health but does not directly translate into the development of cures and such, it is classified by the U.S. government as “basic” research. “Basic,” as a category of research, is a catch-all for anything that is not immediately “applied” to human health or technological development, or considered practical.

We get it: We live in a capitalist society that places monetary value on just about everything, science not least of all. If you study monkey teeth, like we do, you develop a whole pitch about how this seemingly niche piece of anatomy is in fact fundamental for our understanding of healthy development of the human face, jaws and brain. Our research, like our recent paper in Frontiers Ecology and Evolution, provides evidence that the face and teeth, which begin developing in utero and continue growing over the first years of life, likely evolve in a coordinated fashion in primates, including humans. From this, we can put forth hypotheses about candidate genes that may underlie these coordinated changes, such as RUNX2, a gene implicated in healthy facial and dental development. And once you are talking about health, the step to monetizing science can be quite short here in the U.S. Not so basic after all.

Scientists like us who do this type of hypothesis-generating research tend to prefer the term “foundational” over “basic”: Our research forms a foundation for applied research that can generate meaningful and practical advancements for human society. Without foundational research, applied research is not possible. And besides, not all great translatable discoveries started out that way—think of the discovery of penicillin, a happy accident arising when Sir Alexander Fleming forgot to the do the (Petri) dishes when going on vacation!

We’re already seeing shifts away from basic research in federal scientific agencies’ priorities. The National Science Foundation recently put out a call for applications for research that promotes “flexible pathways to translate innovative new technologies from the laboratory to practice,” with an initial investment of $30 million. While all funding is arguably good funding, with NSF’s budget on the chopping block, new investments in one area inherently reflect reductions elsewhere—in this case, for “basic” research. This was recently confirmed by our NSF program officer, who told us that “budget limitations are likely to be a major consideration” for new grant applications and that we should try and connect any future projects to “biotech and/or translation” to have a chance at being awarded funding.

The Graduate Research Fellowship Program, a prestigious NSF program designed to support early-career researchers, has traditionally seen 20 percent investment in life scientists; this year, life scientists were entirely left out of the 500 awardees, while computer scientists received a far greater share of awards—marking a clear shift in priorities that aligns with federal pressures to prioritize artificial intelligence and quantum information studies.

This feeling that research must produce capitalistic gain to be worthy of funding is one supported by some taxpayers as well; a letter to the editor printed in the Princeton alumni magazine (Monson’s alma mater) argued that universities should be eliminating “‘research projects’ that run for years without output of any value.” It now rests on our shoulders to demonstrate the incredible value of foundational research, beyond what we describe in the broader impact statements of our grant applications.

To quickly illustrate the medical importance of foundational research: Recent advancements in gene editing that have enormous potential for disease treatment would not be possible today were it not for the foundational research of the largely federally funded Human Genome Project (1990–2003), which mapped the human genome. And that project built on decades of work that relied on the “basic” research of Crick, Franklin and Watson in the 1950s, who discovered the structure of DNA with a method that uses X-rays.

And that discovery would not have been possible were it not for the discovery of X-rays themselves by Röntgen in the late 19th century, another accidental and Nobel Prize–worthy discovery (which also provided the foundation for lifesaving diagnostic tools through medical imaging, among many other applications, like airport security screenings). Carly Ann York’s new book, The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog (Basic Books), is a great place to start for a list of curiosity-driven discoveries that changed modern technology as we know it.

Beyond the applied medical value of studying monkey teeth, which is certainly important, there is literally a whole world of foundational value out there. Our goal for this article is to leverage our expertise as scientific researchers and university educators to illuminate the global reach of foundational science, and to emphasize its impact at multiple levels.

1. Global impact. Research on monkey teeth, like research on any other underappreciated species or body part, has global impact that goes beyond translatable medical treatments. We are trying to understand the basic building blocks of evolution and how parts of the skeleton can change over time in response to the environment, allowing for the diversity of faces and bodies that we see today in humans and other species. How did the human face and teeth evolve, and did it have anything to do with our brains? These are the types of questions that are embedded in a paper on monkey teeth. Moreover, these monkeys are found at the same excavation sites as many of our extinct relatives, Homo and Australopithecus. Their teeth tell the stories of the environment millions of years ago while also giving clues about the geological time period in which our ancient forbears existed. These are foundational questions about the nature of human existence and our shared place as a species in the known universe. What greater global impact can you ask for from a scholar?
2. Community impact. More tangibly, the science of monkey teeth directly impacts communities, locally and abroad. An example of local impact can be seen in our labs themselves, physical spaces that contain scientific tools available for use by interested undergraduate and graduate students. We regularly trot out 3-D scanners to demonstrate this technology to our students. Interacting with these tools draws students into science and gives them the opportunity to train on technologies that build their career potential. Likewise, the 3-D printers in our labs are managed by teams of undergraduates who learn the entire pipeline, from scanning objects to working with them digitally to 3-D printing and painting them. These types of research experiences—self-motivated and self-directed—open new skill sets for burgeoning scholars and future professionals across a range of potential careers.

Beyond the local impact of our work, data collected for our recently published project is shared freely alongside the publication, which is itself open access and freely accessible around the world. We had to travel to nine museums over more than a decade to collect all the data for this project. But now the data is out there, available for use by any number of eager and inquisitive scientists, many of whom are limited in the time or money necessary to gather such a massive data set. The future studies that other scholars may go on to publish with our data may even produce the sort of return that our federal funders value most greatly: the applied, practical science that can be monetized.

3. Individual impact. Science is, by necessity, collaborative. Gone are the days of squirreling away in your lab, testing concoctions on yourself—take a lesson from the unfortunate (and fictional) Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Every opportunity that we open for someone else through collaboration creates the potential for immeasurable value, monetary and otherwise. A recent graduate of the Primate Evolution Lab (run by Monson) has gone on to a Ph.D. program at Yale University, with an unlimited future now rolling out in front of him. It may start with an interest in monkey teeth, but who knows where that interest, experience and collaborative relationship can end up leading, or what impact that can generate along the way?

Focusing only on the immediate, practical value of a scientific project, without recognizing the downstream impacts that it can have—globally, in the community and on individuals—is shortsighted. Foundational research is the base upon which everything else is built, and it’s anything but basic.