Science Cuts Due To Sequestration Contributing To A Brain Drain From The Field

[marmar]

WASHINGTON -- When politicians talk about the need to maintain America as the destination for the best and the brightest in science, they probably have someone like Dr. Reena Pande in mind.

Pande's resume lists one high achievement after another. She earned a degree in biology at Harvard before attending the university's medical school. From there she did an internship and residency training at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston (which has been in the news for its top-notch treatment of the Boston bombing victims). She earned a fellowship in cardiovascular disease and vascular medicine and became a member of the Harvard faculty in 2009.

Along the way, she did research, primarily on the benefits that exercise can have in patients with vascular disease. Studying how such patients reacted to a training regimen, Pande used muscle biopsies in an effort to isolate the molecular signature of physical fitness.

"The holy grail is to find a gene that we can craft into a pill to help people who can't exercise with their medical issues," she explained to The Huffington Post. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/09/science-cuts-sequestration-brain-drain_n_3247557.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037