biological Sciences $408,620,000
The FY 2000 Budget Request for the Biological Sciences Activity (BIO) is $408.62 million, an increase of $17.76 million, or 4.5 percent, over the FY 1999 Current Plan of $390.86 million.
(Millions
of Dollars)
Totals may not add due to rounding.
The Biological
Sciences Activity provides support for research to advance understanding of the
underlying principles and mechanisms governing life. Research ranges from the study of the structure and dynamics of
biological molecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids, through cells, organs
and organisms, to studies of populations and ecosystems. It encompasses processes that are internal
to the organism as well as those that are external, and includes temporal
frameworks ranging from measurements in real time through individual life
spans, to the full scope of evolutionary time.
The highest priority within the BIO Activity is to support the vitality of the biological sciences at U.S. colleges and universities, especially in those areas where NSF has major responsibility. The Foundation is the nation's principal supporter of fundamental academic research on plant biology, environmental biology, and biodiversity.
Research on circadian
rhythms supported by the Biological Sciences at NSF was recently cited by Science magazine as one of the two most
important scientific advances in 1998.
NSF has funded much of the recent research work on circadian rhythms,
the built-in mechanism organisms use to keep track of the 24-hour cycle between
night and day. This includes a newly discovered gene in the fruit fly
Drosophila that regulates the molecular cycles underlying circadian rhythms.
Researchers affiliated with the NSF-supported Center for Biological Timing led
by the University of Virginia performed this work. Another team of biologists
at Vanderbilt and Texas A&M Universities identified three genes essential
to circadian rhythms in cyanobacteria. These are the simplest organisms known to
have such "internal clocks" that react to night and day. These discoveries will potentially enable
manipulation of the biological clock to alleviate problems including jet lag, shift work, and winter depression.
Science also listed genomics amongst the
top accomplishments for 1998, the year they say that “genomics took off”. BIO’s role in plant genomics has been
significant. Within BIO, the Plant Genome Research Subactivity (PGR) was
established in FY 1998. PGR supports
research that will advance understanding of the structure, organization and
function of plant genomes, and builds upon an existing base of genome research
supported throughout the BIO Activity. Research supported by PGR is
accelerating utilization of new knowledge and innovative technologies to
achieve a more complete understanding of basic biological processes in plants,
with emphasis on economically significant species such as corn.
More than 80 percent
of BIO funding is directed toward investigator-initiated, fundamental research,
predominantly in colleges and universities, across the United States. Emphasis is placed on support for studies
that enrich the fundamental knowledge base, for projects integrating research
and education, and for high risk/high potential research. BIO also places a high priority on support
for new investigators beginning their scientific careers; approximately
one-third of all new competitive research awards made by BIO are to new
investigators. BIO plays a major role in
support of research resources for the biological sciences including multi-user
instrumentation, living stock centers, genome sequencing, systematics
collections, biological field stations, and computerized databases.
In FY 2000, the BIO Activity will increase funding by a total of $17.76 million. Much of the increase is directed toward enhancing support for research and education efforts related to three broad Foundation-wide efforts: Biocomplexity in the Environment, Information Technologies, and Educating for the Future. In addition, BIO will increase support for Plant Genome Research, an area of emerging importance with connections to IT as it benefits significantly from the technological breakthroughs coming out of that area.
Biocomplexity in the Environment (BE):
includes a set of increasingly coordinated activities in biology, environmental
science, engineering and education. BIO
will provide $124.33 million for BE.
This is an increase of $7.43
million over the FY 1999 level of
$116.90 million, for activities formerly known as Life and Earth’s
Environment. Highlights include:
·
Biodiversity and Ecosystems Dynamics
(BED): Funding of $105.63 million,
including an increment of $4.90 million will:
·
stimulate new approaches to
understanding biocomplexity and its role in ecosystem dynamics, incorporating
contributions from a range of disciplines;
·
accelerate a paradigm shift in
ecosystem science making full use of state-of-the-art technologies; and
·
focus on integrated ecosystem science,
information integration and transfer, and technological innovations, to enhance
the scientific information base needed for effective stewardship of the
nation’s natural resources.
These efforts
build upon ongoing support for:
·
Environmental observatories—projects to
characterize the microorganisms from a series of sites. This research will be carried out at a
network of biological platforms, such as Long Term Ecological Research (LTER)
sites, biological field stations, and marine laboratories;
·
Integrated research
challenges—continuation of a competition that focuses on complex environmental
questions requiring a multi-disciplinary, multi-scale approach; and
·
Life in Extreme Environments
(LexEn)—projects that focus on the relationships between organisms, especially
microbes, and extreme environments.
·
Environment and the Human Dimension
(EHD): An increment of $2.53 million
for a total of $13.90 million will support a new postdoctoral program in
microbial biology and other education and research resource related activities.
Continued support will be provided for studies of human-dominated ecosystems
where long-term benchmark records of critical ecological processes will be
developed; this will include continuing study of urban communities as
ecological systems, such as Urban
LTERs.
· Global and Environmental Change (GEC): A total of $4.80 million in FY 2000 will
maintain support for research on the
responses of vegetation to and the impacts of vegetation on hydrologic and
energy cycles, at scales from individual plant species to ecosystems.
In a related effort,
NSF will fund a $50.0 million targeted, special effort in Biocomplexity. See Integrative Activities for further
information on this effort.
Information Technologies (IT):
In FY 2000, BIO will provide $134.62 million to support information based activities. This is an increase of $11.88 million over
the FY 1999 level of $122.74 million for activities formerly known as Knowledge
and Distributed Intelligence, which includes Plant Genome Research. Highlights include:
·
Expanded support for networking, data
manipulation, algorithm development, simulation and modeling, and
visualization;
·
Increased support for integrating data and developing models of
complex systems across multiple scales; developing protocols to foster the
interoperability of databases; using interactive datasets for real-time
simulation and control of experiments; and mining databases to gain a better
understanding of the function of genes; and
·
Addressing information technology
workforce needs through education and training programs. BIO will continue the
postdoctoral program in biological informatics.
Educating for the Future (EFF): BIO supports a range of programs that encourage innovative approaches to meeting the challenge of educating students for the 21st century. BIO will provide a total of $51.39 million to support programs that foster the integration of research and education and train future scientists in a multidisciplinary environment. This is an increase of $2.80 million over the FY 1999 level of $48.59 million. This includes increases in Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT), and Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) programs.
Plant Genome Research (PGR): BIO
will increase support for Plant Genome Research, an area of emerging importance
with connections to IT and BE. In FY
2000, BIO will provide a $5.0 million increase, for a total of $55.0 million,
for plant genome research to:
·
Provide enhanced support within the PGR
program for research on structural and functional genomics, and for
strengthening the research infrastructure necessary for robust plant genomics
research. As the era of genome
sequencing matures, the advent of “functional genomics” is at hand. Functional
genomics relates the expression and regulation of genes and the proteins they
encode on a genomic scale to the functioning of whole organisms;
·
Facilitate analysis of genes of
environmental value, such as those that confer resistance to diseases or allow
plants to live on marginal soils; and
·
Develop and improve plant genomics
databases and develop new algorithms and other tools for searching these
databases.
Key Program Functions
BIO supports its
ongoing and new activities through the following key program functions:
(Millions
of Dollars)
1 Includes only
costs charged to the R&RA Appropriation.
Research Project Support
Research support
spans all the biological disciplines represented in the BIO Subactivities.
Modern biological science, often involving teams of scientists and students at
all levels of education, requires access to supplies, equipment, and data, the
latter often requiring the ability to access, analyze and visualize remote
databases. For these reasons, the cost
of doing modern biological research is increasing and FY 2000 will require an
enhancement in award size to fully enable the research. An average new research award within the BIO
Activity in FY 2000 will total $360,600 over three years of support, a 6
percent increase over FY 1999. In FY 2000,
BIO will continue its efforts to address Foundation-wide concerns about grant
sizes by increasing the average size and duration of the awards and providing
more support for researchers. In accord
with the Foundation's FY 2000 Performance Plan, BIO will continue to provide
increased attention to the percentage of competitive research grants going to
new investigators. These efforts will
contribute to increasing the efficiency of the Foundation's merit review
process and achieve greater cost-effectiveness for both NSF and the university
community.
The BIO Activity also
supports research resources for the biological sciences. These include support for living stock
centers, marine laboratories and terrestrial field stations, databases, multi-user
instrumentation, and development of instrumentation and new techniques.
Specific NSF-wide
research programs enable the development of human resources in BIO. Examples include: the Faculty Early Career
Development Program (CAREER); Research in Undergraduate Institutions (RUI); and
Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site awards and supplements to
existing research projects.
BIO-supported centers
include Science and Technology Centers (STCs), Long Term Ecological Research
sites, the Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, and Plant Genome
Centers.
(Millions
of Dollars)
1 The reduction of support reflects the planned phase-out of
the first class of STCs in FY 1999, as well as
planned reductions in the second class of STCs.
STCs support researchers and students at all levels from undergraduate to postdoctoral. Collaborative arrangements with industry are strongly pursued by all STCs. Two STCs established in FY 1989, the Center for Molecular Biotechnology and the Center for Microbial Ecology, received final support in FY 1999 in accord with a planned phase-out. The three remaining STCs have begun to phase-down and will receive final funding in FY 2000.
The Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (CEAS), established in FY 1995, promotes integrative studies of complex ecological questions and serves as a locus for synthesis of large data sets. The goals of the Center are to advance the state of ecological knowledge through the search for universal patterns and principles and to organize and synthesize ecological information so that it will be useful in addressing important environmental issues. For example, a CEAS workshop brought together scientists from various fields in an ambitious attempt to estimate the monetary value of the world’s ecosystems. Ecosystem goods and services are not easily quantifiable in economic terms. For this reason, they are often given little weight in policy decisions. This has broad implications because without the services of ecological systems, the economies of the Earth would grind to a halt. The resulting publication has stimulated intense discussion in the scientific and popular press.
In FY 1999, NSF supported 21 Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites. The LTER sites are representative of major ecosystems, ranging from the Arctic tundra of Alaska, to the deserts of New Mexico, to the rainforests of Puerto Rico, to the Dry Valleys of Antarctica. BIO provides support for 19 of these and the U.S. Polar Research Programs Activity supports two sites in Antarctica. Three sites have recently been added which have substantially expanded the network; one in a coastal ecosystem, jointly supported by BIO and the Geosciences (GEO) Activity and two sites are in human-dominated, urban ecosystems, jointly supported by BIO and the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Activity. The Urban LTERs present ecologists with the unique opportunity to not only test ecological principles discovered in studies conducted in natural environments, but also discover new ecological principles unique to the urban environment.
A $300,000 increase in LTER funding in BIO in collaboration with funding from GEO will support additional coastal LTER sites in FY 2000. The BIO and GEO Activities are collaborating to establish LTER sites that focus on ecological systems at the interfaces of landmasses and coastal oceans, including the Laurentian Great Lakes. The proposed new sites will expand our knowledge of the organization and function of land/ocean‑margin ecosystems, the linkages between these systems and adjacent terrestrial and marine systems, and the impacts of major natural environmental perturbations in these regions.
The Plant Genome
Research Subactivity supports virtual centers (centers without walls) or
collaboratories where coordinated, multi-investigator teams pursue
comprehensive plant genome research programs relevant to economically important
plants or plant processes. Currently
active centers range in size and scope, some with a focus on functional
genomics and others with a focus on developing tools and resources for plant
genomics studies for the scientific community.
For example, one center’s goal is to identify all the plant genes
encoding for plant responses to drought and salinity stresses. Another center is aimed at providing
specialized plant materials and structural genome data to identify and
characterize the function of all maize (corn) genes. All centers have a significant component to train a new generation
of scientists well versed in plant genomics.
An increase of $2.0 million for a
new competition of PGR virtual centers in FY 2000 will support investigators
from different institutions and/or disciplines, networked to work together in
functional genomics research.
Research Facilities
In FY 2000, BIO will maintain support for the National Nanofabrication Users Network at the level of $300,000 to facilitate participation by biologists. This facility is supported in partnership with the Mathematics and Physical Sciences and the Engineering Activities.
The BIO Activity also provides $800,000 in support for the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) (in conjunction with the Materials Research Subactivity in the MPS Activity). CHESS is one of the premier facilities for synchrotron x‑ray crystallography in the U.S. The high intensity electron beams of synchrotron sources are used for high-resolution studies of biological crystals such as viruses.
Education and Training
BIO places a high
priority on programs for education, training and human resource
development. This emphasis ensures that
the next generation of scientists is adequately prepared for a scientific
future that increasingly blurs borders between scientific disciplines, and that
is increasingly dependent on technology and on the sharing and analyzing of
information via distributed intelligence.
This emphasis on education and training also aids in the development of
a scientifically and technologically literate populace.
(Millions
of Dollars)
Included within BIO is support for Collaborative Research at Undergraduate Institutions (C-RUI), the NSF-wide Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training program (IGERT), and postdoctoral programs.
BIO’s support for
focused undergraduate programs centers on the C-RUI program which was
established in FY 1995. This program
was designed to support new multidisciplinary collaborative research groups at
primarily undergraduate institutions.
Each group is composed of faculty members representing at least two
disciplinary areas and includes up to 10 undergraduates.
The NSF-wide IGERT
program is distinguished from
other training programs in that it has a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary
training, innovation in graduate education, and involvement of
under-represented groups. In its first
year of operation, the program attracted a large number of proposals
representing a full range of NSF science and engineering disciplines. Eighteen awards were made in FY 1998. These awards provide interdisciplinary
training to over 900 graduate students in topics such as environment,
transportation, new materials, and astrobiology. Of the 18 awards, 11 have significant components in biological
sciences. In FY 2000, BIO will
increase its contribution to IGERT by $200,000 for a total of $4.20 million
while continuing its planned phase-down of the Research Training Group (RTG)
program.
Postdoctoral research fellowships are supported within BIO in priority areas where there are shortages of adequately trained scientists. A postdoctoral program in Biological Informatics was begun in FY 1999. BIO will invest a total of $5.28 million in FY 2000 for postdoctoral training, including continuing support for the minority postdoctoral program and biological informatics postdoctoral program. An increase of $2.0 million will allow the initiation of a new postdoctoral fellowship program in microbial biology, with a focus on the fundamental biology of microbes. This program will help to build the human resource base needed for other microbially related programs including LExEn, Microbial Observatories, Biocomplexity, and world-wide efforts to sequence various microbial genomes. International experience will be strongly encouraged for these fellows.
Administration and Management
The
Administration and Management key program function includes the cost of
Intergovernmental Personnel Act appointments, contractors performing
administrative functions and, in FY 2000, award- related travel.