《经济学人》生物科技中心：保罗先生的设想

SIR PAUL NURSE boasts a long list of academic accolades, among them a Nobel Prize, but his chummy manner and oodles of scientific star power have earned him the nickname "David Beckham of science". Given his penchant for fast motorbikes (he owns a Kawasaki), Valentino Rossi may have been more apt. Either way, the bike is doubtless efficient for Sir Paul, a busy man with no time for traffic jams. Recently elected as the next president of the Royal Society, Britain's most venerable scientific institution, he shuttles between London and New York's Rockefeller University, of which he is currently president, all the while continuing to run his own research lab. If that were not enough, next year Sir Paul will become the first director and chief executive of the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI). Last week your correspondent spoke to Sir Paul about his plan for the centre: to create one of the world's preeminent biomedical research centres.

保罗·纳斯爵士因拥有一大堆的学术荣誉称号，其中包括一个诺贝尔奖而自吹自擂，但是他与人亲近的风格和作为科学明星的巨大影响力，使他获得了“科学界的贝克汉姆”这一昵称。虽然他对摩托飞车情有独钟（他拥有一台川崎牌摩托），但罗西可能对此更加在行。总之，对保罗先生而言，自行车无疑是非常高效的，因为他是一个不可能把时间耗费在堵车上的大忙人。最近他当选为皇家学会——英国最权威的科研机构的新任会长。他穿梭于伦敦和纽约的洛克菲勒大学之间，亦是该校现任校长，并将继续管理自己在那里的实验室。如果这些都还不够说明他有多忙的话，那么保罗先生明年将会成为英国医学研究和创新中心（UKCMRI）的首任主任和最高管理者就很有说服力了。上周《经济学人》的记者，在和保罗先生交谈时，提及他对该中心的计划，即创造一个世界一流的生物医疗研究中心。

A joint effort by the government-run Medical Research Council (MRC) and three private institutions (Cancer Research UK, the Wellcome Trust and University College London), UKCMRI will occupy premises next to London's St Pancras International train station. Construction of the swanky £600 million ($920 million) complex will begin early next year and, if all goes to plan, finish in late 2014.

通过政府经营的医疗研究理事会（MRC）和三家私营机构（英国癌症研究所、威康信托公司和伦敦大学）的共同努力，英国医学研究和创新中心的选址将会紧邻伦敦圣潘克拉斯（St Pancras）国际火车站。这一耗资6亿英镑（9.2亿美元）的时髦建筑群将于明年初动工，如果一切如期进行的话，它将于2014年底完工。

The previous Labour government pledged to cover half of the capital expenditure. David Cameron's coalition cabinet has reaffirmed this pledge, conditional on being presented with "a satisfactory business case" before the end of the year. When I asked him whether he feared faltering government commitment in the era of austerity, his response was typically candid: "I'd be stupid if I said I don't have concerns." He immediately added that he has no doubts the case is compelling.

上届的工党政府承诺会承担一半的基本建设费用。大卫·卡梅伦的联合内阁也重申了这一承诺，将在年底之前会有条件的兑现，以使其成为“一个成功的商业案例”。当我问及卡梅伦：“你是否担心在当下财政吃紧时期政府会动摇其承诺？”他的回答非常坦率：“如果我说我不担心的话，那我就是傻子。”然后他立刻补上一句：“我对实施该案的强制性毫无疑义。”

First, the public money will be supplemented by funds from the other founding partners, who will also cover most of the operational costs once the centre is up and running. Second, Sir Paul believes, other research and industrial facilities will coalesce around UKCMRI, creating a biomedical cluster to rival similar ventures in other parts of the world.

首先，这笔公费将会和来自其他创始合伙人的资金形成互补，而一旦该中心成立并投入运营，后者将会承担大部分的运营成本。其次，保罗先生相信，其他研究机构和工业设施将会围绕该中心，形成一个生物医疗集群，同世界其他地方的类似投资项目一争高下。

The new institution is billed as an entirely fresh look at biomedical research. Its core aim is "to understand how living things work" and to use this understanding to further clinical outcomes. This is to be facilitated by forging strong interdisciplinary links with university faculties specialised in biology and chemistry, but also physics, maths, engineering and computing; as well as by making the centre "permeable" to for-profit organisations, by enabling free exchange of ideas with industry.

这个新的机构被视为一张生物医疗研究领域的全新面孔。其核心目标是了解生物的活动情况，并利用这些获得的知识进一步得出临床结果。而通过同专门研究生物和化学，以及物理、数学、工程和计算机的大学教师之间建立起强大的跨学科联系，以及通过确保中心能同工业界进行自由交流以使其对盈利组织具有影响力，都会对该目标的实现大有裨益。

As competition for talent goes, he is unfazed by rivals like Singapore's A*Star programme (its $2b cash pile, Zaha Hadid-designed Biopolis and lax bioethical regulations notwithstanding). "Britain does science very well," he avers, and its rational regulatory regime has much to be said for it. He plans to focus on youth: two thirds of the 1,500-odd staff are to be in their 30s and early 40s, a period when researchers tend to be at their most creative, but also at their most vulnerable. UKCMRI will provide them with generous financial support for up to two six-year stints. Unlike many other outfits, where money is ploughed into promising research, here it will follow promising researchers, giving them a free hand to "self-assemble and rearrange" into research teams, in a process akin to Google's creative culture. Indeed, the St Pancras complex has been designed precisely with such intermingling in mind.

虽然当今对人才的竞争日趋激烈，但是他却对像新加坡的A星项目（耗资20亿美元现钞，并由扎哈·哈迪德设计，但其生物伦理规范松懈）这些对手并不担心。他坚称，英国的科学研究非常出色，并且其合理的管理制度也十分可取。他计划将重点放在年青人身上，即该中心的1500多名职员中有2/3是三十多岁或四十出头的，而这一年龄段正是研究者最具创造力也是研究缺陷最多的时候。中心将会为他们提供慷慨的财政援助，以支持其多达两个的为期六年的项目。不像其他很多将资金注入前景广阔的研究项目的机构那样，这里将会遵照有前途的研究者的意愿，给与他们自行组织和重新安排研究小组的权力，以打造类似谷歌的那种创新文化。实际上，圣潘克拉斯建筑群已经将这种混合的理念融入其精确的设计之中了。

The bottom-up innovation strategies that emerge as a result will of course be complemented with some degree of light-touch control. One element of this will no doubt be the top-down recruitment process. Sir Paul dismisses the comparison with governments' picking of industrial winners, assuring that the outcome will depend solely on researchers' individual merit.

因此，形成的这种自下而上的创新型战略当然会辅以一定程度的轻度监管。其中之一无疑就是至上而下的招募过程。保罗先生不想和政府那种挑选产业赢家的做法相比较，而是确保招募结果将只取决于研究者的个人价值。

It remains to be seen whether all these perky assumptions are borne out. If so, UKCMRI could herald a whole new model of biomedical innovation. In this respect, Sir Paul's institutional experiment is probably no less important than the scientific work to be conducted within it.

不过，人们仍需对所有这些自信的假设能否成真拭目以待。如果果真如此，英国医疗研究和创新中心将会呈现出一种生物医疗创新的全新模式。在这点上，保罗先生的这次机构实验或许和将在机构内进行的科研工作同等重要。

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