Where's the passion?

With this issue of CB&T, we introduce the first in an occasional series of articles on topics that impact our work or shape our professional lives. Our aim is to provide a platform for points of view that are both insightful and thought provoking. Have a perspective you'd like to share or an issue you'd like to discuss? We're open to any relevant topic. Send your 500-word article for Insider's Insight to Kim Mitchell (kmitchell @landesbioscience.com), publications director. Scientific research was once considered a pinnacle profession where intellectual rigor was paired with a passion for novel discovery. Today, despite better equipment, more funding and online access to a growing reservoir of data, researchers in some of the largest cancer research centers in the country appear to be spending less time in the lab and, perhaps, less time worrying about how their work impacts people with cancer. In his article, Dr. Kern asks whether research is evolving into a predictable career rather than a creative frontier and what that might portend.