Molecular biologist Evgeni Rogaev was one of thousands of talented scientists who left Russia in the wake of the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991. But after a 4-year stint in Canada, he found a way home: A 5-year grant of about $30,000 a year from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) allowed him to reopen his lab on the genetics of Alzheimer's disease at the Research Center of Mental Health in Moscow. Now, however, Rogaev and some of his Russian colleagues worry that they will have no choice but to leave again when their Hughes funding ends next year.
Last month, the 90 HHMI scholars from Russia and countries in eastern Europe met in Moscow to show off what they've done with their grant money. "The HHMI grant enables us to create collaborations between various laboratories--one condition which made it possible for me to return to Russia," says Rogaev.
HHMI has announced a new competition next year involving bigger grants to fewer grantees, which may sustain some of the current crop. But Rogaev says others may have to pull up stakes once again. "I want to live in Russia," he says. But "if the carpet will be pulled from under my feet, then what else can I do?"
In a sign of the deepening erosion of Russian science, even this elite group of researchers found reason to gripe. "None of the serious biology research groups in Russia is being supported by the state ... 99% exist on foreign funding," says Ivan Shatsky of the Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology. In fact, he asserts, the state doesn't think much of science at all. A case in point: None of the government science officials invited by HHMI bothered to show up for the meeting.
