The Dallas Observer argues that it is, and that this reality is driving away top researchers:
Since the taxpayer-funded agency's creation in 2007, backed by Governor
Rick Perry and Lance Armstrong, it has awarded hundreds of millions of
dollars in grants. But its top talent is fleeing the agency,
characterizing its selection process as unscientific at best, and
political favoritism at worst.
The agency's former chief scientific officer, Dr. Alfred Gilman -- a
pharmacology professor emeritus at Dallas' UT Southwestern and a Nobel
laureate -- worries about fast-tracked grants approved by the agency
without scientific peer review.
Lately, the agency has focused on "commercialization projects" -- an
injection of capital to speed research down the drug-development
pipeline. Which would be good, the defecting scientists say, if the
projects chosen didn't carry more than just a whiff of politics. Some
seven CPRIT scientists handed in letters of resignation last week,
according to the Associated Press.
"You may find that it was not worth subverting the entire scientific
enterprise -- and my understanding was that the intended goal of
C.P.R.I.T. was to fund the best cancer research in Texas -- on account
of this ostensibly new, politically driven, commercialization-based
mission," wrote scientist Brian Dynlacht in his resignation letter.
We covered the research institute in GOVT 2306 and looked through the section in Article III of the Texas Constitution which established it in 2007. It was one of a large numbers of sections within the constitution that authorizes new areas where unique funds drawn from the sale of binds can be spent on items not normally covered under the Texas budget.
The controversy is whether political pressure is being placed in the scientists peer reviewing research proposals. Some given low marks have been reconsidered. Critics wonder if the process has become corrupted by the promise of commercial profits enabled by tax-payer funded research.
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