Trial By Error: MEGA’s Latest Failure

[AndyPR]

In his welcome talk at last week’s annual conference of the CFS/ME Research Collaborative (CMRC), the chair, Professor Stephen Holgate, praised his colleague and second-in-command, Professor Esther Crawley, for her “stunning” and “amazing” work on the group’s main research initiative. There was just one problem: That initiative, the ME/CFS Epidemiology and Genomics Alliance (MEGA), had recently failed in its second high-profile bid for major funding.

Earlier this year, of course, MEGA announced that it had failed in its first big effort, a submission to the Wellcome Trust. This second unsuccessful bid was to the Medical Research Council (MRC). Professor Holgate tried to put a positive gloss on things by vowing that MEGA would learn from this defeat and press forward. Yet he undoubtedly knows that applicants who repeatedly get turned down for top grants can start to smell like losers. Funders prefer to shower money on those perceived as winners. Notwithstanding Professor Crawley’s stunning and amazing work, MEGA so far has proven itself more loser than winner.

Before sharing the unfortunate news about MEGA’s bid, Professor Holgate appeared to be trying to soften the blow and rationalize the rejection by praising proposals in this emerging research field that get “to the edge of being funded,” even if they ultimately fail.

“As we start to ramp up the quality of research, you won’t just see a switch and suddenly money pouring in,” Professor Holgate explained to those assembled for the two-day conference. “You see people almost getting there but not quite, reconfiguring their applications and then coming back in again and getting it right. So this is the right direction of travel and I think it’s absolutely wonderful that we’re seeing this happening now.”

http://www.virology.ws/2017/09/18/trial-by-error-megas-latest-failure/

 

[lilpink]

This is one blog I have especially enjoyed reading. Oh MEGA!

 

[SilverbladeTE]

The only thing I'd praise Esther Crawley for would be for her magnificent malignity, her stupendous stupidity, and fabulous f***wittery!

or, if she stepped into a Gravitational Collapsar....

 

[Research 1st]

MEGA was timely chosen. It's a MEGA Fail for PWME.

Although EPIC might have been a better acronym to use.

 

[BurnA]

MEGA was timely chosen. It's a MEGA Fail for PWME

It may not be.

It is a MEGA fail for the CMRC and it could be a turning point for PWME - it indicates that funding may not be so readily supplied to poor studies.

 

[Woolie]

I don't share Tuller's optimism. I think this proposal got way too close to being funded, and that worries me.

Even if you put aside Crawley's objectionable theoretical framework, its clear to me she's not really not equipped to do research at the highest level. There appear to be a number of projects she was funded to do many years ago, which she has not yet reported on. And recently, Ive seen publications form her lab appearing in very strange journals, which suggests she may be failing to get her work past reviewers in more reputable outlets.

When you compare her work to that of the PACE investigators, there is a huge difference in quality. Say what you want about the PACE folks, they look like the creme-de-la-creme when compared to Prof. Crawley.

 

[Esther12]

LOL - I really enjoyed that blog, and the sign off in the e-mail to the CMRC. (Certainly compared to all the other things I've been reading today).

That I found Holgate's talk so annoying in other ways stopped me from appreciating the good news that MEGA failed to get MRC funding. I don't know enough about how funding decisions are made to know if Woolie's concern about it getting so far outwieghs the good news that they're not getting any cash, but I do think that they had a lot of political advantages on there side here, and that they still were not able to get funding is surely a good sign.

Remember when they launched that petition last year with a "Yay - we can do it if we all work together" sales pitch to get patient support for more money going to Crawely? If we knew then that they were going to get turned down by both Wellcome and the MRC I'd have been pretty pleased about that. They had a plan, and it's not going well.

I'd have felt gutted if they had got funding, so I want to get some pleasure from the fact that they haven't!

 

[lilpink]

Remember when they launched that petition last year with a "Yay - we can do it if we all work together" sales pitch to get patient support for more money going to Crawely?

Don't forget the OMEGA bods saw through their cunning ways even whilst others were singing (and still do) the praises of the CMRC tent. (Who seriously ever thought a tent with an EC shaped pole was going be good for us? )

Continue to support OMEGA because our lives actually do depend on having an alternative voice. Continue to share and continue to sign: https://www.change.org/p/opposing-m...autopublish&utm_term=des-lg-no_src-reason_msg

 

[user9876]

I don't share Tuller's optimism. I think this proposal got way too close to being funded, and that worries me.

Even if you put aside Crawley's objectionable theoretical framework, its clear to me she's not really not equipped to do research at the highest level. There appear to be a number of projects she was funded to do many years ago, which she has not yet reported on. And recently, Ive seen publications form her lab appearing in very strange journals, which suggests she may be failing to get her work past reviewers in more reputable outlets.

When you compare her work to that of the PACE investigators, there is a huge difference in quality. Say what you want about the PACE folks, they look like the creme-de-la-creme when compared to Prof. Crawley.

I agree that her research output is poor. I would have thought that they got to the interview state via political pressure. I also think a 'well-styled' but largely meaningless proposal can get a long way as reviews often don't dig into detail. Only when choices are made are details really thought through.

 

[Woolie]

I agree that her research output is poor. I would have thought that they got to the interview state via political pressure. I also think a 'well-styled' but largely meaningless proposal can get a long way as reviews often don't dig into detail. Only when choices are made are details really thought through.

You could be right. In my country, our grants application system also has two stages. Stage 1 needs a short spiel with a compelling idea. It needs to grab the panel's attention, to sound novel.

Stage 2 involves writing a full proposal which then goes out to peer reviewers who comment in detail and rate the application.

So yea, you can get through Stage 1 with a sexy idea, but to get through Stage 2, you gotta have some teeth behind that idea.

Maybe its the same at the MRC?

 

[A.B.]

Say what you want about the PACE folks, they look like the creme-de-la-creme when compared to Prof. Crawley.

Nice compliment-insult.

 

[user9876]

You could be right. In my country, our grants application system also has two stages. Stage 1 needs a short spiel with a compelling idea. It needs to grab the panel's attention, to sound novel.

Stage 2 involves writing a full proposal which then goes out to peer reviewers who comment in detail and rate the application.

So yea, you can get through Stage 1 with a sexy idea, but to get through Stage 2, you gotta have some teeth behind that idea.

Maybe its the same at the MRC?

I've no idea with the MRC or any UK research panels. I got a grant from a different organisation that funds some industrial research that works that way.

I was thinking even a well-written but not very interesting proposal can get through a first peer review.

 

[TiredSam]

Do I detect a slight change in tone from Tuller? A little more Coyne-esque?

 

[Emma]

Do I detect a slight change in tone from Tuller? A little more Coyne-esque?

Oh, that's a worry. I think we need critiques to be as factual and as cordially phrased as possible, to have impact outside of the ME circle.

 

[Barry53]

I don't share Tuller's optimism. I think this proposal got way too close to being funded, and that worries me.

Maybe the funding bodies had got wind of the up-coming NICE report? Suddenly things didn't look to be such a good investment maybe. In which it may not have got as close as might seem.