Blout: push the science envelope at
FDANo scientist can more honestly say "been there, done that" than Elkan R. Blout. Since 1992, he's been the Food & Drug Administration's first senior science adviser, bringing to this position nearly 50 years of chemical research and academic and industrial management expertise.
It's a part-time job for this energetic 76-year-old who intends to shepherd FDA's scientific flock to the forefront of regulatory science. By whatever means at his disposal, Blout plans "to make sure that the science underlining FDA's decision-making process is as good as we can make it."
Blout: push the science envelope at
FDAIn the few years he's been at the agency, Blout has formed two internal forums for scientist-to-scientist communication. Both groups informally advise FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler and his deputy commissioners on such issues as staff recruitment, retention, and development and scientific infrastructure - such as upgrading laboratories.
At the senior management level is the Senior Science Council, which Blout chairs, and which consists of representatives from each of the agency's six centers and the Office of Regulatory Affairs. The concerns and recommendations of more junior, bench-level scientists are aired at meetings of the Committee for the Advancement of FDA Science.
"I got people to talk to each other," Blout brags. This is not empty boasting. The agency centers, he says, "were amazingly independent" until he and Kessler "worked on the science of encouraging cooperation and collaboration." Just getting scientists talking to each other is no mean accomplishment in an agency that, as Blout admits, still has no roster listing all agency scientists and their areas of expertise.
Blout believes in working all the angles, so he is also intent on getting outside scientific gurus to become advocates for the beleaguered agency. To this end, he has formed the Science Board, a formal "conduit between the [agency] and the leaders of science in the academic world and in industry."
When asked if he's been successful in making FDA advocates of these leaders, Blout laughs and says, "We are winning some, and losing some."
And for lack of funding, FDA is also losing a lot of postdocs who would relish spending a year or more doing research at the agency. But Blout is working on correcting this, too.
One solution he has in mind is the formation of an independent research foundation devoted to funding FDA fellows, among other things. The solution is not novel. The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention each has its own foundation.
Blout muses that a research foundation could solicit the funding needed "to increase and better the science at FDA." The additional scientific expertise contributed by postdoctoral fellows could conceivably "decrease the time necessary for FDA approvals," he avers. He also contends that the fellows, "by developing new toxicological tests or new carcinogenicity tests," might increase efficiency at FDA.
When Blout isn't laboring to improve science at FDA, he can be found tending the finances of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He's been treasurer of this Cambridge, Mass.-based institution since 1992, the year he finished a 12-year stint as treasurer of the National Academy of Sciences.
Before these recent "retirement" years, Blout carved out illustrious academic and industrial careers, sometimes simultaneously.
He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia University at the tender age of 23. His specialty: protein chemistry, with an abiding "interest in optical methods for determining structure." That obsession quickly catapulted him from the groves of academia to Polaroid Corp.'s research labs, where he fine-tuned the chemical process that made instant color photography possible. He still holds several dozen patents on this process.
After 10 years at Polaroid, where he eventually rose to the position of vice president and general manager of research, Blout was asked to set up a protein research lab at Boston's Children's Hospital Medical Center. Until 1962, Blout juggled the responsibilities of these two jobs.
By then, the challenges at Polaroid had waned and Blout put out the word that he was interested in an academic job. He received offers for three tenured professorships and accepted the one in biological chemistry at Harvard Medical School.
He modestly describes his Harvard research "as still working on peptides and proteins." Others would describe his research on cyclic peptides and polypeptides as "groundbreaking" - earning him election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1969.
Never content to hold down one job when he could manage two, Blout also accepted the challenging post of dean for academic affairs at Harvard's School of Public Health. During his 11-year tenure as dean, he set up a division of biological sciences.
When it became evident to him in 1990 that he "couldn't do [his] NAS work, the Washington scene, and justice to students," he became professor emeritus at Harvard's Medical School and at its School of Public Health. Both schools have since established professorships in his name.
Also in 1990, Blout was honored by his country: He received the National Medal of Science. A year later, this 50-plus-year member of the American Chemical Society received its Ralph F. Hirschmann Award in Peptide Chemistry, and Kessler named him FDA science adviser.
Despite his labors as science adviser and American academy treasurer, this restless scientific diplomat still finds time for other endeavors. Most recently, he conceived and contributed to the spring 1996 issue of "Daedalus," devoted entirely to the topic of managing innovation. The issue will be published as a book by the National Academy Press.
And if this isn't enough, his friends say he's a pretty mean poker player!
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