New York Voices; 502; Science in the City

The products for many of the world's largest most successful biotech companies come from New York science but they're developed in other states around the country and the world. The East River Science Park is the first major initiative that I've seen in about 10 years in New York City that gives me real hope that New York is going to take its rightful place as a national leader in biotech. People talk about math phobia that teachers have. Well in science it's even worse. I think the issue here is not even how much does the teacher know it's how excited is the teacher about the subject they're teaching you your

one voice time. New York places New York Voices is made possible by the members of 13 additional funding provided by Michael t MARTIN And Elise JAFFE And Jeffrey Brown. Welcome to YOUR VOICES I'm Rafael. You know when it comes to science New York is A Tale of Two Cities scientific research is flourishing but New York's record of turning research into revenue is anemic particularly when it comes to biotech. Later in the program a look at the state of science education in many of the city's public schools and talk to one of the country's top scientists about how to get young minds turned on to science. But we begin with a look at how the city has so far missed the boat on the biotech revolution and how it's planning to give biotech a booster shot. When Ron Cowen founded his biotech firm ACORDA therapeutics he had a problem.

He wanted to live and work in New York City. It was frustrating issue for me because I was born and raised in New York City I went to medical school in New York City it's my home. And I really wanted to keep the company there. The difficulty was that we needed a laboratory space that was specialized We needed more space. General New York City just didn't have the space available that we would need initially and then to grow. So Cohen moved accorded to Westchester where he ran something hard to come by in New York 30000 square feet of lab and office space. Their scientists are developing therapies for people with spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis. Thirty small biotech firms start up in New York each year. Many of them here at Columbia University's Audubon biotech incubator. But when these companies get a patent or FDA approval they often leave the city in search of larger space. At the moment there are only 60 life science companies in New York City compared to almost 300 in Boston and eight hundred fifty in San Francisco. Catherine wild is president of the

Partnership for New York City a nonprofit organization comprised a CEO ZX from New York's top 200 companies. The products from many of the world's largest most successful biotech companies ambitions to join many of these companies have their products come from New York science but they're developed in other states around the country and the world into businesses into jobs. So we've done the expensive part. We've done the science. We've done the research. But when it comes to the payback of jobs and tax revenues and business development we have never captured that in New York. The rewards have gone to states that have bent over backwards to woo biotech companies in the form of well-paying jobs and increased tax revenues. I think Maryland is a wonderful example. They've set up a whole plan for recruiting and supporting biotech with certain tax relief. Funding opportunities and certainly laboratory space and then a marketing campaign that includes attending a national biotech meetings and setting up booths and

recruiting companies that way. So they all do a much better job. New York really doesn't do that until now. Late last year Mayor Bloomberg announced plans to convert a parking lot near NYU Medical Center into a four and a half acre biotech incubate or if a real estate developer agrees to take on the project on a rainy afternoon. Architects engineers and developers toured the site. The city has given them until January 24th to submit bids to build the East River Science Park. The city may give financial incentives in addition to offering the land but it has yet to specify what those might be. The East River Science Park is the first major initiative that I've seen in about 10 years in New York City. It is a credible effort by the city to create the space and the cohesive or critical mass of companies that you would need to really give rise to a good biotech industry here. This is so important. New York City needs to diversify our economy. We have

been overly dependent for many years on Wall Street on the financial services industry. We believe that New York will always be the center of world finance but we will not have the same number of jobs the same payroll the same tax revenues from that industry that we've had at its peak. We have to bring in other industries where we have a real built in competitive advantage. And there's no place where we have a bigger advantage than in the life sciences. The partnership has put its money where its mouth is its investment fund which was founded by financier Henry Kravis has pledged ten million dollars towards the development of the East River Science Park its largest single investment ever. Cohen says the Science Park is a great start but he believes that the city and state need to work together to market New York City as one of the nation's top science centers. More needs to be done. And my sense is that the city understands that more needs to be done but they are engaged in the process and so that gives me real hope that we're going to see this move successfully forward in that New York

is going to take its rightful place as a national leader in biotech. I visited the New York Academy of Sciences an organization aimed at increasing understanding of scientific issues and spoke to its president. Ellis Rubenstein about the efforts underway to spur the city's biotech industry. How does the New York City biotech industry compare to the biotech industry in California specifically San Francisco and in Boston. I mean how far. Are they ahead of us in this. There's no question that the Bay Area boss has been ahead of us in actual industrial side. They have large numbers of companies directly in that area but people don't realize that we are actually spawning 30 small companies a year. If you look at patents for the period of the 1990s New York actually has created more patents from its scientific enterprise than Boston and San Francisco combined. You know the Brookings Institute recently issued a study that said that if a

locale is not at the front or near the front of the business cycle of the biotech industry Well it's probably too late for that locale to catch up. I don't think it's a quote it's a political to us for a couple of reasons. One is that we have some spectacular resources here. We produce more Ph.D. students in the life sciences than any not only any city but Forty eight states. So we have an enormous talent. We have a tremendous patient base and that gives us an advantage over any city in the world. Now do you think therefore that it's wise for government for example like New York City to invest public resources to try to develop that industry here in the city. I do although I think we have to invest intelligently. I think we have to be able to create as I mentioned in the trip an oral culture in our city that just import companies.

Let me ask you something that might be. A little bit different than what we've been talking about but it's on the same subject. How important is the quality of our public schools to the development of New York City is a real power center for the sciences. The problem is as you probably know Americans in general are not going into science. And until now we've been depending on this incredible influx of Chinese students Indian students brilliant Eastern European and Russian students who many of whom stay here and basically become our scientific establishment. But lately we've been losing those students. And if we don't have our own indigenous population of brilliant young people going into science will suffer. What's causing that. Well there's no question that the biggest problem that we're facing right now is the visa issue created by Homeland Security. So in the zeal that Homeland Security Department to protect the United States from terrorists. They have become obsessed with worrying about

bioterrorism. And so what tends to happen is the very students that we have been counting on from places like China and India to name the largest contingents. Naturally when they apply to come to our universities they write that they are involved in biology. And when the word biology appears and some of these application leaves the normal course of the State Department and it jumps into homeland security and the result has been that it has become a nightmare for a lot of our students regardless of where they come from. Yes and particularly we see it with Chinese where we have no reason to believe that terrorists are coming from there. So overall how optimistic are you that everything is being done and everything will be done to make New York City a major if not the major scientific center for the countries half of the world. Well I think what I would say is that the pieces are in place. The money is there the will is there and the leadership may exist. What I'm worried about is all of

those things coming together because it's not a trivial challenge anymore. You know science education is crucial to the future of the city. And that's because about one out of 10 jobs in New York City require some degree of science training. New York's Public Schools used to be famous for the way they taught science and in some specialized high schools that's still the case. This year New York high school students make up more than one tenth of all semifinalists in the prestigious Intel Science contest. Two of those semifinalists are students at Townsend Harris High School in Queens. My project investigated and determined that when I sent my to habitat of NSA it determines the incubation temperature and the incubation temperature determines the offspring sex ratio and I'm an actor. And the paper was submitted in November and we got the results on Wednesday and got selected as a semifinalist Townsend Harris is one of a handful of city schools with world

class science programs. It offers classes in organic chemistry astrophysics forensics and biomedical ethics. I've had only the best science teachers and science research class that's an elective that you can take as a sophomore. And it basically exposes you to writing research papers and analyzing your own data. Townsend Harris and other specialized high schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science have tough entrance requirements. But how about the majority of public school kids. Are they getting the science knowledge they need. At a recent city council hearing representatives from the science and education world came out to express their worries. My concern today is that the educational bedrock that supports New York as a city of science is eroding. Unless the public schools help us by providing us students that are ready to take advantage of what a college offers we can't do our job in training a scientific workforce and that workforce spans the spectrum from

high top quality science research to doctors nurses the whole healthcare worker industry. Those testifying pointed to the city's rock bottom test scores at all grade levels region science scores at New York City trailed those in the rest of the state while about 50 percent of fourth graders failed the state's science test in 2003. Science Education has basically been ignored not just in New York City but throughout the country. At the Department of Education Julia Rankin was appointed as the city's first director of science in September. One of her reforms has been to impose more structure on the curriculum. We have a high mobility rate. Kids move from school to school and as they do that they might get you know learning about life cycles in the first quarter of the year and then they go to another school and the teacher is again doing life cycles and they might never get the physical science or the earth science pieces that we really need them to have. Rankin hopes that by the end of this academic year every elementary school in the city will align their curriculums so that the subjects are taught in the same order system wide. But councilwoman Eva Moskowitz argues that the city should be doing more. She says that most

teachers are not prepared to teach science. People talk about math phobia that teachers have. Well in science it's even worse. Most teachers went into teaching because of their love of literacy and their interest in reading. We still don't have enough teachers elementary school teachers who are comfortable and knowledgeable about science. In November Moscow which released the report Lost in Space which points out that less than 1 percent of all professional development money goes to training teachers in science. We want teachers to be more knowledgeable to have more weaker so that they can impart that knowledge and those skills to our kids. But there's a fundamental problem in terms of teacher training and it gets worse the higher you go in grade level. The city has partnered with the Museum of Natural History and other local science institutions to better prepare teachers. We have 16 middle school teachers being trained right now throughout the city. And they're training at those institutions. They've gone to all seven of them and now they will pick one to focus on for

20 hours of training. And the students then will go to those same institutions for field trips. That program called Urban advantage when's Eva Moskowitz is support. But she says that to get better trained teachers it's also crucial to pay more money starting salary for all teachers is thirty nine thousand dollars she proposes giving science teachers an $11000 raise to attract better candidates. Whether you majored in English or you measured in organic chemistry the teachers union contract says everybody must be paid the same and the person who majored in organic chemistry can go out to the pharmaceutical companies can go out to hospitals can get a much higher pay and so we have to do is offer differential pay. We have to recognize the marketplace in order to make sure that some percentage of the people who are well trained in science go into the teaching profession. The Bloomberg administration supports the idea of paying science teachers more money but the teachers union strongly opposes differential pay and contract negotiations are stalled.

Meanwhile Rankin is hoping to restore science education to a place of prominence. If you look at New York City years ago New York City truly was one of the leaders in science education they had wonderful curriculum developed. And now it's time to put science of New York City back on the front burner. Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson is an astrophysicist the director of The Rose Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History where we are right now and the author of seven books including origins 14 billion years of cosmic evolution. He's also one of the best known graduates of the Bronx High School of Science. First of all Dr. Tyson what is astrophysics. I get that question. I know it's too many syllables to just take it on your own. Astrophysics is it's actually very simple. It's taking the laws of physics that we measure to be true here on Earth and apply them to the cosmos. So to the stars planets galaxies black holes to the beginning the Universe itself. So that's that's that's my purview of the universe. So when did you decide to be an

astrophysicist long ago. I was nine years old. I felt like I was called by the universe in fact with my first visit to the Hayden Planetarium. I looked different back then but I was just a kid as so many of us are coming to this museum when we were in elementary school. And maybe I was just a touch more than others but sitting back in that chair when the lights dim the stars come out. I thought it was a hoax. Not that many stars in the night sky. I know because I've seen them from the Bronx. The 14 stars in the night sky. But that that sort of force of the universe descending down on me at age 9 that imprinted me and thereafter I started thinking about the universe and reading books on it. And I would say by age 11 I knew I wanted to be an astrophysicist even if I could barely pronounce the word. I can barely pronounce it now myself. I worked on it now so it's safe to say that your road to the directorship of the Hayden Planetarium began here at the Hayden Planetarium.

Yeah it's kind of like that hometown kid but it's New York so there are like any hometown stories but yeah it's true. I came here and by the way my most influential mentors when I was a kid were the heads of the Hayden Planetarium while I was going through school. So I feel this deep sense of duty to give back to the next generation as they move through school to try to provide for them the kind of dream state that other educators and scientist have provided for me. You have written and let me quote you. At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon. Allow me to say that one of society's greatest ills is the astonishing breadth and depth of scientific and mathematical illiteracy. Are we a nation of science illiterates. Yeah it's embarrassing actually. Yeah but clearly the schools have to play a big role in this right. Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz who's the chair of the Education Committee in the city council has said that one of the principal reasons why kids are doing so poorly in science and math is because their teachers who teach science and math aren't all that knowledgeable

of the subjects you talk to teachers all the time. Is there something to this. Yeah it is true that most science teachers didn't start out that way. Sometimes they got the gym teacher teaching science and you know we hear these sort of nightmare stories. I think the issue here is not even how much does the teacher know. It's how excited is the teacher about the subject they're teaching and that's important in any subject that you teach. You and I and anyone else here if we reflect upon our lifetime of education you're not going to come up with more than this many teachers who made a significant impact on your life. That's tragic. Right. It's only not 10 but this many. So what was it about those teachers that separated them from all the rest. They were excited about what they did. So it's not like they wrote the best exam. It's not like they gave the best homework assignments. Is that when you're in their presence you feel their love for the subject is contagious contagious you say bully. They are so excited I want to be that excited I want to learn that. That's what we need we need excited teachers.

You know in the 1960s the space race and the mission to the moon made science exciting and interesting to a lot of kids a lot of kids got in. Became scientists as a result. Clearly the the shuttle mission didn't do that. What kind of space mission do we need now to get kids excited again in science. You know we forget that in the 1960s not only was there the mission to the moon. All right. Every few months the next science mission that led up to the landing on the moon was more dangerous more advanced achieve some greater goal than the previous mission. And that kept you going kept you on the edge of your seat with the space shuttle era even with the space station era. All we're doing is driving around the block. And so there's there's an initiative now under foot which is an attempt to get us back into space astronauts back into space out of lower Earth orbit to go to the moon Mars and beyond.

Well the president gave a speech to that effect yes last year as a result. As a matter of fact of the conclusions of the commission that you were part yes I served on that commission that's correct. But the the reaction to that speech was snickering on the part of commentators and silence by the president after that. Why I didn't see snickering on all circles. I saw the people who were on the frontier of space technology get very excited about this because they knew what that means for the future of America. I as an educator know what that means when I stand in front of the next generation of eighth graders. You think about all I could do in the past. Stand in front of the eighth graders and say Who wants to be an aerospace engineer and design an airplane 10 percent quieter than the airplane their parents flew doesn't work here. But I say now who wants to be an aerospace engineer and design the first airplane to fly in the rarefied air of the planet Mars. You know I'm going to get the best among them. But you've also said that nations historically engage in these ambitious and expensive

projects when defense is an issue when economic gain is an issue or when praise of power is an issue in other words showing off like the pyramids. None of those objectives seem to apply to the space mission right now in the 60s of course it did we were at war with the Cold War with Russia. How do we get the resources invested in this when those elements are there it's an excellent question and that's one of the big challenges of the new space initiative. History of Warfare has shown that it's science and technology that wins wars. Even if bravery can win a battle. And so where what is the source of your science and technology. Where you going to get it from. For my mind I'd rather look in the silo and not count how many bombs you have account how many scientist and engineers you have. So this not only as something that could possibly drive economic models. Space tourism and the like but also something that would be the greatest investment in national

security that has ever been undertaken. And it also has the tandem effect of driving tomorrow's economy. OK finally what do you have against Pluto. I mean the plan another will be a Pluto OK. You know I write here in this facility we've we're always accuse of demoting it and downgrading it and they want me to come out and say it couldn't make it in Manhattan. You know it wasn't big enough. You said it's a comment on a point. Mostly ice if you put Pluto where Earth is right now the heat from the sun would make it grow a tail. Now what kind of behaviors after a planet that's just embarrassing. So so we've. We classify Pluto is the king of the comets. I think it's happier there now instead of like being the puny us planet you know our moon is bigger than Pluto most Pluto Files don't know that. OK and we have to rethink my Pluto it really poses a whole other family of comets out there that we think it's happier they've got families got cousins.

I'm not worried about retribution from the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia in December it was one of the worst disasters in history and the devastation triggered a worldwide response of the thousands of miles away. The shock of this disaster was deeply felt in one small mosque in Queens. Today the call to prayer brings with it a cry for help. Why I want to do it in this month. So let's use this opportunity to help our brothers and sisters survive the tsunami disaster if this disaster of such a large portion of it just defies the imagination. The suffering that it has caused people people separated from their parents from

the children. The Muslims are taught that you will be tried and tested in life with many many things poverty including your life and you are expected then to carry on with that degree of patience and forbearance and I think this is a great teaching. It's being felt a little bit. There's a large number of them that they're close to the people from you know the first portal for the entrance. These are their own people. I feel like her family finally takes me

there. Really feel helpless extended family. What we have to do. I lost so many cars and I lost so many elective and seen I still and my sista home and nice nice nice nice to how I live. He's retired he lead the way made almost every kind of things including money clothing medical supplied toiletries foods and then we try to upgrade to a god or communities as swale the members we re set up spread out the world and then try to dates more people to help and I see very very generous people coming spontaneously from day to day since the disaster happened. Thank you for your efforts. Thank you for your generosity.

Thank you for your sympathy. May God Almighty indeed you want you all to set all moderate cool and walk with the light on the bottom. And that's it for this edition of YOUR VOICES. I'm Rafael Romo for more on this or any of our new YOUR VOICES programs. Log on to our website at 13 dot org. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next week. New York Voices voices made possible by the members of 13 additional

funding provided by Michael Timor. Elise JAFFE And Jeffrey.