p r o F i l e

902 volume 14 | number 9 | september 2008 nature medicine

Your current research at Imperial College london focuses on malaria, more specifically on mosquito genomics. How did you become interested in this area?I became interested in malaria for a number of reasons. It’s a very important disease, one of the most important challenges to humanity. I also have a strong social consciousness, and wanted to do something meaningful in support of Africa. In addition, I am an expert on insects, and mosquitoes are necessary carriers, or vectors, of the malaria parasite.

What are your long-term research goals?We would like to understand the immune system of the mosquito and

encourage it to get rid of parasites. We still do not know whether this will be achieved by developing transgenic mosquitoes, which is one possibility, or whether it will be by developing chemical agents that make mosquitoes unable to carry the parasites. All options are open and it is important to explore them all.

You and others spearheaded an international effort to sequence the mosquito genome, which was completed in 2002. Why was this project important?That project transformed the field. To be frank, the mosquito was practically a black box until the international consortium that we put together investigated it thoroughly. We knew a fair amount about

straight talk with…Fotis KafatosBiologist Fotis Kafatos has spent a career balancing his own research endeavors with efforts to create opportunities for

other scientists. Born and raised in Crete, Greece, Kafatos moved to the US to study zoology at Cornell University and,

later in the 1960s, biology at Harvard University, where he went on to become the university’s youngest full professor

at age 29. During his three decades at Harvard, Kafatos maintained close ties with Europe, teaching part-time at Greek

universities and founding Crete’s Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. In 1993, he returned to Europe to direct

the continent’s premiere molecular biology center, the Heidelberg-based European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL),

where he strived to create an equal-opportunity environment for scientists from all corners of Europe.

More recently, in late 2005, Kafatos was elected chairman of the policy-setting body for the European Research Council

(ERC). Kafatos now divides his time between studying malaria-causing mosquitoes at Imperial College London and leading

an organization charged with doling out some €7.5 billion ($11 billion) to Europe’s most promising scientists from 2007 to

2013—an infusion of money intended to revitalize the continent’s research community. Kafatos talks about his research

and his stewardship of the ERC with Coco Ballantyne.

Pen

elop

e M

asou

ri

©20

08 N

atur

e P

ublis

hing

Gro

up

http

://w

ww

.nat

ure.

com

/nat

urem

edic

ine

p r o F i l e

nature medicine volume 14 | number 9 | september 2008 903

Q & a

the parasite because it had been studied in a number of labs, but the mosquito had actually been neglected.

We made it our mission to really understand how the mosquito manages to host the parasites, how the parasites can survive inside the mosquito, why many mosquito species cannot carry them, and ultimately to understand the innate immunity of the mosquito and how it deals with parasites.

From 1993 to 2005, you directed the European Molecular biology laboratory. One of your goals was to recruit women and scientists from under-represented southern European countries. Do you feel that you succeeded in this respect? When I got that job, I dedicated my leadership to three concepts: excellence, cooperation and inclusiveness. Excellence is the fundamental element. It isn’t worth doing science unless you really aim to do outstanding science. Cooperation, I think is very important because an international organization like EMBL depends on working positively with the member states that support it.…

In particular, I also made very clear that I was encouraging women scientists, not by setting up targets or making gender-based decisions but by being open. What I called inclusiveness was my model, meaning stay open, look for the very best people and be sure that you’re looking at all corners of the scientific community.

In 2005, you were elected to head the European Research Council. What do you see as the role of the ERC and how does it differ from other European funding agencies?There are excellent European programs and excellent national research councils. The ERC, though, is the only pan-European research council. It has the mission to give opportunities to the very best scientists, now starting or already distinguished, to pursue ambitious projects of top quality in Europe. They don’t even have to be Europeans, they can be from anywhere in the world, but they need to be prepared to work in Europe and to do an ambitious project of top quality.

Just as at EMBL, we are not funding positions according to nationality or gender; we are focusing purely on the quality of the proposal and of the individual who proposes it. We are going for people who clearly have done very well in their past, whether they are young or whether they are accomplished and famous scientists.

And we are going for projects that appear to hold real possibility, with something very interesting—something that might break the current frontier. That is what we are bringing to the European Union as a whole in a way that is empowering the scientific community—more than what the national systems individually can do, as they are only limited to their own country.

The ERC is focused on promoting research that is ‘investigator driven’ or ‘bottom up’. Can you give an example of a bottom-up research effort leading to a practical application?Since I am working in the Sir Alexander Fleming Building at Imperial, the natural example would be the discovery of penicillin. Antibiotics came out of a chance observation and the prepared mind that could

see, ‘Ah-hah! Something is happening here that is important.’The art of seeking the unexpected is what science is all about.

And that is very different from what is very comfortable for political leadership; I don’t disparage that, but it is not the scientific approach.

Setting priorities in advance makes the assumption that you know better than the large number of scientists who are exploring, and exploration is what science is about.

The ERC awarded its first round of ‘starting grants’ for young scientists in 2007.It actually was the first decision that the scientific council made. We asked ourselves, what should we do that will make a difference? And we realized that in Europe we are not as good as we should be vis-à-vis the young people. Young scientists in many parts of the continent have difficulty gaining scientific independence to set up their groups and laboratories, so we decided that the first year we would give all of our funds, €300 million, to make it easier for them to get established. Annual increases of the ERC budget are already approved till 2014.

How many grants were offered and how many awarded?We were actually overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response, which totaled 9,000 applications. We initially thought that we might only award 250; we managed to get additional funds and award about 350.

What does this tell you about Europe’s research community?It was the strongest positive endorsement of the ERC. There was [a real] need [among] the people [in] our target group.... The only shame is that there were also other good proposals that we were not able to fund because we didn’t have enough money. A 3% success rate is really very low.

This year, the agency is offering ‘advanced grants’ for principal investigators. Can you tell us a little about these grants?The advanced grants target a completely separate well established

group of people who represent the best and the brightest in science in Europe or people from outside Europe who are excellent and want to do work in Europe and submit really innovative proposals. Again, nationality doesn’t affect the decisions.

So researchers outside of Europe can apply?Yes, but the work has to be done in Europe. You may have some collaborations outside Europe as well, but the principal investigator, who is the key person in our system, has to work in Europe.

The purpose of the ERC is not solely to fund research. What are some of its broader ideological aspirations?The ERC wants to make Europe an outstanding place to do science, a magnet essentially for talent—both homespun talent and talent from everywhere in the world, male or female, nationality of any kind. We want the very best people to [aim for] a good life in Europe, which is really a pretty good place to live and to work, and to utilize their abilities to build up European science.

“The ERC has the mission to give opportunities to the very best scientists, now starting or already distinguished, to pursue ambitious projects of top quality in Europe. They don’t even have to be Europeans, they can be from anywhere in the world, but they need to be prepared to work in Europe and to do an ambitious project of top quality.”

©20

08 N

atur

e P

ublis

hing

Gro

up

http

://w

ww

.nat

ure.

com

/nat

urem

edic

ine