What can be done? NIH Director Francis Collins has boldly stated that "it is time for NIH to develop better models to guide decisions about the optimum size and nature of the U.S. workforce for biomedical research." I agree. One possibility is for the NIH to require that at least half of the salary of each principal investigator be paid by his or her institution, phasing in this requirement gradually over the next decade. Alternatively, the maximum amount of money that the NIH contributes to the salary of research faculty (its salary cap) could be sharply reduced over time, and/or an overhead cost penalty could be introduced in proportion to an institution's fraction of soft-money positions (replacing the overhead cost bonus that currently exists).

Regardless of mechanism, here is my bottom line: A new NIH policy must make it unambiguously clear that expansion through laboratory building construction requires a substantial, nonreimbursable, long-term commitment of resources, including "hard-money" faculty support, by any institution that wants to increase its facilities and research staff. Although change will be painful, it is urgently needed to maintain a healthy biomedical research enterprise.