| 2 min read
Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
2:00
I sometimes think we're trying too hard and that people really need to learn how to relax a little. As that famous psychiatrist Dr. Sidney Freedman said: "Drop your drawers and slide along the ice."

A couple of weeks ago, a membrane and sample prep specialist opened a new life sciences Center of Excellence in India. At a rough guess, that makes 4317 Centers of Excellence around the world—many of them linked directly or tangentially to drug development. That's quite a bit of excelling we're asking of biomedical researchers.

Now, I am confident that many people working in these centers are truly—as Wayne and Garth would say with bobbing heads—"Excellent". But let's face it, most of the rest of us are just muddling along—doing well, but just able to stay ahead of the curve. How do we feel about the pressure of being excellent?

To keep people from feeling bad about their "inexcellence", I offer the following alternatives to Centers of Excellence:

Center of Competence:
We may not make the front pages of the newspaper, but at least we have a fighting chance of accomplishing our goals and making the world a better place.

Center of Sufficiency:
Okay, so we're not as spit-and-polished as a lot of other centers, but you're not going to die and we're better than nothing.

Center of Indifference:
Whatever.

Center of Reluctance:
We'd really rather be fishing or playing golf, but we'll do what we can because we really need the money.

Center of Resistance:
We really think you'd be better off going with one of the other centers.

Center of Intransigence:
We'll take you, but you better be willing to do things our way!

Center of Recalcitrance:
(He's ignoring you.)

Center of Incompetence:
Welcome to Capitol Hill.
 
 
 
Our readers respond
 
Nice article on centers of excellence. A couple of thoughts to extend the idea a bit. Maybe the plethora of new drug candidates (mostly antibodies) being developed today will make the first decade of the 21st century "excellent", but it seems to me the Golden Decade was the 1980s, when the "centers" did their thing excellently. That is, drug companies developed drugs and everyone else did basic research.
 
I like your term "muddling" to describe the '90s. It was the '90s that brought outsourcing R&D, centers of excellence or core labs, and an addiction to genomics—maybe this brought the house down. Just a thought. Keep it up with more opinions please.
Dr. Russell K. Garlick, CTO
Protein Forest, Inc, Waltham, MA
 
 

About the Author

Related Topics

Loading Next Article...
Loading Next Article...
Subscribe to Newsletter

Subscribe to our eNewsletters

Stay connected with all of the latest from Drug Discovery News.

Subscribe

Sponsored

Reliable fluid biomarkers strategies for clinical neuroscience research

Reliable fluid biomarkers strategies for clinical neuroscience research

Explore how validated fluid biomarker assays advance clinical research for neurological diseases.
A group of blue capsules is scattered on a bright yellow surface, with one capsule opened to reveal white powder inside.

Understanding drug impurities: types, sources, and analytical strategies

Unseen and often unexpected, drug impurities can slip in at every drug development stage, making their detection and control essential.
Laboratorian with a white coat and blue gloves pipettes green liquid into a beaker with multicolored liquids in beakers and tubes in the blue-tinged, sterile laboratory background.

Discovering cutting-edge nitrosamine analysis in pharmaceuticals

New tools help researchers detect and manage harmful nitrosamine impurities in drugs such as monoclonal antibodies.
Drug Discovery News March 2025 Issue
Latest IssueVolume 21 • Issue 1 • March 2025

March 2025

March 2025 Issue

Explore this issue