Last night, a large number if us listened to the the first debate between Presidential nominees, Senators Obama and McCain... a good bit of sparring lasting close to two hours. Although the subject matter of the debate was foreign policies, almost half the time was spent on the financial crisis facing United States and the rest of the world.

Being a scientist, we have been exposed to the financial crunch for over two years now, before the real state meltdown began. NIH funding has been stagnant two years in a row. NIH director is set to resign. We have seen monthly budgets in the lab slashed,  postdocs laid off and faculty not getting tenure or having to move. So, how do scientists influence the policies of the Persidential nominees towards Science. A coalition of Scientists called ScienceDebate2008 has got both the campaigns to answer concerns over climate chane, healthcare, biomedical research etc...the answers from both the candidates could be compares side-by side.

An article in  Science by Jeffrey Marvis "Scientists Strive for a Seat at the Table of Each Campaign" outlines the views held by the two campaigns and what scientist think of their promises.

Harold Varmus has met Senator Barack Obama only once. But he's convinced that the Democratic presidential nominee "understands the important role that science must play in tackling the problems we face as a society." To prove it, the president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City points to the candidate's promise of "sustained and predictable increases in research funding" at the major federal science agency............................

Let us hope that the candidates would listen to the scientists. we can make out voice heard by joining ScienceDebate2008 and engaging more people-in Science, public and politics- in this conversation.