So, I'm making a presentation on behalf of the training and career development team that includes Tina Gatkin, Gatlin, Heather Junkin, and myself. And Bob and Gail were co-chairing this session, which was held on the 10th and 11th of April. So, the content of this presentation will be briefly the purpose. The next two bullets, the overview and examples of genomic science and genomic medicine training programs was an effort to sort of educate the participants of the working group to the things that were going on at the director's level and at some of the selected institutions, institutes and centers at NIH that have sort of shared goals. And then the last bullet, we'll talk about, you know, really what actually happened during the meeting. So, for those of you who were here last May, last February, there was a small teleconference that included some of the members of the council to sort of start the discussion of how to align our training programs with the strategic plan. And that resulted in my presentation in May of 2012, sort of an overview of our current training programs, in which we had asked the program directors to give us information about their goals and if they were not aligned with the strategic plan, how they planned to do that, we asked them about some of the elements of their training programs. And we had also asked them to go out and survey a couple of their graduates to get some idea of what things they could do to improve their programs and as expected, most of them had very good reviews. But the next step for that was then to dig down deeper to give us more information about, you know, if we were going to move more toward the right, how would we do that because the programs that we now have are ones that were started at the very beginning of the genome program. And so they're basically at the left-hand side of the density plot. So the purpose of this workshop was to review the training and career development programs and to make recommendations on how to align the programs with the strategic plan. So just to sort of give you some background in terms of reference, we always speak in a lot of alphabets and acronyms here. So we talk about the F awards. Those are individual fellowships. And really there are four varieties that I've only shown three here. The F30 is an individual MD, PhD fellowship program. That was one of the things that came out of the director's working group on the biomedical workforce and that was to have all of NIH participate in that. Up until now, we did not. So we joined this and starting in FY14, all institutes will have to participate in the F30 as well as the regular F31. We have always participated in the F31 diversity program. The F32 is your garden variety individual post-doc fellowship. And there's also an F33, which is a senior fellowship that's very rarely used, but it is used by established investigators who want to go on sabbatical and use this as sort of some support while they are on sabbatical. Then we have the K programs are the career development award programs. The K01 and the K25 are mentored career development awards. The K22 and the K25 are what we call the two-phase career transition, which includes an advanced post-doc up to two years and a faculty transition up to three years. For NHGRI's purpose, a total of five years. And then we have the T32s, which are the traditional institutional training grants. So to sort of orient our working group, we had invited representatives from the office of the director and several institutes to talk to us about their initiatives. The three initiatives out of the NIH director's office included the workforce report on the biomedical workforce, where there is a concern that it is taking too long for someone to become a PhD. It's taking them too long to become an independent investigator. And the stipends are so small that these four things will now make becoming a scientist not attractive. So they are working on ways to improve that. The other directive out of the director's office is the diversity workforce. And that one has to do with some of the things that Richard talked to you about, and that is sort of incorporating a lot of these scientists into the peer review process. There are also two RFAs out dealing with mentorship and building infrastructure. Then Michelle Dunn from the Cancer Institute is leading the big data to knowledge effort in the training area. And she talked about the efforts there in which we will have a workshop in late July in order to talk about what are the training needs in those areas. So that is planned. And Mark is very much involved with that initiative as well as I am. One of the things that's always a question is when you're talking about what should NHGRI be doing, the other question is what are the other institutes are doing. We find it always difficult to go to report or any of the other NIH databases to really find out what other institutes are doing. So we thought we could help this effort by inviting some of the staff there to talk to us about their efforts. So the person from the Heart, Lung and Blood Institute was only talked about their undergraduate science institute in biostatistics. And that's a program that has been running for about eight or nine years. There are about six institutions that participate in that. And the success of that is that 60 or 70% of the graduates from that training program will matriculate into a graduate program, a PhD program in biostatistics or related area. The National Institutes of General Medical Sciences, as all of you know, it's the training program at the NIH. And we wanted them to talk about their efforts in bioinformatics and computational biology. And they also have a postdoc training program for clinicians in six clinical areas where they give them training in areas like medical genetics, trauma. But the one we were interested in was the one having to do with medical genetics because the idea was that this is something we could be using, looking toward our training in genomic medicine. They have, and IGMS has 11 postdoc programs, they have nine postdoc programs and 11 graduate programs in bioinformatics and computational biology. The National Cancer Institute, they also have programs in medical genetics, bioinformatics and biostatistics, and they have 18 programs in that. The Library of Medicine was very interesting in that they have 14 university-based programs in informatics and computational biology interfacing with healthcare, public health, and translation research. And the interesting thing about their programs is that they're very agnostic as to where their people land, and a fifth of their graduates are in industry. So we also thought it would be good to get some idea of our training program in genomic medicine looks like, and what one in genomic sciences look like. So we invited Mike Banky, who was one of our first program directors for T32, to talk about his program. And very broadly, he said that the program interfaces mathematics with genetics and genomics, that most of their graduates are, they major in one discipline and have sufficient foundation in a complementary discipline. The students matriculate one semester early, they come in the summer so that they get a head start for the semester. And he found that if there is a student who may not be totally prepared in an area like statistics or math, they will have tutors for them, or they may take courses to sort of get them ready for the regular semester. There are program enhancements like there's always a mock study section sort of so that the kids get a sense of what a review actually looks like. There are attempts to give them courses or information about writing scientific papers, about how you do interviews, about how you do presentations, and there is a lot of interaction on a social level so that the group forms sort of a cohort. About 90% of their trainees remain in research and we've always been able to provide additional funding for the training programs for things like tutoring or for recruiting and areas like that. And Mike, he was very strong in saying that training has to be broad and deep and that sort of goes against what the NIH model wants to be now by training, getting them out sooner. He also thinks that one measure of success is looking at how long it takes someone to, once they finish their undergraduate, to get a job. And I think his main point there is that most of the people who finish in his program, they don't linger in postdoc programs, most of them usually go right to a tenure track position because of the area that they're in. Then we had Jeff Vance from the University of Miami who is just starting a master's degree in genomic medicine for MDs. This is a four-year program that runs concurrently with a medical curriculum. The curriculum includes didactic courses. They also have labs, online modules, and small group discussions with the faculty. There are benefits to the program and that the students are now, they become pioneers. They're some of the first ones who will be graduating in genomics. They realize that genomic medicine is integrated into all of medicine and they also feel that having this master's degree will give them a leg up and getting a good residency. There are some serious challenges with this program in that it's very time consuming because the student is taking medical school courses as well as the master's courses. And also there's a cost. For some reason, the way the program is now set up, out-of-state students can get grants in-state students have to pay and it's like $8,000 for the course. So that is a negative in terms of trying to get people to sign on. Then we come to the real meat of the program and Eric got us off to a good start by talking about some of the challenges. Then we will look at the recommendations, the overarching principles, and recurring themes. So Eric identified four challenges for NHGRI in this arena. One is the pace of genomic advances and as he put it, depending on a lot of factors, the pace of genomic research can be a slow walk or speed walking or sprint and we don't know what factors will control the pace. So that is a challenge. We also target different audiences. We're looking at people all the way from undergraduate to established investigators. We're also looking at basic sciences as well as clinicians, so many audiences. And perhaps one of the real serious issues is the reduction in the appropriation dollars. So if we want to start new activities, where is the money coming from when our budget may remain flat or even decrease? And then the need to identify NHGRI's niche within the strategic plan. We always say that the strategic plan was meant for all of genomics and not just for NHGRI. And so within this big ball, we then have to decide what part of it is really unique to NHGRI. So to sort of prime the discussion, the staff here generated some questions and they were meant just to sort of start the discussion. It was not meant to confine the discussion but to give them a sense of some of the things that we were interested in, such as what knowledge and skills are needed, what are the most effective ways and environments to integrate genomic science with genomic medicine, how best to leverage training in the clinical areas because there are other institutes that are training in some of the areas that we are interested in and so we don't want to duplicate what they are doing yet we do have something unique to offer. What are the most effective ways to enhance training in the foundational sciences, and here we're talking about informatics, computational biology, the quantitative sciences for basic and clinical trainees and researchers. And what percentage of the extramural budget should be allotted for training and career development? Unfortunately, we didn't get to the last one but I think we did get the information that we needed to move forward. So the recommendations for career development, expand the K01 to cross-train clinicians and genomicists in genomic medicine. What this means is that as our announcement stands now, it is for individuals who have degrees in math, science, chemistry, physics, engineering and commuter sciences to train in genomics. So now we want to expand this so that anyone who has a degree in biomedical research or who has an MD degree can now come in for the K01 award. And there we're also saying that we should sort of not aggressively recruit this first group of individuals, continue to support the K01s and the K25s and the K99s, and to support individuals interested in technology development because the skill set that is needed for both genomic science and genomic medicine will always need these kinds of people applying their skills to the problems. And then to support individual K awards initially. And this came about because there was some discussion as to whether we should have institutional K awards. And the problem there is that these awards would be very, very expensive. And since this is a new area, it might be better to support individuals. And then once we've had some sense of what a training program should look like, we might want to consider an institutional training grant. And also by having individual Ks, this would allow these individuals to be spread out into a lot of institutions where if you have an institutional K, you'll only be able to make one or two of those and those would be clumped in one or two places. So the other thing we were very interested in is what constitute a good training program. And we mostly focused on genomic medicine because I think we have a fairly good idea as to how to train people in genomic sciences. But genomic medicine is an area that is really new to us. And this is the one that we were looking for lots of advice. So a defined general approach that is applicable across diseases. So one of the things they were saying is that someone can identify, say, a disease that has had a very problem that's been very difficult to solve. Well, they can work on that problem if they can demonstrate that the solution will be applicable to other diseases. They also should have a defined curriculum and training plan, an environment that is rich in genomic research. And many of the working group members felt that this was not a problem because there are a lot of institutions now that are heavily invested in genomics and clinical areas of genomics. So this should not be an issue. Access to critical resources such as raw data, clinical data, health records, just unmanipulated data that they could actually work with because this is the real world. And then dual mentoring and complementary disciplines. In terms of training, again, expand the training to encompass genomic medicine. But again, we still need people who are versed in the foundational sciences like informatics, computational biology in those areas, quantitative sciences, support individual and institutional training, allow flexibility in course requirements. And several people made the comment that comparing entering students now to those who entered maybe 10 years ago. Many of these kids now have a very strong background in computer science and the quantitative sciences. So when you start defining what is required, you have to look at the students that are coming in, and that should be left to the local level. To strengthen the foundation in genomic medicine by supporting training in the data sciences and LC, and limit training in genomic medicine to PhDs, MDs, or their equivalents. And this recommendation was made because they were saying, first, genomic medicine is a new discipline, and we don't really know what a PhD would look like. But you can take someone who has a PhD or an MD or an equivalent and then add on to that the genomic medicine training. And I think they gave, there are a couple of institutes now that have this kind of a training program. One of them is an IGMS that has a postdoc, it's an institutional postdoc training program, and child health also has one. And with both of these, they are geared to clinicians, but the advice here was to open it up to MDs and PhDs. The other thing is that there should be two paths for training, one, genomic medicine as a researcher, and then as a master clinical genomicist. And this would be someone who has foundational training in genomic medicine, but would have primarily clinical responsibilities. So that this person could be a teacher or a trainer to people who are coming up. Didactic training is essential, that LC training is also required, should be required. And that the training program should vary between two or three years depending on the background of the individual. And they said that four trainees were considered a critical mass for a viable program. And it should be noted that I know with IGMS their programs, the number of trainees varies somewhere between four and six. So in terms of the clinicians that they should enter during their fellowship year, they should devote 75% or more time to research and devote up to 25% time to maintain clinical credentials, but that their time in the clinic should be devoted to applying genomics in the clinic. We also support short courses that are not part of the K, F, and T's, but we should continue to support those especially because we've used those courses to disseminate knowledge to a larger audience. We have quite a few courses at Cold Spring Harbor and other places to pursue new methods of disseminating information, and here this refers to online courses, but the issue there is how do you evaluate those and how do you keep them up to date? And then collaborate with professional societies to conduct courses in genomic medicine. There were some overarching principles that applied both to training and career development, fund more training and career development, and the goals of all of these programs should be to expand the base of knowledge in genomic medicine, continue to support the foundational sciences, and to develop leaders. Again, the issue of training broadly and deeply, and training in behavioral and health sciences is also important. Even a professional network of trainees and K awardees was brought up. One of the things there is that many of the people in the audience that had experience with annual meetings of trainees coming together and sort of forming a cohort of people who would in future years sort of become members of a group, and then again to support the diversity action plan. Some of the recurring themes were increased diversity, use of a variety of metrics to measure success, and some of these included to recognize people who are PIs on subprojects, to recognize that a successful person could be someone who is teaching in a university that does not have a research intensive environment. Even people who are in industry, another measure would be like what is the impact of the publication, or has that person or their research changed the way medicine or research is done. Another theme was educating practice and physicians and collaborate with other units to leverage NHGRI support. So in looking at how we match up with the other institutes in terms of support, the people who came, the institute reps who came to the group provided us with some information and if you were just looking at the FTs and Ks, GM commits about 9.5% of its extramural dollars to these three activity codes, NCI about 3%, NLM 26%, a lot of their money goes into training. We commit 2.4% and the average for NIH is 3.6%. So the next slide tells you what this buys us. So for our KL1s and K22s, only for fiscal year 12, we had three awards. The average cost of that was about $150,000. It was 0.1% of the extramural budget. For the K22s and the K99s, we made seven awards. That was 0.2% of our budget and the average cost was like $80,000. For the T32s, we had 13, it was 2% of our extramural budget and the average cost was about $600,000. For our Fs, we made 12 awards. That was about 0.1% of our budget and the average cost is about $50,000. So that is just sort of a brief review of what we do. And I might add that some of these numbers included five LC grants. I think there were three Fs and two KL1s. But it does not include the LC training that is embedded in the SEERS. So the other thing is that this workshop only dealt with the non-LC part of NHGRI training. As Pamela said, the LC group has a parallel discussion going on with their community.  So before I open it up to the council, I'd like to ask Gail and Bob if they have any comments. Gail? I think that was an excellent summary. Thank you. I think the committee was trying to balance the importance of clinical people in genomic medicine and also basic science and not losing focus on the importance of developing analytic people. Also being flexible about different mechanisms that can be used in what are efficient mechanisms such as K awards, but also possibly joining in with existing T32 programs for medical genetics, for example. Bob? No, I agree that was a great summary. I just emphasized the point that there was enthusiasm for expanding the efforts of training into genomic medicine at that distinct best doctoral level or beyond where you could take a strong foundation in genomic medicine with clinical expertise or strong clinical expertise. Okay. Heather? But I think you covered the highlight. Okay. Heather and Tina, do you have any comments? And I'll just remind you that the full report is attached to the agenda. So the council? Jim? I was just wondering what we know about demand on the side of those with MD and PhD equivalents in the sense that one of the things our field has struggled with has been at the slightly junior level of, say, at the medical school side, demand has not been high. Demand for what? For training, for further training as, you know, genomic medicine specialists. Yeah. And especially, you know, the demand among potential trainees. Are they going to see this as a unique and special opportunity that really gives them a leg up? Or are we, you know, do we run the risk of creating something that won't be? So I don't know if Bob or Gail want to comment. I mean, I can tell you in my going around the places, that's one of the things I've had folks at various universities advocate for, the belief that they have these clinical trainees who actually are getting interested but see no vehicle to find funding to allow them to take the time off of their clinical pursuits to learn more, to train. Bob or Gail, do you want to add to that from your experience in Seattle? Yeah, I think there's no question that that's true, that it's very difficult to identify short term funding. And particularly these people sometimes come up on somewhat short, shortish notice, you know, not years of planning. And we've definitely lost some opportunities. I mean, I don't have lots of experience with the clinic these days, but one area that I've certainly seen interested in is trying to develop diagnostics without an obvious vehicle system. Didi and then Tony? Yeah. So first I'd like to say I like the recommendations and it seems like it was a very good workshop and I'm sorry that I missed it. Yes, we invited quite a few council members who couldn't make it. But I do like the recommendations and then I was curious, just because I don't know that much about it, but you mentioned the Jeff Vance program in Miami, which is a master's in genomic medicine, and then the recommendation is only allow PhDs and MDs, but is my understanding that that master's is something that MDs get in addition to their medical training? Okay. And how many people are involved in that training program? Do you know? In the first year, I don't remember the numbers. I think it's like five. Yeah. I remember five. Five. Three people remember five. And I think some people joined up and then sort of bailed out because it was just too much time. It's a very early thing. Yeah. Just that might be useful as a gauge to the question on how much interest or demand is there. And I really want to emphasize the Miami part. I mean, if they're in their first year, I would regard it as an experiment and I think we want to keep in touch with Jeff and others just to see what this thing looks like over the first couple of years. And then just kind of going back to what we were talking about earlier in this open session on the report on the incidental findings and physicians and laboratories and so on. I mean, it just seems like there should be a great need for this kind of training. So maybe, I don't know how we better advertise that to make sure that people know that this is available. Well, when it becomes available, I mean, it's not available right now. No, I know. But yes. If we move forward, there's no question. If we move forward on it because I would think there would be great demand. And I'll just also mention that at Arizona State University, we have a department or program on biomedical informatics, which is geared also for this kind of thing for training and ideas to have that kind of training for physicians. Tony? I guess coming back to my former question, so maybe on a more macro level like other professional groups like physicians or dentists or veterinarians who look at markets and decide that there's some kind of gap about where the trends are going and how many they need to train. Is that ever done at NIH to look at the number of jobs that are out there in biotechnology, industry, academia to decide how, if there's a gap. I mean, I understand the working group is made up of academics and physicians are trying to understand where within the field you want to put emphasis. But I'm concerned that we might be overtraining the number of people that there are jobs for. I mean, I can take a pass at saying that one of the working groups of the NIH's advisory committee as the director that yielded report last June was on the workforce plan in Shirley Tillman. And I think it was Sally Rocky, I think was the co-chair. Somebody from NIH was a co-chair. I mean, they looked at that, but that was more in line with how many PhD, it was more at the graduate school level, how many people are you putting in the pipeline, what should be the trajectory of those individuals, what are all the things we could do with more, with the current number or more or less doctorates. I think this speaks to a slightly different issue. And I think that may be one of the reasons why this group that came together recommended dealing not with early stage but later stage. To the extent we need more people, in this case, recommended genomic medicine, what could we be doing to grab some of the physicians and turn them into physician-scientists, genomicists. So your question is, do we really need them? And I don't, I'm not aware of any specific study. I think it's anecdotal hearing from where people are trying to recruit. We certainly would love to have some more genomically trained physicians working in NHGRI, probably all different parts of the institute. And if Bob wants to comment as a chair, you might have experienced from Tufts what's going on. But it seems to be the impression that places are hungry for such individuals. But I don't know of a study, I'm speaking anecdotally. So I would just second that, Eric. And probably in multiple clinical departments I'm betting, right, Bob? Not just your department. Right. I think, I mean, what we're seeing is that our graduates are in high demand. And Mike Benke had some impressive numbers of graduates from his program. And even someone like Mike, if I recall, right, was saying, I mean, Mike's mostly training more basic oriented folks. And he was saying, wow, but in thinking about it, certainly people who are medically trained as well would be particularly in high demand. Oh, absolutely. I can tell you, it's very hard to identify these people when you have open positions. They just are very hard to find. Yeah, I would echo that. We are searching for a medical geneticist, and that's very hard to recruit for. But the other item is the data and informatics committee, or work group that Joe and I were in. I also advocated for more training in informatics, because that's a perceived need in the community. I'm about to be going back to the physician, genomist, as I wish Les Beesinger was still here, because I could tell you that Les, when he became a branch chief in her intramural program, was involved in a couple of rounds of searches trying to find somebody for his branch. And with that exact target of physician scientists working on clinical problems in genomics, and they're just not out there. Very much interested to have them. I think it's fair to say that our training budget is very small, so I don't think we would overwhelm the community with the number of people that we support. A question on, as I said, on the larger level, does NIH give guidance on the number of training grants they should be funding in an environment that they're cutting back research? I mean, if they're not getting jobs in the academy, where are these people going to go eventually? So that's why I'm saying that some sort of market analysis should be done to understand how much you should be either increasing, decreasing, or keeping the same, the training budget. So I don't know the answer at the macro level, but I do know that as a follow-up, NIH, in fact, I even think they're bringing in some, or as a consultant, some economists to really look at this. But again, Tony, I think they're speaking to a slightly different issue. It's more about how many PhDs. I think what we are looking at coming out of this is much more of when you have PhDs, when you have clinicians, we want them a little more specialized in genomics. Is there the need? And it's what Bob and Gal were saying, and others have been saying. But it is relevant that you're putting more money into that specific area, and you're not cutting back on all the other training you're doing. So I can see that the training budget is growing when everything else is shrink. And that's the reason for my sort of more macro comment. I think that'll be what we will have to discuss as we keep having discussions around this, is if we're going to do some of this, and if we move forward on what some of the recommendations came from this workshop, do we do this by adding money, which means it has to come from signals, or by shifting money, and that we're going to grab with. Okay, Carlos and then Bob. I mean, this is kind of almost more a point to Tony, but I mean, I don't think we should be guiding the PhD training program or the postdoc training program by the total NIH budget, right? Just because that's flatlining doesn't mean that those individuals aren't getting a competitive advantage by being trained by NIH or whether the country shouldn't be training more individuals in that area. I mean, even if you look at growth and finance, right, they're hiring individuals who are at CERN, right? The people who are part of the Large Hadron Collider are some of the most coveted by the finance industry. So, you know, I actually think it's a mistake to kind of fall into this trap that, well, NIH is flatlining. Therefore, we don't need to be producing any more PhDs because the goal of the PhD should necessarily be to find a job in academia or something where you're going to be funded by the NIH. I didn't say that. I said a market analysis which looked at a wider picture of what was in industry in other areas because these people have to get jobs. And what I see is you end up with a lot of people on their third or fourth postdoc because there's no jobs out there. So, just, you know, think about that when you start increasing training budgets. Right. I mean, the other thing to say about it, which we need to talk about is, first of all, whatever we put in framing, it's a pebble in a quarry compared to when you add an NIGMS and NCI and NHLBI. So, I don't think we're not going to spend any curves even when we went all in with our training budget. But second of all, we are way... I mean, other than they came out of this, which I think we want to think about, I don't know what we want to do, but I want to think about it. It's just as a percentage of our total budget, we are way under compared to most of this other incident. Even if we went to the NIH average, we'd still be a small pebble in a large quarry. But still, should we be that far below the NIH average? And that's what I think we want... And that's what I think we want to talk about. Oh, wait, I had Bob next. It's a really interesting report. I'm really sorry I missed the meeting. I wanted to be there. I had two questions for you. One is I was struck by the comment about being grateful to some of the NIH institutes that came to your meeting and spoke there. Is there no general cross-NIH clearinghouse on who's training and what kind of training so that we actually know what the whole NIH portfolio is? Does that not exist? You mean the training portfolio? Yeah. Yeah, you can get that information, but if you want to say genomic medicine, you will get... the SARS will pick up genomic medicine in anything, and you may get a lot of things that really when you look at them, they're not genomic medicine. That's the problem. So the website of the search tool is not very... Exactly, exactly. That's the second time today that I've found that a cross-NIH website search tool was not functional. Is there a theme here? Sorry about that. Second question, and this may be a purely narrow view that I have, and I've been struck by the fact that in a lot of MD-PhD programs, the number of people who are getting PhDs in bioengineering as part of their MD-PhD is actually quite small compared to other PhDs, and in the bioengineering, the number that are doing bioinformatics or computer science is a tiny fraction of that. Now, maybe I have a very skewed view of that, but I'm wondering whether the MD-PhD programs are another place where we could really try to get people trained both in medicine and in computer science. I worry... I guess I worry a little bit about how effective and how deep you can be to take someone who's a clinician and try to turn them into a bioinformatician without having really rigorous, fundamental teaching and knowledge about information science. I really worry about that. So I would like to respond to your comment about the MD-PhD training and having somebody in computer sciences. We could very well go out and say that for the F-30 program, we're only going to be accepting applications from people who are interested in an MD in computer science or informatics or computational biology. We could do that. Other people on council think that would be a good idea. I mean, is that a good source of the people that you want trained with this idea in mind? What's at the MD-PhD? Yeah, I'm asking other people on council if they think that would be a good thing to do with F-30. Well, the good part about it is that it's an individual award, so it's not institutional. So, you know, if you can identify somebody who was interested in that training, that would be great. Go ahead. Yeah. Then you and then Howard. Yeah, go ahead. I would just say that some of our most successful graduates were engineer majors that then went to medical school and so not necessarily an MD-PhD, but they had that background. The problem has been medical schools accepting those non-traditional pre-med candidates. So that's where there's more trouble, I think. Some of the audience is going to be sub-specialists that want to learn more about genomics. And a lot of the way you described it was that. So not so much they'd be board-certified in genomic medicine, but rather they would have that extra training. And that speaks to NHGRI as the ultimate leverager in terms of institutes, because it's going to be a cardiologist wanting to do two years of genomic medicine, not a genomicist wanting to do two years of cardiology. So it seems like the one solution or one way forward is really partnering with these institutes to develop these programs, partly because your budget's limited and partly because that's where the talent is going to be. Now there are going to be some programs like we've talked about with informatics and medical genetics that are going to be solely in this institute. I think most of the need is to make oncologists better genomic medicine people and cardiologists and that sort of thing. And that really is the specialty IC venue. So like a lot of things we would do, there's no question that once we put some meat on the bones of this we would absolutely go around and try to convince other institutes to participate because you're right. And all likely their proposals likely would have a disease-specific element or component or maybe that would be the dominant feature. And it would be... Eric? Yeah, Bob. I mean that was one thing that got a lot of attention I think in the discussions of the committee was just what the role of NHGRI was in doing this as opposed to the categorical institutes then. And I think there was a lot of enthusiasm in trying to get the categorical institutes to focus on their particular diseases and apply genomics to them and train people there. But NHGRI's role, on the other hand, would be training people with more fundamental advances in genomic medicine. Yes, it makes sense to me. But I also think there's probably a little bit blurry between them. I mean, it's not a sharp line. Right. And I know... And obviously if you can get lots of people... I mean to leverage this across the institutes would be fantastic. Right. And we're not going to get anywhere unless we develop the framework for this and put our skin in the game. If I may, Eric? Please. Yeah, so the... I mean I think it totally makes sense to leverage the other institutes and try and get them to accelerate their interest in genomic medicine. I would be a little careful about being too strict and defining who could be funded by NHGRI in that it's a very flexible field right now and there are lots of different aspects and costs of it. So I wouldn't want to say, well, only if they're going to do informatics because we have a guy who right now is an internist medical geneticist who's taking two years to get a master's degree in outcomes research focused on genomic medicine. So you never know where the opportunities are and you wouldn't want to be overly restrictive. Okay. Any other comments about this workshop and this discussion? David? I think a lot of the comments had to do with the applications to medical genomics and I actually like the fact that the workforce also recognized the need to maintain foundational training. I think it's just important to remember that genomic science is also transforming basic research with challenges that involve large data and statistical analysis in ways that also raise training challenges and the institute should keep its eye on the application of genomics to basic training as well as to medical training because I think that the activities are transforming both activities and it's important to maintain a workforce that can take advantage of the data onslaught that's also coming from the innovations. I guess I'd like to say that that was very clear and I think it's clear in the report that we should do that and I think perhaps the report sort of overly talks about genomic medicine simply because that's an area where I know very little about in terms of training and since we had the people there, this would be the opportunity to get some sense from them what would constitute a good training program but it's not that we plan to abandon our other efforts. The committee was very clear on that David. There was strong enthusiasm for the programs that are out there and the strengths that they bring to it. This ad complimentary to that was the emphasis on not continuing to develop people in technology and genomics that was good. Okay thank you Betty. We should hit the


Ieithi Ieith.. ..aeth amser a ddannu'r cyflawn... ..y fydd yw'r cyfeil gweithiau... ..y'r cyflawn i'r cyflawn y cyflawn egg, oherwydd mae'n cyfeilio... ..y'r cyfeilio yn y llefodol iawn. A hefyd, rhaid i'r ffestifol... ..y'r fflawn i'r ffrindig ysgrifennu... ..y'r ffrindig i'r ffrindig hefyd o'r ffrindig... ..y'r ffrindig, i'r ffrindig... ..y'r ffrindig eithaf, ac mae'r ffrindig eithaf... oedd yn gallu'n ffordd o'r newid o'r eich gennig oes ymchwil yn teimlo'r gwahysig. A gallwn i'n cerdd oedd ymwneud, gallwn i'n cael ei wneud o'r gweithio a'r adgectel o'r cyffredin yn ei wneud. Gallwn i'n cerdd o'r parallelau i'r tyn dechrau, i wneud i'n cyfrifiadol ar y cyfnodol, oedd yn cael ei wneud o'r cyfrifiadol. Rhywb i'n meddwl i'r singol, gynnyddol i'r battalion. A mae e'n gwneud o'r cyfrifiadol, This is a new normal as we witness the death agony of the period of the death agony of capitalism itself, where tremendous challenges and tremendous opportunities are presented for the Labour and the Three Union movement but critically also for Marxist organisations and in terms of Socialist ideas yn ohol i'r ideaio ddylai ac nad ydych yn bwysig y diwrnod o gyfnodr bod yn gweithio'r llngwlad hon yn gweithio'r dda, ond dyma'n meddwl fo beth mae'n golygu, ond ymdano gyda'r ffordd o bwysig, o'r rhan o'n ymriadig a yn ti'r parid, yn ymgyrch iawn, mae'n arbu'r wahanol ac yn y cyfweld yn ddau yma, as millions across the world and certainly Britain are looking for answers, first of all. They are seeking to understand what is happening in their lives and they are looking for alternatives. One small example of how people's lives are going to change is this pandemic, which is a catastrophe in many, many respects respect for both the ruling class and the working class. We are going to see, unless a movement is capable of stopping it,incidentally, mass unemployment, 4 to 5 million unemployed in Britain. By the way I personally think that would be a conservative estimate. I'm old enough to remember the 1980s when they spoke about 3 million ond. Dyna'r cwysig o'r bwysig, mae'r bwysig o'r ddau, i ni'n angen y ffaith, mwyn ffawr pethonol, ond rydyn ni'n ffawr i'n ffawr i'n rhywbeth i'r dystrygu'n gwybod. Melynes o'r pethau yr ydych chi wedi'w gwneud i'r rhaid, rydyn ni yn cael ei ddweud i'r rhaid yn cael ei ddweud i'r rhaid, yn cyfyrdd i'r rhaid, oherwydd i'r systefn gyrwch i'r rhaid, oedd y cwrs ar y ddechrau bydd y Tori a'r Gweithio Lleiddoedd, ac, wrth gwrs, y Gweithio Lleiddoedd. Mae'n cael ei ddweud o'r llaw o'r cyfnod ar gyfer o'r cyfnod. Mae'n cyfrifio'r proffesio'r ysgolion, ac mae'r pethau sydd wedi'u gweld yn bwysig ar y pandemig gyda'u rhyngwb sy'n ddimnod ar gyfer o'u cyfrifio'r cyfnod ar gwell o'r perffesio. Mae'n gweithio, wrth gwrs, o gwnaeth ymgledio. Rynamiwch, a defnydd i hynny, sgwrs yn ddim yn cael ei ddweud o'r cefnod. Mae'r llyfr yn cael ei anglesol, mae'n cael ei ddweud o'r cyfnod sy'n ymgylch. Aethaf iddyn nhw, ac bod nhw'n gallu eu ddwynt o'r gwaith ylltydd Cymru a'u ond allan ni'n ddisodledig ar y gwahanol ar y sprechennau. Felly ar y pandemig, mae'n ei gynhwys bwysig i gynnwys ar yr un i'r gynnwys. Rwy'n credu'r gweithio ar y lleithiau, ar yr un i'r lleithiau, ac rwy'n credu i gynnwys ar yr un i'r lleithiau. Roedd y peth o'r un i'r lleithiau ar y gynnwys ar y gynnwys, rwy'n credu i'r leithiau ar yr un i'r gynnwys. a'r torri wedi bod yn ei wneud i gael a lieddechrau'r myfyrdd. Mae wedi cyfeirio'r cymaint fel ysbøddiadau ond ry'n defnyddio'r hwn. Mae nifer am y cyflwynfodelaeth, ond mae hyn bydda'n ei gwneud gefnodi, ac mae'n gwael i fod yn y gwybodaeth. Mae cyfrifiadau, yn y gallu sy'n gychwynfod, yn credu rheswer o sch Wasan. mae'n gwneud o'r sgwrs yng Nghymru, rydyn ni'n gweithio i'r EU, a Josh i'n gwneud o'r sgwrs yng Nghymru. Mae'n gwneud o'r sgwrs yng Nghymru sy'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. On this has been exposed greatly in the current period for millions of workers as at the degenerate state of the British ruling class in the capitalist class itself, because what we have in it I think is a reasonably accurate description. We're now dealing with eclectocracy. That's just a fancy way of saying that these people are robin, as blind and they don't care if we know it. Ac y gallu y gallu ymweld ffawr y, mae 12 miliwn i'w cyffredinol sydd yn ddiogelio'r cyffredinol ar y trac o'r cyffredinol. Yn y cwrwch 50,000 oedd yn yr olygu'r gwath ynghylch yn Fietnaam, mae 500. Yn ymateb oherwydd mae'r cyffredinol a'r cyffredinol o'r cyffredinol i'w ddiogelio'r cyffredinol i'r amgylcheddau, i'r hyn sydd i'r amgylcheddau a'r amgylcheddau. 12 miliwn i'w meddwl i'r cyffredinol yn gweithio gyda. I think I'm correct in saying this as the whole budget for primary care in the National Health Service at the present time. And right when leaders or bureaucracies in the trade union movement in periods such as this, they always take the road of conciliationism. You see that with many leaders in the movement at the present time. You do not seek to offer up an independent class position, analysis and demands simply because they can't conceive of an alternative. They don't see it's possible to challenge capitalism even in its neoliberal form, let alone transform society itself. You understand this because a lot of them have actually done rather well out of the capitalist system itself. And it means that individual unions or groups of workers are left often to fight on their own rather than united a coordinated response. And there's a huge gap in terms of the scale of the problem the working class faces in terms of the pandemic itself, which is a catastrophe and the response itself. But I think we recognise there's enormous potential to fight back in the interests of workers, to protect safety, to protect jobs. And also in terms of more advanced workers imposing in terms, not just in the demands, but the question of a transformation of society itself. What kind of society do we want? Do we want a society that can offer stability or do we want a socialist society? But the trade union bureaucracies, if you wish to describe them as such, and the leaders who failed your lead, we have to recognise that this is not a situation that's fixed and it's not an unchanging situation. It would be an error to think that under the crisis that are taking place there's not just the possibility for massive changes in consciousness, but for workers to move into action. Not just in terms of the usual methods of struggle, but also in their unions themselves. They put in pressure on the leaders and the demanding through their democratic organisations that those leaders lead from the front in terms of defending their interests. And I think it's worth saying at this point, even before the pandemic itself, capitalism internationally, but in terms of Britain particularly, is facing a profound crisis. I don't have time and I'm sure these things will be dealt with in other sessions, but just to give a very small round down on some of the crisis that they're facing. There's obviously the pandemic itself. There's a question of Brexit, which has only caused real problems in all sorts of areas. There's a question of mass unemployment. There's a slump, which they reckon, incidentally, and I don't think this is an exaggeration, by the way, that the most, the deepest slump for 300 years. And they have various political problems. Don't have time to deal with this. I just mentioned it in the passing, the potential break up of the United Kingdom itself. Next year we may well be seeing renewed demands for Scottish independence. And the way that the English regions have been treated, particularly in the north, has become a factor in this situation itself. And workers' lives will be transformed in the coming period because the plan, as far as the bourgeoisie are concerned, is for workers to pay the price of the pandemic in the same way they paid the price of the crisis in the 2008 crash. The Tories are elected with an 80 seat majority. And it's a rule, if you like, a law, certainly, I think, an inevitability, that when the political road is blocked for working class people, they turn to the industrial. I would simply make this point, though, I think that in nature of the rapidity of the crisis that are hitting the capitalist class, there will be a tremendous, if you like, linking together, if you like, and very rapid consequences flowing from industrial struggle to political action as well. So it will be a misjudgment to look at the past period, and that I see really in the last 40 years or so, certainly a period I've been active as a reliable guide to how things will develop in the future. And the ruling class know this too. And the unions, in a sense, not the first time in the history of the unions, they're actually at a crossroads. Now unions, of course, are not revolutionary organisations, but given effective leadership, particularly in terms of crisis, they're capable of directing mass anger and militancy and prosecuting campaigns of revolutionary struggle, even, incidentally, in pursuit of limited gains, that collective strength to win concessions in the period of crisis, even in defence of rights and conditions, and even in a period where, generally speaking, reforms are not sustainable, it's been a period of the ruling class grabbing back reforms with collective action. The ruling class will always concede when it's backs against the wall, and even the possibility through those struggles of some reforms, even if they're of a very, very temporary nature. And the ruling class understand the power of the unions, even if some of our own leaders don't. And Lenin himself remarked, he said that behind every strike, the ruling class see the hydra of the revolution. The hydra, I'm sure a lot of you will know, in Greek mythology, was a nine-headed monster. So what he said was, behind every strike, is a monster in terms of the ruling class. It's a strike, and the campaigns, but particularly a strike, gives the workers a sense of collective power, solidarity. The one of the things I've found remarkable over the many years I've been active in the movement is those people who, work colleagues, if you like, who might be the quiet one in the office of the factory, they are the ones when a strike comes along, display hidden talents of organisation, some becoming very good speakers and advocates as well, very good organisers. And strikes pose the question, who's in control? Who actually runs things? And even in a workplace strike, or in a sector, if you like, or in industry, when industrial action is taking place, it can, if you like, pose questions of dual power. Who actually runs things? Who's actually in control? And, you know, of course, it was referred to last night in reference to the history of the charts, that the general strike, I don't mean the one or two, the day general strike, I mean the all-out general strike, actually poses the question of political power, the overthrow of governments, and not just overthrow of governments, the transformation of society itself. And British history, like in other countries, is rich with examples. I mean, I'm old enough to remember the Heath government in the early 70s, which was challenged by the miners. Heath went to the country in an election, said, well, who runs the country? And the answer of the British people was, well, not you, mate. And from that point of view, that was the power of organised labour. And so, as I've said, the ruling class takes the power of collective struggle in the trade unions very, very seriously indeed. And that is why, since the formation, since industrial revolution from the days of tall puddle, from the days of transportation, right up to the recent anti-tax laws, anti, sorry, not anti-tax laws, anti-union laws, sorry, anti-union laws, we've seen attempts to use a legal system and the judiciary to stop struggle. And of course, right-wing trade union leaders themselves have been part of that process. It's not just that they don't support people when they're being victimised. In my own union, the predecessor union, which is called CPSA, which was once controlled by one of the most extreme right-wing bureaucracies in the trade union movement. I don't know how commonly known this is. That they actually, in the 1980s, didn't just support Thatcher and Tebbeth in the trade union laws. They actually advocated them and they actually helped formulate them, as a matter of fact. But the coming period, we can see the movement transformed and an opposition can take on many forms. And I think part of that is the battles also that are taking place around social movements like Black Lives Matter and within the communities itself. And the unions are uniquely placed to be able to not just lead those kinds of struggles, but tie them up, collectivise them and increase their power. And union movement will have to adapt to changing circumstances in terms of methods of organisation. But we shouldn't be frightened of this. Part of what you might describe as zombie capitalism has been the production, if you like, of the precariat, workers with two and three jobs, the gig economy, which has made the problems difficult for organising. And in the pandemic, you know, we've seen the move towards remote working, which presents problems of how do you develop collective action. But, you know, these things can be double-sided. For example, call centres, which are now quite a big feature of life in this country, and actual fact, present tremendous opportunity for organisation. And as much as they present factory conditions, lots of workers in one place, lots of collective strength, and workers in a crisis will always find ways of fighting back. We should never be pessimistic about changes or throw the towel in the 1930s. For example, in France, we saw the sit-down strikes, which in fact, in the factories, which were a warning, of course, to the rural and class of how workers will find ways of fighting back. There's also warranty leaders as well, that workers will find way of fighting back. In class anger and militance, they will always find ways, despite laws of developments in the workplaces, in the workplaces, industries and services. And militancy in the fight back doesn't just stop at the factory gate or the office door. In 1968 in France, I think this figure is correct, there were 3 million in unions, but 10 million were actually on strike. So in the coming period, there's one thing we can expect, and that is the unexpected, and nothing is set in stone. And there's enormous critical role of the unions in coming class battles. But we stress the question of leadership is absolutely critical, not just in terms of the movement, what you might describe as the official movement itself, but in terms of how Marxists and socialists intervene revolutionary organisations with the correct orientation to these struggles can not just make all the difference, can be in fact the critical factor. And that is why as Marxists, we don't stand on the sideline, we don't stand on the sideline lecturing workers just criticising and correcting them or correcting people in the movement. Yes, we expose both the capitalist and the right wing and the conciliators, but we have to be as well as providing the analysts, we have to be the best, we have to be with the workers and the mass movements and the best fighters and leaders. And the last period is really a warning of the consequences of the wrong approach for the unions and their class, because in the past 40 years, what we've witnessed is an unremitting class war taking back the gains won by generations of trade union struggle. We shouldn't underestimate, incidentally, the sheer scale of that. It's been conducted at every level, industrial, political, legal in terms of policy, in terms of the media, even in the academic world. And the capitalist class, the bourgeois have used the classic, the old classic ideas of divide and rule and right at the centre of the grab and back calling this as a question of cuts in privatisation. And we've been, the consciousness has been thrown back. And the Tories have grown in consciousness over the years, have grown in confidence over the years. What for them is once unthinkable, is now thinkable, and they're trying to implement the unthinkable. And that, I think, is why it's wrong to underestimate the failure of labour movement, leadership to confront those attacks. And that is seen even in raw figures. The fall from the 70s in the 1970s, where 13 million were organised in the TUC to 6 million, around 6 million at the present day, although it has gone up as I've said. It didn't start with Thatcher. The cuts actually started under a Labour government. You had the so-called winter of discontent, where the idea, which is common in capitalist propaganda that the unions ran the country, if only. They were actually fighting back against cuts at that particular time. We saw the defeat of the miners in 1984-85, where many in the leadership of the movement and certainly in Labour stood back, rather than offering the uncompromising solidarity that those workers deserve. And the failure to organise mass-coordinated campaigns and coordinated action through that decade in particular left isolated groups to fight on their own. And it's no coincidence, incidentally, that when Thatcher was defeated, she was defeated by the mass class solidarity of the non-payment of the poll tax. And there were people at that time argued, incidentally, in the trade union movement, that the council workers, all they needed to do was not deduct poll tax. Again, to leave a relatively isolated group of workers to take on their shoulders the whole burden of fighting the government while the rest of the movement stood on and watched. And the lesson has to be repeated time and time again about coordinated action, about mass struggle. And there is, in terms of the right wing in the movement, they actually theorise these things. And in the 1980s, they talked about the Dented Shield, they talked about their concept was new realism, which essentially was just keep your head down, try and save what we can and wait for a Labour government. There's a direct link between that to new Labour itself, where Gordon Brown could stand up in Parliament in 2003 and talk about culling the jobs of 100,000 civil servants, and he was cheered on a Labour-backed benches. And, you know, the introduction of PFI, the idea of profit without risk, and there are consequences from all these things. And the most recent example, of course, was in the pensions dispute, just 2010, 2011, where we saw, incidentally, under the pressure of left wing unions and left wing leaders like Sir Vodka, incidentally, in terms of PCS, pushed towards a one-day general strike. We reckon there's about 2 million people involved, but immediately after that, with all the potential involved in that, the TUC, right wing union leaders done a deal behind our back. And what that meant was, behind the back of the workers, not just PCS, incidentally, that emboldened the then coalition government to implement austerity with a vengeance, with catastrophic impacts, incidentally, for the unemployed and the disabled, along with many other workers. But just imagine for a moment, if we had that class solidarity, the miners would have won on pensions how that would have changed history. And it's true, in the past period, general terms would say we're in a period of defensive struggles, but when struggle does take place, concessions can be won. And even in terms of good left leaderships in the trade union movement, they don't operate in isolation. They operate in the objective circumstances that exist at that time. And that means, yes, there can be some successes, but there's limits to that, particularly in a period of ongoing cuts and privatisation. Now, in this period, in the pandemic, I think it's absolutely critical that we're arguing for some kind of united, you could call it a programme of action, but certainly putting demands on the trade union leaders to put those demands on the Tories themselves. And let's just make a couple of points here. Protecting lives comes first. We reject this false choice between lives and their livelihoods. It is meant to confuse. We can be absolutely clear that a major demand has got to be an end to all cuts in privatisation. Privatisation is only the organised theft, organised legalised theft of our assets and our services. So all outsourced services should be brought back in house. We need a fully integrated, publicly owned NHS. Workers in union should be decided on workplace safety, nationalisation of the drug companies and incidentally the banks, and no redundancies. If they're using this pandemic and crisis to cut jobs, we should oppose them. If they say they don't have any money, the big companies, we should demand that they open the books. And something which I think is really important, another, of course, as well, the privatisation of the utilities is a right to employment, but also a fair and equitable benefit system. And if the TUC put forward such a programme and be supported by the unions, it would have the potential to build enormous support. There's tremendous anger, tremendous receptiveness out there. There's new forces out there coming into action. Women workers now constitute a higher percentage in the trade unions. And groups like nurses who traditionally shied away from action in campaigning are now fighting for 15% in terms of pay, which should be shortfully supported. And it's a scandal that some union leaders do not support that demand. And we have to demand of leaders in the movement, not to act as a diplomatic core of the trade union movement, but to act as the leaders, not scurry in between the employer and the workers trying to do deals, but to prosecute our demands. And for those, and you hear this in the news, in the movement, who say that leadership doesn't matter, you know? Well, it's a concrete question, I'll give you an example. At the present time, there's a number of union elections coming up in Unite, a big union, which are currently with the left leadership in Unison. The leadership of which in the past period, in my opinion, has played the critical role in avoiding struggle and taking struggle down the back alleys of conciliationism and compromise. And it was mentioned by Josh, there is a rank and file socialist candidate Paul Holmes standing at the present time on a socialist programme. And I think we have to say to those who are standing in that election with no hope of winning and really effectively splitting the left vote, we would ask you not to do it. To step aside, because the consequences are grim, not just for Unison members, but for the class in general, the opportunity of a left leadership in Unison would take this movement forward really, really strongly. In terms of Unite, I don't have much to say on that. I would simply make the point that, as far as I understand, there's three potential left candidates at the present time. And there is a worry of that opening up the door to the right wing. And again, Unite, in the leadership with all its failings has been a left leadership. And I would just hope that that situation is actually sorted out. But you know, it's not business as usual. In terms of the role of marchers in the coming period, it's going to be critical. There's massive potential for change and massive potential for campaigns. And the coming period, and I think this is a point, I'll finish on this and maybe one or two other quick points, is that the coming period is going to present major problems for the movement. It's also going to present major opportunities. Let me give you just this one example. The National Health Service is probably the greatest gain the working class made on the basis of generation of struggle. And by the way, it wasn't just handed to us, by the way. People fought for that for many, many generations. We are now posed with the full privatisation of the National Health Service, whether or not incidentally there's a trade deal. Let me make this point very quickly. Whether it's Trump or Biden, the American insurers companies who want access to the National Health Service. Now that process has been going on for decades now of cutting up the National Health Service. But as of yet, the official movement. We haven't seen one day of generalised strike action and defence of the National Health Service. So what I would say is that the demand for mass coordinated campaigns in action should be raised in all unions. And it should be the policy of the TUC to defend the National Health Service through such campaigns and such actions. I think my time is coming very near the end. I'm going to have to move on slightly. I just want to make the point about there are some pillars of your life for for masses to involve themselves in the trade union movement. You know, a firm grasp, I believe, of education and theory, but more than anything, it's getting involved in the movement itself. I think we oppose conciliationism. We want to build up the broad less socialist programme on the basis of socialist programmes and individual unions and across the wider movement. And I'll finish really on this point. In the coming period, that understanding of the necessity to transform society will get a receptive audience amongst hundreds, thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of workers. The work of the trade unions has to be conducted on a consistent and patient basis. It has to be open work. It has to be working with others while sticking to the firm principles, firm socialist principles. Most of all, in some respects, it means listening to the workers. What are their fears? What are their aspirations? And how can we articulate their anger? How can we articulate their demands for a better life? We always have an appreciation of the balance of class, class forces at any given time, but the determination to fight, not just to defend workers, but to, in fact, fight for a socialist society. So, as a crisis of leadership, there's a crisis of leadership in the official movement, but also in the revolutionary organisations as well. Some who call themselves Marxists because they're the pressure of events just aren't up to the job. And that is why, you know, I think meetings like this are so important. But we go forward, not just with a shallow optimism in the future, but an absolute confidence if we do our work correctly. We cannot just defend workers and win gains, we can transform society. And on that note, George, thank you and thanks to the comrades for listening to this contribution.


So, hey guys, welcome to Comic-Con if you're new, make sure you hit the subscribe button and the little bell, comment below, hit the like button and maybe even share with your friends. Good job. We have cookies. And milk. Might be semen. I'm not sure. Yeah. I'm not sure what's going on with John, he hasn't really ever since his shop closed, messages too much so he might be a little down in the dumps about it, I'm not sure. He may be back, I don't know. A few more of his toy reviews scheduled for the oncoming weeks so you will see some more of those and then after that I'm not sure. Your guess is as good as mine so things might change up a little bit here. But today I'm going to be going over a review of Dynamite Comics masks. This is from Chris Robertson, Alex Ross, Dennis Calero. It features the shadow, Green Hornet and Cato, a new Zorro, a web, and Ms. Fury. Let me just go ahead and give you guys a synopsis here. The shadow, the Green Hornet and Cato, the spider. In 1938 these mass vigilantes operated outside the law working independently to strike fear into the hearts of evildoers. But when the corrupt politicians of the Justice Party transform New York into a fascist state run by mobsters, when an oppressive regime grants jackbooted stormtroopers free reign to imprison, extort, and execute the innocent, when the law itself becomes unjust, justice must be served by outlaws. Outnumbered and outgunned, the legendary vigilantes emerge from the shadows to fight. Joined by Zorro, the Green Lama, Ms. Fury, Black Terror, and the Black Bat, nine renowned pulp heroes brought together for the first time in an epic conflict of law versus justice. This actually contains the origin stories of the New Zorro and the Black Bat.  Then we have the spider, a rich guy who puts on a mask and cape and just goes around and serving justice at night. Zorro is actually the descendant of the original Zorro and he's an artist who, he's come to New York to try and get a job as an artist. He gets stuck by these police stormtroopers. There's a law that, you know, if you're, if you can't prove that you have residents in the city, you're gonna automatically get arrested. I guess the Justice Party is tired of people coming to the city and just taking up space basically, as well as poor people, immigrants, stuff like that, unless you're wealthy or upper middle class, you're going to jail or to a prison camp, possibly even executed. And there he meets former district attorney who ends up becoming the Black Bat due to an accident with his eyes just like with Daredevil, only at first he thinks he's completely blind. But when the lights go out, he can actually see shapes and everything. So it's kind of just like Daredevil's powers, but it affects light rather than sound vibrations. So anyway, these two end up becoming heroes, the Black Bat and the New Zorro. And eventually they're joined by, in fact, here's an entire team shot right here. Yeah, very good read. I discovered this after my wife had bought me the Lone Ranger graphic novel. It's something I've always wanted to see, I've always wanted to see the shadow team up with the Green Hornet and Kato, Zorro. I kind of wish the Phantom would have been included into it, but I can understand why he wasn't. Maybe at some point in the future we'll get a Masks 3, which will include the Phantom. We have Masks 2, which is kind of a time travel story, which I'll be getting all order soon. There are a lot of Star Wars references to it in this. It's shortly after the Phantom meets the Green Hornet and Kato for the first time. Shadow vanishes, and Green Hornet says, how does he do that? And Kato just says, impressive. Most impressive. Well, shout out to Darth Vader, you know, from, I believe it was Empire when he was fighting Luke. And then, of course, calling this new police force Stormtroopers, and just different things like that give quite a few shout outs to Star Wars, even though it takes place way before Star Wars ever even existed back in 1938. I won't spoil the end for you, but you can kind of see it coming from a mile away. They do hint at who's actually in charge of the Justice Party, but it's really good. The artwork is done by Alex Ross, very gritty, very pulpish. I've always liked the Shadow ever since Alec Baldwin played him in the 90s. And what's more is that the Green Hornet and Kato are teaming up with Zoro in this, because the Green Hornet is actually the nephew of the Lone Ranger. During the Lone Ranger's time, there were several stories of the Lone Ranger teaming up with Zoro, so now we get the next generation of the Green Hornet his nephew teaming up with the new Zoro. So that's pretty cool too. See, it says here, collecting the complete Eight Issue miniseries by Chris Robertson, Alex Ross, and Dennis Calero, along with over 70 pages of bonus material, including Chris Robertson's script, with Alex Ross's complete thumbnails for issue number one, character designs and sketches by Alex Ross and Jay Lee, and a complete cover gallery featuring the art of Alex Ross, Jay Lee, Sean Phillips, Francesco, Franca Villa, and many more. Personally, I really like this story. I think it would do very, very well if they were to turn this into a movie. I might, since they currently hold the rights to these characters who are kind of in the public domain, I guess, they really could transform some of their graphic novels here into movies. Like the Lone Ranger, they did a really good job with that. I reviewed it before. They could do, if they were to start off with this to kind of introduce all their heroes, let this be the catalyst for their movie, their film universe. Like the Avengers was for Marvel Entertainment, and I think they could do, I think it could compete with the Avengers. I mean, it wouldn't be hard to surpass DC right now with the DC Cinematic Universe, but I think this could really compete with Marvel Studios, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Great job, and if they were to transform this into a movie, then they could follow it up with a new Shadow movie, a new Green Hornet movie, minus Seth Rogen, because he was, I don't understand why they cast him as the Green Hornet, and why they tried to make it a comedy, it was just ridiculous, it was stupid, but that's besides the point. They could also follow it up with a Spider, maybe Spider TV series, Zorro, possibly a new Zorro TV series, just so many, you got the Black Terror, who eventually stars in Project Super Powers, which is again by Dynamite Comics, along with Green Lama, there's just so many characters, they could create a new Phantom movie, some people liked it, some people didn't, I liked Billy Zayna as a Phantom, I liked the Sci-Fi version of Phantom, they updated it quite well, I thought, so they could bring the Phantom back to the Silver Screen, you know, but yeah, I give this an A plus, 10 stars, if you have a chance, grab you a copy, it's Masks by Dynamite Comics, this came out in 2013, yeah it's a few years old, still well worth a read, check it out, check out Masks 2, which I'll be getting soon, and until then, take care guys, and hope to see you back real soon, and once I get the Kings worked out of this new format, work on me again, take care.