Pay the panel members for their efforts, not just for their expenses. The first two of these would come under Cancer and Cell Development, which tend to be dominated by molecular biologists. They fare no better at NCIC, by the way. I am also President of the Canadian Society for Theoretical Biology, another area which gets drowned by wet benchers. In physics there has long been respect and collaboration between experimentalists and theoreticians.
Theory is no less important in biology, if harder to do.
But respect comes nowadays with money, and when theoreticians have no money, they are also not attractive as collaborators. Don has had long term support by MRC, and has been campaigning for reform of MRC's peer review for over two decades. You would do well to start listening to him by including him in the CIHR Council. D1 Quality of material I sat through Henry Friesen's presentation. He unfortunately gives the impression that everything is fait accompli, and not open to debate.