Peerspectrum

How do you feel about funding scientific research, particularly medical research? How efficient, effective and fair is the grant system in deploying billions of taxpayer dollars? Are funds targeted towards diseases proportional to their occurrence in patient populations? Are the influences of disease specific non-profit groups helpful or hurtful? Are the interests and activities of biomedical companies aligned with the needs of you, and your patients? Well, if you think there's room for some serious improvement, today's episode is for you. Cindy Wu was a young undergraduate student at the University of Washington, working on a way to modify an enzyme treatment for anthrax, using a videogame. (which, by the way, is a heck of a lot more than I was doing in college) Eager to find funding for her idea, Cindy approached her professor. “Cindy, [he responded] the system doesn’t fund people like you...It only funds tenured professors.” Although he ended up helping her by sharing money from one of his own research g