DEVIANTANT, BALSAVORWhen I was growing up, I didn’t want to become a physician. Unlike the best medical students, I never had a fire in the belly for seeing and treating patients. Instead, I wanted to find out how things work, and to apply what I learned to discover new things. And so I became a scientist. Along with life, love and music, science has been a chief motivating force ever since. I know I share an enjoyment of the scientific process—and a fondness for those moments of discovery—with many researchers, and that therefore my story will likely sound familiar.
But there is something else that always drove me, and I suspect many of us, toward science. Until a few years ago I couldn’t easily put my finger on it. What that something else turns out to be provides, I believe, our strongest possible argument for robust support of basic scientific research—in particular, the kind of high risk/high reward science that seems in danger of falling out of fashion these days.
In most instances, the enjoyment academic scientists derive from conducting research is enough to counter the negatives, such as the unrelenting vagaries and vicissitudes of the grant-funding process. In the United States, budget pressures and resource constrictions have placed increased stress on the system. For example, the constant biomedical dollars available at the US ...
