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376d961f | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 @8599d6ab STAT had an interesting op piece on this last year https://www.statnews.com/2022/02/01/kariko-problem-lessons-funding-basic-research/
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Nicole Rust | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 @d4d2232e 

My answer? Bend over backward to fund a more diverse range of people and ideas, even deliberately including ideas that are currently perceived as unpopular, unworkable, obscure, and the like. After all, many scientific discoveries can be traced back to origins that didn’t seem promising — like CRISPR, which began with a Spanish study on salt-loving archaebacteria in 1993 — or even to ideas that are actively opposed by the establishment.

To be sure, the success rate of this approach might be low. But if we funded 10,000 people who looked like a younger Karikó, and only one of them did something that would have the impact of her mRNA research, that would be well worth it.