Basic Science Is The Foundation Of Future Cures

In 1971, Richard Nixon launched a War on Cancer, signing the National Cancer Act. The Cancer Act dramatically increased the federal budget for cancer research. Agencies like the National Institutes of Health put much of that money into basic science like cell biology and immunology. Nixon, in 1971, apparently had confidence that cancer would be solved in 5 years, but that turned out to be hopelessly optimistic. And he wasn't the only one let down. In the years after the Act, as little obvious progress was made, there was much public gloom. One paper in 1986 concluded that “Some 35 years of intense effort focused largely on improving [cancer] treatment must be judged a qualified failure.”

But starting in the late 1980s, that investment in basic science began to pay off, driving a revolution in the molecular biology of cancer. Though it took decades, the cancer investment increase in the 1970s has led to a cornucopia of new cancer cures today. Immunotherapies, CAR-T cell treatments, checkpoint inhibitors, and precision drug targeting are all a product of that basic science work. And that progress has contributed to increased quality of life. Between 1991 and 2019, the risk of dying of cancer dropped by 31%. This is a common story for basic scientific research: it's a long-term investment, one that only governments have the time horizon to make, and it brings enormous payoffs. The payoffs are both economic, generating jobs, and in better health, generating cures. And the US scientific research system is complex, painstakingly constructed, and easy to damage or destroy.

America’s science research is driven by government policy. From the tax system to the intellectual property regime to grantmaking, the federal government supports research and innovation in a variety of ways. The National Institutes of Health today funds more than 30,000 investigators across the country.  This funding, along with other government programs, accounts for 40% of basic biomedical research in the United States.

The systems of basic research funding cannot be replaced by private investment. Only the government is in a position to invest in research with uncertain long-term payoffs. Even high-risk venture capital funds wind down after 10 to 15 years, so any research into treatments that will hit the market after that time will draw little to no private investment. If pharma companies, which make billions from immunotherapy cancer drugs today, had the chance to invest in the science Nixon's War on Cancer launched, they would have passed on that chance. It just took too long for that basic research to lead to profits.

At the heart of government funding for basic research is an expert-driven system for awarding grants. Rotating panels of scientists review grant proposals and advise government employees on which projects to fund. Enormous effort is invested by practicing scientists into these peer reviews. It is an extremely competitive process to win one of these grants. This system is not perfect, and could be improved — for example by better-funding younger scientists. But the US research grant system has been a great success. It distributes grant awards, based on scientific merit, to many different research ideas, put forth by many different scientists across the country.

US government funding for science also strengthens the economy in ways beyond disease cures. Google arose from research projects that were funded by the government. And the Internet, famously, was built as a research project funded by DARPA. To join research efforts like this, talented students from all over the world come to the United States — and they stay to start companies, pay taxes, and increase the US economic edge compared to other countries. US research boosts the private sector too: Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical company, in 2002 moved its research headquarters to the United States in recognition of the rich US research environment. Breaking the US basic science system would thus threaten things that make the US economy unique and powerful. If the US scientific system degrades, jobs and talented scientists will go abroad. Other countries, like China, are working as hard as they can right now to poach the US scientific research industry. The US has been fortunate that it has been able to build a global center for talent and we should be very wary to risk throwing that economic advantage away.

It's a tenuous time in the US for science. The past few years have seen unprecedented vilification of science and scientists, and a breakdown of the bipartisan consensus in support of science. That's dangerous for everyone. Interfering with the finely-tuned US government science funding system would be terrible for future treatments. Basic science is now in a position with diseases like schizophrenia and Alzheimers' that it was for cancer in the 1970s. We are now making progress understanding the key mechanisms of those diseases, so that we can develop future treatments.

It is not easy to build a leading scientific establishment in a country. It takes years to develop and can be damaged easily. Before the second World War, Germany was one of the premier places to do science: German was an important language of science and many journals at the time were printed in German. But by the years after the war, Germany had "lost its leading position in the scientific community." It took decades for German science to rebuild. Let's learn from that history today. Any changes to basic scientific research and the government funding it depends on should be considered carefully. Breaking this system would be a massive self-inflicted error, harmful to the American people and the US economy.

Mark H. Histed is a neuroscientist and policy researcher based in Washington DC. (conflict statement)
Noah A. Rosenblum is a professor at NYU Law who studies the function of government institutions and the civil service.