Home ASTRA
Innovation Resources
It Pays To Take Risks in Science Funding
Search USInnovation.org
Latest Video
The State of U.S. Higher Education
Added: 07.02.2008
07:32
More Video
ASTRA
Our Partners
Choose to Compete
Scientists & Engineeers for America
Materials Research Society
American Chemical Society
National Council for Advanced Manufacturing
Innovate America
Innovation Generation
The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation
Florida Photonics Cluster
By: Susan Graham, Randy Schekman

When UC Berkeley biochemist Jamie Cate approached funding agencies with his idea to help researchers design antibiotics to combat drug-resistant bacteria, they said it couldn't be done. But they took a gamble on Cate, a young professor, and it paid off. Today, using intense X-ray beams, Cate produces the sharpest images yet of key proteins targeted by antibiotics, paving the way for more effective bacteria killers.

In the U.S. science and technology arena, such projects are known as high-risk, high-reward research, and they are funded once in a blue moon. Thankfully, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences just published a report urging government, universities and private foundations to reverse this trend and target their dollars at young scholars' more revolutionary proposals.

This conclusion is long overdue.

For more than half a century, the United States has led the world in science and technology research, thanks in large part to government funding of research universities. But in the last decade, funding choices have become increasingly conservative, with decision-makers settling for low-key research at the expense of speculative but worthwhile returns.

More...

National poll averages provided by RealClearPolitics.com (06/16 to 07/02)
Last update: 07.03.2008 | Current Polls By State
Barack Obama
 Barack Obama
 Presumptive Democratic Nominee
 Obama's views on technology and innovation
 Latest national poll: 47.6%
John McCain
John McCain
Presumptive Republican Nominee
McCain's views on technology and innovation
Latest national poll: 41.9%

Join ASTRA Rising Tide Report
Science & Tech News
Scientific America

 
ASTRA
The Alliance for Science & Technology Research in America
Room 320, Othmer Building, 1155 16th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
202 872 6160
 
Copyright© 2007-2008 ASTRA   |   Privacy Statement   |   About Us   |   Site Design: Web Accents