The Karikó problem: Lessons for funding basic research
The solutions to this problem are completely obvious, and right in front of everyone&#x27;s faces.  The problem is it doesn&#x27;t fit people&#x27;s ideology so they simply refuse to see it.<p>But anyway, the article states clearly that Kariko floundered for years until Drew Weissman working at the _privately_ funded University of Pennsylvania picked her up.  You wouldn&#x27;t have even needed to look up if the University of Pennsylvania was privately funded, because just about every important breakthrough in science in the last 30 years occurred at a privately funded American university.<p>There is a reason why something like 10 privately funded American universities make more scientific breakthroughs than the 10,000 publicly funded universities around the world put together.  It&#x27;s right in front of everyone&#x27;s faces, and no one is talking about it.  It is seriously and elephant in the room.<p>Then the article comes up with a &quot;solution&quot; like this<p>&gt;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<p>Seriously, is this the best you can do?  Regardless, this idea would be impossible in the first place at a government funded institution so why even bother mentioning it.