biomedical research

The answer, this time, isn't simply more cash, says Dr. Harold Varmus, director of the National Cancer Institute. Instead, changing the way research money is distributed might fix systemic problems.

A shrinking pool of grant money for medical research has led competing applicants to oversell weak scientific findings, critics say. The result: Many experimental treatments are worthless.

They were talented, idealistic risk-takers on the road to what they thought would be important medical discoveries. But when the funding for risk-takers dried up, these two academics called it quits.