As state legislators consider funding for the Utah Science, Technology & Research (USTAR) initiative, they should consider what the competition is doing.
An interesting article in a recent edition of The Economist magazine demonstrates why Utah needs to stay competitive in investments that will bolster the economy.
The article focuses on an extremely ambitious cancer research project at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. The center has attracted top cancer researchers and medical entrepreneurs with a goal of curing five varieties of cancer and creating numerous new businesses and jobs.
The center takes advantage of the work of the International Cancer Genome Consortium, which involves 39 projects in four continents using high-throughput DNA-sequencing to examine 50 different kinds of tumors, according to the article.
The consortium’s work is progressing rapidly, but results for various tumors must be turned into treatments and drugs, to be developed by businesses and medical entrepreneurs. So the role of the MD Anderson Cancer Center and a new entity called the Institute for Applied Cancer Science is to “industrialize” aspects of the biological research into treatments, drugs and businesses.
To do that will cost billions of dollars, but many billions more will result from the research. The state of Texas is creating a $3 billion cancer-research fund to help pay for it. There are several promising areas that can be turned into major businesses to not only help cancer victims, but also create jobs and improve the economy.
A team of some 55 scientists from Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is being “poached” to move to Texas and work at the Institute for Applied Cancer Science. The Institute will spin out businesses and do deals with established pharmaceutical firms to develop new drugs.
Utah also is a major cancer research center and has the potential to develop cancer treatments, creating numerous jobs and great economic value. But these efforts require help from USTAR to obtain significant seed money to attract scientists and research grants and dollars.
That’s why it is important for the Legislature to restore the $6 million in USTAR funding that has been cut in recent years and to increase on-going research funding. There is no better way to create high-paying jobs and new businesses and industries.
And increased funding would also help Utah compete for projects and scientists with ambitious efforts in other states, like the $3 billion Texas initiative.
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