The National Institute of General Medical Sciences is committed to encouraging and supporting basic biomedical and behavioral research in which scientists explore the unknown. Important medical advances have grown from the pursuit of curiosity about fundamental questions in biology, physics, and For example: n A scientist studying marine snails found a powerful new drug for chronic pain. n Studying how electricity affects microbes led to a widely used cancer medicine. n A total surprise in a roundworm experiment yielded RNA interference, a gene-silencing method that has revolutionized medical research. n Basic research on how bacterial “scissors” chop up DNA from invading viruses spawned the biotechnology industry. At the outset, none of these discoveries related.
