I recently listened to this episode of a podcast called Radiolab and was mesmerized! It’s worth a listen to get a feel for the full story, but it highlights some awardees of the Golden Goose Award – an award to “recognize the tremendous human and economic benefits of [US] federally funded research by highlighting examples of seemingly obscure studies that have led to major breakthroughs and resulted in significant societal impact.” The awardees are a fascinating look at how studies into the mundane or unseen parts of our universe can have big impacts on human existence.

Take one of the awardees for example – Foldscopes and Frugal Science, funding coming from the NSF and NIH. Manu Prakash and Jim Cybulski’s paper microscope can magnify up to 140x, costing less than $1 in parts, distributed to over 160 countries. Traditional microscopes are bulky and costly, with barriers for certain regions due to transport, training and maintenance. Prakash and Cybulski’s invention have been used to identify agricultural pests and for educational purposes in refugee camps. It stemmed from Prakash’s earliest childhood memories, tinkering with his older brother’s glasses, and developing a curiosity for science more broadly. A trip to Thailand prompted him to imagine what a cheap, durable microscope could look like, and he eventually teamed up with Cybulski to develop foldscopes.

*Photo Credit: Sockenpaket under* *CC BY-SA 4.0*

The second of the awardees, Tiny Snail, Big Impact (funding from Department of Defense and NIH). Baldomero Olivera and Lourdes Cruz (later with help from Craig Clark and Michael McIntosh), embarked on a study of cone snails in the 1970s. Despite his undergraduate advisory committee telling him that studying cone snails would not yield anything, Olivera was fascinated by the animals, he went on to study its venom. There are as many as a thousand different species of cone snails, and they hunt by injecting a paralytic venom into its prey. Over the course of decades, by understanding the various combinations of components in the venom, the team went on to create the raw material for a non-opioid pain reliever that is not addictive for humans. It has a long way to go before it can be used regularly, but it would never have been discovered without a unique curiosity for a very small sea creature most of us have never heard of.

The last one I read about – a lab accident leading to better eye surgery (funding from the Department of Energy and NSF; team of Tibor Juhasz, Ron Kurtz, Detao Du, Gérard Mourou, and Donna Strickland). Three decades ago, Du was at the University of Michigan, and was accidentally struck by a laser in his eye. Afterwards, a medical resident (Kurtz) found that the laser left tiny laser burns in the center of his retina, which were much more exact and circular than other lasers at the time. Many collaborations and eight years later, they developed a bladeless approach to corrective eye surgery – popularly known as LASIK, today. Over the last two decades, 24 million people have benefited from this eye surgery.

Each of these awardees are microcosms of the broader world of scientific discovery. And while some in government mocked the funding allocated towards studies like these, it is clear that we all benefit from the scientist who push this work forward. Of course these inventions should be celebrated, but I also wanted to honor some of the obscure studies that never led to anything. And for our own students, I want to ensure we are planting the seed that we can all be scientists. Manu Prakash tinkered with his older brother’s glasses in northern India, never imagining that this counted as “science”. Baldomero Olivera had so many people tell him that cone snails would not yield anything productive, but a nagging feeling left him continually curious about these fascinating shells. Detao Du was a little bit tired one evening in the lab, and lifted his goggles while aligning a laser, leading to an accident that changed eye surgery. There are little actions our scholars are taking right now that have the potential to change our understanding of the world. Let’s not take that for granted.

-Reshma

The Golden Goose Award...