We applaud people solving problems who are focused, efficient, and fast. But I was recently reminded that progress doesn’t always follow a straight line. Before investigators can conduct studies that yield breakthroughs, they often need others to finance and build major research infrastructure. It takes time, with various stops and starts, different collaborations often involving many institutions and countries, and not always a clear sense of direction.
TRIUMF, Canada’s national particle accelerator center in Vancouver, a partnership of 21 universities, enables study on the inner workings of atoms. The center-energy cyclotron technology developed there, and the specialists trained to use it, produce lifesaving isotopes used to diagnose cancer and guide treatment. As Dr. Lisa Kalynchuk, Vice-President of Research & Innovation at the University of Victoria, put it to me: “When you invest in scientific infrastructure, you’re investing in possibility. You can’t always predict where breakthroughs will appear — but you can create the conditions for them to flourish.”
The Canadian Light Source in Saskatoon is a synchrotron — essentially a machine that bends electrons until they emit intense light. It was built to explore the physics and chemistry of advanced materials, enabling researchers to visualize viruses, investigate chronic lung disease, and understand how drugs interact with the body. Infrastructure constructed for physics and engineering research functions as a lab for understanding human life.
The International Space Station is an example of extraterritorial international collaboration at the frontiers of scientific exploration. It is also a health lab. Astronauts lose bone density rapidly in microgravity, so efforts to keep them strong have helped with osteoporosis, frailty, and aging here on Earth.
Ocean Networks Canada collects and shares data about all aspects of the ocean. The seas are a source of medicines for cancer treatment, new sustainable materials from kelp, renewable energy that reduces the negative health effects from burning fossil fuels, resources to reduce food insecurity, and adapting ocean life systems to better understand human health. The unusually large nerve fibers of squid, for example, made it easier for scientists to understand the electrical basis of the nervous system, knowledge that is shaping treatments for epilepsy, depression, and Parkinson’s disease.
Some of the greatest breakthroughs in human health have arrived not by design, but by accident — provided an inquisitive mind was paying attention. Alexander Fleming wasn’t searching for the world’s first antibiotic when he returned from holiday to find that a wandering mold had killed bacteria on a petri dish. Yet penicillin went on to prevent more deaths than we can count. As Louis Pasteur once said, “Chance favors only the prepared mind.”
Increasingly, big science facilities throw researchers from different domains together, triggering unexpected and important outcomes.
These examples remind us why we must invest in large scale research collaboration even when the practical benefits are not obvious. It’s tempting to demand that every dollar be tied to a clear payoff. But history teaches the opposite. Discoveries emerge when we give scientists the freedom to ask bold questions, even ones that seem unrelated to human health. To insist that research must always serve a tidy, immediate purpose is to miss the possibility of much more.
Most people will never see a cyclotron or synchrotron at work. Very few will set foot on the Space Station. But many are benefitting. The decisions made years earlier — that few noticed, debated, or celebrated — have delivered health advances that now touch almost all of us.
The next time we hear about governments debating billions in scientific infrastructure, we might remember, these aren’t abstract investments. They are the seedbeds of discoveries that one day may save our lives.
This column offers opinions on health and wellness, not personal medical advice. Visit www.docgiff.com to learn more. For comments, diana@docgiff.com. Follow on Instagram @diana_gifford_jones.
