Why do Medical Research

 

Health and medical research is about committed human endeavour, striving to improve health and quality of life. It also contributes to economic growth and prosperity through developing new products, new business enterprises and new jobs.

In the last fifty years, medical research has provided us with discoveries that have improved our lives immeasurably. We take it for granted that we are now able to cure many diseases that killed people up until the 1940's. One great achievement, Howard Florey's work to purify penicillin, has averted untold suffering and death of people the world over.

Today we face different life and health threats from those faced by previous generations. Vaccines, healthier lifestyles, new medicines and treatments, and advances in surgical methods (such as organ transplantation, artificial joints and keyhole surgery) have not only increased our life spans, but given us better lives.

Discovery is a labour intensive and lengthy process. Against the backdrop of committed researchers chipping away at the big questions, incremental breakthroughs do occur and each step we take is a piece in a gigantic jigsaw that makes the next piece easier to identify.

Despite making enormous strides in some treatments, we still need to develop better treatments with fewer side effects, and to ultimately focus on prevention and cures. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes and mental illness now affect large numbers in our population and there are many more diseases we are battling. As we find ways of understanding these threats to health, new threats develop from the environment we live in as the world becomes increasingly industrialised and people's way of life changes.

And it is not just at the individual level. Investment today in treatments and cures reduces the financial burden for taxpayers tomorrow. While millions of dollars are gambled away or spent on non-essential designer goods, few people think about making an investment in life itself. Imagine a world where people don't live in fear of incurable disease, where physical pain can be eliminated and where the elderly do not face the lottery of dementia.

Australia's capacity in health and medical research will have a positive impact on future health budgets since diseases prevented or cured now will not become a burden in our future health system.

Further, Australia has a valuable national asset that can unleash the economic value of this country in future decades. This is an industry where we have very talented, world-class scientists who, if they are facilitated to work with our world-class business minds, can create a valuable knowledge industry for Australia.

 

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