The hosts step away from the histotripsy story to make a broader point about federal funding: basic research aims to expand understanding rather than solve one specific problem, and its practical payoff often cannot be predicted or planned for in advance. They argue that spending on applied research and development far exceeds spending on basic research, and that histotripsy's path from a lab noise complaint to a marketed liver-cancer treatment shows why sustained support for open-ended inquiry matters. They note the same underlying technology may extend to other cancers and immunotherapy uses that have not yet been shown to work.
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43:55There's so many interesting aspects of this story and again part of what the Golden Goose Awards tries to do as you've seen in our first story here through the progression is when we look at and we've talked about federal funding for basic research on this podcast quite a bit. You know there is a difference between basic research and applied research. We're trying to increase our understanding because from that we are so brilliant as human beings, so creative, we have an ingenuity that when we find these unlocks >> as we've talked about, we will find the practical path >> and this has led to for in terms of
44:35folks focus on the economic outcomes of this investment of taxpayer dollars towards some of this stuff. You know, there's a $2.25 $25 billion acquisition that's happened in the last 12 months. There are huge real world a human benefits from the clinical application of this which is why it's been valued so high and it's a platform not necessarily just a single functional outcome. this the the liver cancer treatment pathway happens to be the pathway that we've gotten to the place where there's commercial and practical applications. uh are there potential
45:17practical applications in other areas of cancer and applications for imunotherapy yet to be seen but the as we kind of discussed the the the breath and scope of potential uh is quite >> it's quite wide um and it is a perfect starting story for understanding what does what is the golden what are the golden goose awards and what are they trying to highlight it's this idea that we should not lose our curiosity as we look at these things because applied research and development in the United States
45:58dwarfs by orders of magnitude basic research. >> Yeah. And had we not had funding for a project like this, as well as our the rest of our stories, um there are real world benefits that we would have left on the table, >> uh that were not necessarily obvious in this case because the roommates were complaining about the noise. As a former DJ, I know what that feels like, too. But I'm not saving people's lives in the way that >> uh this story really exemplifies. It's just it's really incredible. And the science is also super interesting on this one. Um, it's super super interesting. I we'll we'll maybe follow up on this in a future show, but >> yeah. And I just had an idea for a
46:39comment. >> Yeah. >> If if you guys are researchers um in labs or anything, can you comment about the stuff that your lab mates complain about >> in labs? >> That's a great >> cuz I've got several. >> Yeah. just just put down if if in case you're like a a PhD student or a postoc in your lab and just the complaints that lab mates do, you know, because who knows >> who knows >> you may both save people's lives and be the recipient of a future Golden Goose Award. >> Yeah. >> Um an incredible first story. Hopefully for our listeners who may not be familiar, uh you kind of get an
HistotripsySpaceSoft Matter Physics