This conference is aimed at a broad scientific community as well as the general public.
Society mainly values and funds the scientific enterprise because of the technologies that result, improving the economy and the quality of life, and expects return on its investment in the short term, certainly within one life span. Scientists mainly do science because of the basic understanding it creates and its beauty, independent of how much time is required. How societies manage this dichotomy - balancing urgency with patience - is a major determinant of their ability to innovate and prosper. In particular, meaningful technological advances - the kinds that benefit billions of people - generally requires the integrative convergence of several lines of basic science, often from different disciplines and over many years. Innovative cultures that foster this take many decades to establish, require substantial and consistent public funding, and yet are easy to destroy. These ideas will be illustrated by tracing the lines of basic discoveries over the past century that resulted in vast improvements in public health in our time. This involved notable scientific lineages especially in Germany and the United States, embedded within innovative scientific cultures that dramatically evolved in relation to historic events that destabilized Germanic science and transplanted the culture to America, where short term focus now threatens its existence. I will also offer some advice to young scientists based on this history and on my own experience on the importance of balancing patience and urgency at the individual level for success in science.
