Investment in science pays off

Ask a scientist and he or she will quickly tell you that it is impossible to cost knowledge. It is precious and priceless. But to the public, which usually has to put up the money for its acquisition, the pricetag all too often seems hopelessly out of proportion to results. Billions of pounds soaked up in international projects set up to reveal the structure of the atom or the status of the distant universe are viewed as a waste of cash by many. Similarly, the announcement, made last February, that the US$3 billion Human Genome Project had completed its first draft of a human being's genetic make-up was greeted by many with suspicion and doubt. How could such an expensive undertaking ever justify its price? asked the doubters.

As we reveal today, we now have an answer. Knowledge from the Human Genome Project has already proved crucial in helping scientists develop a test that should soon help tens of thousands of breast-cancer patients avoid gruelling chemotherapy. Only women at real risk of suffering secondary tumors need be treated in this way in future. Those not destined to succumb should be spared. And this breakthrough was only achieved by delineating each of the tens of thousands of the genes in our bodies and pinpointing those involved in the activation of breast-cancer cells.

On its own, the test's development does not justify the cost of the Human Genome Project, but it is almost certainly a taste of things to come. If scientists can turn this basic knowledge to such advantage within 12 months, the prospects of new drugs, diagnoses and understanding look highly promising.

At a time when science -- associated with human cloning or GM foods -- is too often denigrated, this development reminds us of its limitless, beneficent possibilities. Knowledge may be expensive, but sometimes it looks very good value indeed.

-- The Observer, London