Whether they investigate how medicines work, study the life cycle of bacteria, or crunch numbers in a computer, scientists across the globe are united by a compelling desire: to better understand how life works. Many of these basic biomedical scientists are funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) at the National Institutes of Health. Rather than focusing on a specific disease, these researchers seek to answer important biological questions like how cells talk to each other, how biological machines fold into their active shapes, and how genes are regulated.

These studies may not have an immediate impact on our health. Yet such "untargeted" research often leads to new medicines, technologies, and research tools. Examples of advances that grew out of basic research include:

• Countless drugs to treat diseases ranging from cancer to AIDS;
• Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which provides clear pictures of the body's organs and tissues; and
• The polymerase chain reaction, a laboratory technique that is the basis of "DNA fingerprinting," which revolutionized criminal forensics.

National Institute of General Medical Sciences
National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD
Revised February 2005