Basic and applied sciences

Abstract

Developments in basic research within the biomedical sector often result in new health care technology in the long run. For example, a long history of work on ways to grow living cells outside of the body resulted in the development of cell cultures that were used to produce polio virus for vaccines (296). Another example can be found in the discovery of the mechanism that controls the metabolism of cholesterol. Such basic studies of cholesterol have and will be critical to an understanding of, and the development of new treatment regimens for atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases. Occasionally, advances result serendipitously from lines of biological research removed further from the particular area of benefit. For example, the discovery of the Rh factor in blood, which eventually led to prevention of the fatal syndrome, erythroblastosis fetalis, resulted from work on variations in the color of butterfly and moth wings (296).