 In its reach, impact, and power to change the human condition, basic science research is one of the most important investments we will ever make. We may not know at the outset precisely where the journey will lead, but history has told us again and again that its impacts will be profound. Basic science is the foundation of all discovery. Basic science is us using the principles of physics, chemistry, biology, genetics to understand how complex life systems operate. I think you can't understand disease, you can't cure disease without a strong understanding of basic science. It's easy to say something like, I want to find the cure to cancer or something like that, but in order to get there you have to know something about the system first. The protein that I study is called Monk 18 and it resides in our brain cells and this protein has been studied for decades and we still don't quite understand how it works. I learned that when things go awry with Monk 18 there are implications in Alzheimer's disease. That's created a really interesting potential research direction for this protein that was completely unexpected and I think that's the beauty of basic science research. By asking what seems like a question not connected to human medicine they've discovered pathways that now hold great promise for therapies. The basic science that was completed in the 1950s and the 1960s is really shaping the way that we live our lives now. Biochemist Paul Berg came to Stanford in 1959. His work with Stanford colleagues in recombinant DNA or gene splicing technology won a Nobel Prize and fundamentally revolutionized the process of drug discovery. The biotech industry essentially emerged from the early work that was done here at Stanford. When I started my own work I had a very limited objective. I wanted to develop a way of being able to introduce new genes into mammalian cells and that's what recombinant DNA provided. The big breakthrough was you could now isolate genes and you could then analyze them and you could manipulate them and you could put them into any kind of cells and then suddenly this whole world opened up. I think Stanford is unique really amongst all the universities in the world. It brings together a special breed of scientists in a very special environment. A lot of universities have medical schools separated from undergraduate schools. Chemistry and physics separated from engineering separated from medicine. Stanford has all of those within a two-minute walk and that really influences the kind of science that everyone does here. There's an excitement about sharing. Almost everything that is available here on the entire Stanford campus can be accessed by almost anyone. Most of the tools that we needed for the experiment that generated the Nobel Prize came from Dr. Arthur Kornberg's refrigerator and that I had the freedom to go and access those materials. That I think is unique. The next generation of biomedical breakthroughs offers the potential to once again transform human health across the globe. But as government funding becomes scarcer and more risk averse, this is also a time of challenge. To achieve all that is possible, to attract the brightest young scientists and to sustain America's scientific leadership, institutions like Stanford will need to rely on the vision and generosity of its philanthropic partners. If the funding becomes so critical, then young people won't even come into the field. Without investment now, 20 years from now, we're going to be behind. We're not going to be behind 20 years. It's going to keep falling and falling. Philanthropy could provide a financial bulwark against mediocrity as a way to encourage creativity, encourage risk-taking, encourage the type of creative science that in the past has always been done at Stanford and I hope in the future will continue to be done.