His colleagues congratulate him and even help him pack for his trip to Stockholm, Sweden, where he'll receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine, propelling him from unknown lab assistant to world-renowned cancer expert in no time at all. It's the perfect story for television's Sunday night movie. And that's about the only place you'd see it. Because, in the real world, it just doesn't happen that way. In reality, when scientists forge ahead toward elusive treatments for human ailments, they do so within an intricate web of politics, honorable intentions, perceptions of corporate greed and other economic actualities.
Medical science happens primarily in two forums - the academic and the corporate.
Each depends heavily upon the other, but they are also diametrically opposed. Into that already volatile environment, inject a large dose of politics, mix in fierce competition for government grants, and the potential for complications becomes obvious. The main conflict is that the goals of research and the goals of business aren't necessarily aligned with one another. A researcher's work, for example, is dependent upon getting his findings published in a peer review journal. His funding will quickly dwindle without such publications, and no funding means no research.