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So now, if we don't fund the physical sciences, where will the Next Big Thing come from?

Students and postdoctoral fellows largely depend on the support of the public sector to finance the training and research that will make them world-renowned scientists.

Science isn't just for scientists - it's not just a training for careers.

Innovations in science and technology are the engines of the 21st-century economy; if you care about the wealth and health of your nation tomorrow, then you'd better rethink how you allocate taxes to fund science. The federal budget needs to recognize this.

If I could snap my fingers and do one thing in science, I would get more funding for basic science. But the level of funding that needs to be done is not on the order of millions, like the cost of the Breakthrough Prizes. It's billions to tens of billions.

Scientists cloister themselves away from the rest of society, happy just to receive their next grant. They lose their connection to a purpose.

I think that we're foolhardy to not be engaging in federal funding of stem-cell research in the most aggressive way we possibly can.

Scientists are being portrayed by much of the power structure in politics and business as having a vested interest - that they're just out to get more grant money by exaggerating the threats.

I quickly discovered that scientists go where the funding is, so I knew I had to start a research foundation. If you don't raise money and provide research grants, you'll never attract scientists, and if scientists aren't working on a cure, there isn't going to be a cure.

We really think it is a good thing for scientists to spend a little bit of their time either in the community or in schools or helping to train high school teachers.