I have to disagree with you about research funding. There is not nearly enough-most people are dissuaded from pursuing research as a career because it is unbeli

I have to disagree with you about research funding. There is not nearly enough-most people are dissuaded from pursuing research as a career because it is unbelievably competitive to get research grants, which is why we don't have enough research scientists. The caveat is that we are training more than enough research scientists, but we simply don't have enough jobs for them. There are some jobs in industry, but biology is not like engineering-you can't know when you will find the next breakthrough. Pharma companies are more focused on iterating on established pathways and targets (much lower risk and higher short-term ROI) and are absolutely dependent with government-funded basic research. The clinical trials bit that you mentioned is a red herring-recruiting patients is often challenging for completely unrelated issues. I've also never heard of being unable to conduct a clinical trial for lack of patients.