Bruce Ames, 81, says only about 10% of government grants get funded and that overly innovative proposals get rejected. He's now self-funding his research and looking for private donors.
Only 10% of grants.
81 years old.
He is funding it out of his own pocket and seeking a wealthy private donor.
It's impossible to get any of this stuff funded from the government because they're only funding 10% of grants. And the minute you're too innovative, it's the kiss of death. And even though I've been an enormously successful scientist all my life and opened up new fields, I just can't get funded for working on triage cuts across too many fields and it's too innovative. By the time I've really, finally proved it all, I'll be able to get funded. So it's all money limited, and I'm doing it all out of my pocket and I'm going, and I'm 81 years old and I don't have too many more years to go. So if you have some wealthy fellow who wants to do really good work, I'd appreciate it.
Well, I'd like to think of you as 81 years young because we expect many more years, given the fact that you're the model of living what you talk about.
Well, I have a lot of enthusiasm. My enthusiasm genes are undamaged, but I will vouch for my neurons. So it could be a disaster. But anyway, at the moment it's going well and I have wonderful people in my group and we think we're on to. This is the most important work I've ever done in my career. I think.
