I am admittedly in the minority of thinkers on this. Here is how the typical molecular biology study goes these days: 1) We have a disease model. 2) In our model, we have found that gene/protein X is altered. 3) We restored expression/function/activity of gene/protein X to a more physiological level. 4) We were able to mitigate the disease state to some extent. Most disease models are non-physiological, for starters. Second, and most important, only specific genetic diseases are caused purely by a gene being out of whack. Most diseases are caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, and their etiologies are very complex. All we do with most studies is to try to put fingers in the dike. Unfortunately, the grant system and the academic literature system is most well equipped to score these types of studies. NIH wants logic, technical ability, and sensitive measurement, without much regard for utility. Fancy machines make great slides to show Congress. There is nothing more torturous than sitting through a talk where a researcher describes their "exciting new microarray results." If you want an actual specific example, go to PubMed and just start taking a peek around.
I don't follow...sure, a lot of research is medically inspired, but that threads off plenty of research into the entirety of the workings of cells. I'm right now reading about kinetic studies of protein folding as a factor in formation of protein aggregates, which may or may not be linked to a number of diseases, including ALS, Alzheimer's, and drug resistance. Then you have entire pathways of metabolism being studied to aide in nutrition and obesity studies (And vice versa). Sure, but you still have larger categories that can be slightly more distantly linked to general diseases. (Ex: Tumor-suppressor genes and cancer) This is where you've lost me, does medical application or biosynthesis not count towards utility? Citing one would be preferable, I'd say that the majority of the microbiology papers I've read thus far made sense in some context or another. Some's shite, but higher tiered journals are generally a little better at filtering for that, and who am I to judge if someone's research is worthless? :Ponly specific genetic diseases are caused purely by a gene being out of whack
NIH wants logic, technical ability, and sensitive measurement, without much regard for utility.
If you want an actual specific example, go to PubMed and just start taking a peek around.