Google Snapping Up Top Biomedical Talent (nature.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Google is expanding its scope once again. The company has been pushing hard to lure top physicians and researchers in the life sciences away from their prestigious academic posts. Google is easily able to pay more than universities, and they also offer a different type of focus. "Silicon Valley offers strong technology resources that are hard to access in academia, Topol says, as well as the opportunity to pursue goals that are difficult to reach for in academia, where scientists are not typically rewarded for pursuing real-world applications." Other companies are starting to push into this sector as well, but none of them match Google's efforts; it's estimated the company is now pouring a billion dollars a year into life-sciences research.

Comments

Make your time

[ColdWetDog]

All your base (pairs) are belong to us!

(Along with all of your proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and damned well everything else you have.)

Re:Make your time

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a couple weeks ago I attended the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) annual meeting in Baltimore. There were somewhere on the order of 7,000 people attending. So, if Google wanted to "own" genomics research - just in the USA - and not other huge fields like cancer research - then they would have to hire many thousands of research scientists. Now, Google (well, technically Alphabet) is a very big company so it wouldn't be impossible for them to hire that many research scientists. But, at the moment, they aren't hiring anywhere near that many research scientists.

Things could change quickly but, at the moment, Google is really just a teeny-tiny insignificant little player in the general field of biomedical research. Sure, they've got a couple very small projects that rate very high on the coolness factor. But even just compared to other established healthcare companies (i.e. that own major hospital systems and HMOs), Google is a very minor player.

TL;DR - in the near future your base (pairs) may belong to a private corporation but it's unlikely to be Google/Alphabet.

Google or Alphabet?

[Gravis Zero]

Is this really Google's doing because none of this seems to be search engine related. It seems far more likely that this is Alphabet's doing.

Could be good

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

If Google was to invest in drug research and make the resulting drugs available at a reasonable cost, that would be awesome.

Pretty soon, all will be Google....everything will be Google, and Google will be everything.

You''ll get up out for your Google bed, have Google brand eggs and pancakes, wash it down with Google OJ and Google coffee while watching GoogleTV, then get in your self-driving Googlemobile and go to work at Google.

You'll poop in Google brand toilets, wipe with Googlepaper, wash your hands with Google soap and then walk on Google carpeting back to your GoogleCube where you will happily toil in the employ of Google. If you're a good Google employee, you may be allowed to name your firstborn child "Google" (or "Googlette" if it's a girl.)

Later, you'll die in a Google Assisted Living facility and your body will be fed into the GoogleFurnace so the trace elements can be extracted and recycled for use in Google brand products. Your cremains will be taken out and sprinkled in the ocean, err, I mean in the "Google Ocean".

And so the Cycle of Life, err, I mean the "Cycle Of Google" will begin anew. All hail our Google overlords, blessed be thy names!

Re:Could be good

[galabar]

You won't have to wipe -- Google toilets are way more advanced than that.

Re:Could be good

[non0score]

If Alphabet/Google has its way, you can scratch out the last two lines -- you won't have to get old or die.

Re:Could be good

[jafiwam]

And all restaurants will be Taco Bell? (after the restaurant wars you see)

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, nothing is better for humanity than more corporate-owned scientific research.

And after a couple of years w/o a vacation...

[Anonymous Coward]

many of them will return to academia. I had more time off the two years I taught comp sci than I have had total the past twenty-two years in private industry. A 90% cut in your vacation time will wear you down, especially if you were used to having it.

Re:And after a couple of years w/o a vacation...

[Anonymous Coward]

A research professor at a prestigious university is very used to a high stress work environment and working extreme hours, believe me. These are some of the most competitive positions in the world. This is a completely different situation from teaching high school, and also very different from your parent comment's "I taught some comp sci classes."

Do Sergei and Larry have Kurzweil Komplex?

[Spy Handler]

Yes I know they're working on cure for cancer, but I have this sneaking suspicion that these guys are trying to live forever, like Ray Kurzweil.

Of course curing cancer could be just step 1 of their master program.

Oh... God...

[Greyfox]

It's finally become self-aware and now wants to make a meat-body, so it can be made of meat!

No, wait. That's stupid.

not so significant...

[Goldsmith]

The top 15 pharmaceutical companies and the top 10 medical device companies all spend significantly more than $1b per year on R&D. Google is high profile because it's NOT in pharma or medical devices, but adding $1b per year to the overall industrial expenditure on R&D in these areas is not disruptive. It makes an interesting story to imagine that Google is coming in and stealing all the academics away, but that's not reality.

Long Term Google

[lucien86]

Google's aim seems to be specifically at things that may have big long term pay-offs. - Some of them probably a decade or more in the future. That's where the really huge stupendous amounts of money lie.
In Strong AI the long term market (20 to 30 years) could easily hit over a trillion dollars a year. And Strong AI isn't like software, it tends towards a natural monopoly with only a few very big players and strong regulation.. Software doesn't generally tend to kill people when things go wrong - Strong AI does.. That actually is likely to be a common selling point, 'Only XXX Corp can build your Strong AI safely!'