Roger M. Perlmutter Quotes

American research and resources have literally changed the face of humanity, by tackling deadly and once-deadly diseases.

A doctor can save maybe a few hundred lives in a lifetime. A researcher can save the whole world.

In these days when science is clearly in the saddle and when our knowledge of disease is advancing at a breathless pace, we are apt to forget that not all can ride and that he also serves who waits and who applies what the horseman discovers.

I want to make a drug. I want the science to be more than imaginary, where I think, 'We're learning these fundamental principles, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.' I think we are doing that, but I want to do something really practical. I want to actually, in my lifetime, help people.

I'm old enough to remember when the polio vaccine was still new. Also, it hadn't been that long since most people who caught pneumonia died from it. These medical breakthroughs were practically miracles.

With the right policies and regulations, the opportunities for American medical advancement and scientific innovation are boundless.

In contrast to how tech firms want to disrupt and break things - developing drugs must be incremental and step-by-step. This is the kind of work that involves people putting their lives on the line every day with clinical trials.

While the vaccine discovery was progressive, the joy I felt at the prospect before me of being the instrument destined to take away from the world one of its greatest calamities [smallpox], blended with the fond hope of enjoying independence and domestic peace and happiness, was often so excessive that, in pursuing my favourite subject among the meadows, I have sometimes found myself in a kind of reverie.

We believe unbelievable progress can be made, in both inventing new vaccines and making sure they get out to all the children who need them.

The pursuit of curiosity about the basic facts of nature has proven, with few exceptions throughout the history of medical science, to be the route by which the successful drugs and devices of modern medicine were discovered.

New vaccines are being developed all the time, which could save many more lives and dramatically improve people's health. And this goes beyond the traditional burden of childhood infectious diseases.

Why doesn't Apple stop for a year and make medical devices? When people talk about technology, that's where I start to get a little hot under the collar because I know that it's the key to solving some of the world's biggest problems. Having a faster, thinner telephone is not one of the world's biggest problems.

No matter how counter-intuitive it may seem, basic research has proven over and over to be the lifeline of practical advances in medicine.

Stem cell research can revolutionize medicine, more than anything since antibiotics.

The medicines of today are based upon thousands of years of knowledge accumulated from folklore, serendipity and scientific discovery. The new medicines of tomorrow will be based on the discoveries that are being made now, arising from basic research in laboratories around the world.

I keep encouraging the pharmaceutical companies to put more money into R&D.

Alfred Nobel was much concerned, as are we all, with the tangible benefits we hope for and expect from physiological and medical research, and the Faculty of the Caroline Institute has ever been alert to recognize practical benefits.

The thing is I think vaccines are one of the greatest medical breakthroughs that we have. I'm a big fan and a great fan of the history of the development of the smallpox vaccine, for example.

As medical research continues and technology enables new breakthroughs, there will be a day when malaria and most all major deadly diseases are eradicated on Earth.

Perhaps the most useful lesson which has come out of the work on penicillin has been the demonstration that success in this field depends on the development and coordinated use of technical methods.

I'd like to focus on my life on creating new medicines for people who are suffering from rare disease.

I have seen this happen in recent years with regard to pharmaceuticals and vaccines, where, working together, we are improving access to medicines and vaccines for infectious diseases in the poorest countries.

While advances in scientific research have led to some new and exciting treatments that have enlarged and enhanced the quality and length of human life, we must not lose sight as to what we are trying to accomplish.

The advent of AIDS circa 1980 has really forced medicine and biology to take enormous steps just for sheer survival. The same way war propels hard technology, AIDS has created wartime conditions in the field of biology that will have all sorts of spin-offs.

New drugs and surgical techniques offer promise in the fight against cancer, Alzheimer's, tuberculosis, AIDS, and a host of other life-threatening diseases. Animal research has been, and continues to be, fundamental to advancements in medicine.