I agree with most of what you said in your post in terms of GERN stock price - it provides a very useful perspective on how to think about the stock price. I should note, however, that from a technical perspective, I do not think very much of GERN's findings regarding the role of telomerase in aging/cancer and the potential for developing products based on this enzyme. There might be a product in terms of using telomerase as a diagnostic agent for staging tumors and deciding on the appropriate therapuetic approach, but it will depend on how telomerase compares with other markers.
One area I greatly disagree with your post is the significance of universities and scientists supporting a discovery. Normally, univeristies do not "support" research findings (or in most cases, the research itself) - they only provide a place to do the research. Then, the research is only done at the university if the scientist can convince someone to give them money to do the research (and the university usually gets a substantial chunk of this money via indirect costs to support the bureaucracy, among other things). In terms of the comments of scientists stating the importance of the research, they are generally considering the importance only in terms of increasing our understanding of a phenomenon as opposed to being able to do something about it. As an aside, if it were engineers stating the importance of a result, then I would put much greater faith in its societal significance since engineers are taught to think about feasibility as well as academic importance (Note: I am a scientist, not an engineer). |
