Buried in the article about tissue engineering was this tidbit:
But the lack of government interest heretofore may have been a blessing in disguise. Gail Naughton, president of Advanced Tissue Sciences Inc. (ATIS) of La Jolla, Calif., says that because so little federal money was available, tissue engineers had little choice in years past but to start a company and go public in order to raise funds. ''I think that this field has moved so quickly toward reality precisely because it spent very little time in academic labs,'' she says.
Score one for honestly-funded science.