Drive scientific discovery
The basic and applied sciences help answer fundamental questions about our world and pave the way for the medicines, technologies, and industries we rely on. Investing in this work creates a reservoir of ideas and discoveries to meet tomorrow’s challenges.
The impulse to understand the secrets of nature and decode the building blocks of life is one of humanity’s most enduring traits. It drives us to understand our biology, our ecosystems, our planet, and our place in the cosmos. It creates better tools for solving old problems but also uncovers all kinds of new and exciting problems to solve.
Curiosity-driven scientific research is the font of invention and innovation. Without it, we wouldn’t have life-saving vaccines, new sources of energy, the internet, or any of the technologies that define modern life. The University of Toronto, together with its hospital and research partners, has a long history of making discoveries that completely change what’s possible in our world. Insulin transformed millions of lives globally. Stem cells—discovered by researchers at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and U of T—spawned an entirely new branch of medicine that is finding ways to regenerate damaged or diseased cells, organs, and tissues. Deep learning and neural networks are now powering an AI revolution that is transforming industries as diverse as cybersecurity, drug discovery, education, finance, gaming, health care, law, manufacturing, retail, and transportation.
These kinds of advances do not happen without robust support for basic and applied research and teaching. For discovery rarely follows a straightforward path. It requires time, resources, and experimentation. And often the ideas and avenues of inquiry that seem far-fetched are the very things that create the greatest impact.
Today our researchers are pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence, astrophysics, chemistry, data science, molecular biology, materials science, neuroscience, nanoscience, and many other fields. By supporting free and open inquiry in the sciences, you can help lay the groundwork for tomorrow’s game-changing ideas, breakthroughs, and discoveries.
