It’s that time of year again! It’s not just the Winter Solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or Boxing Day…it’s Golden Goose Award season!
The Golden Goose Award is given annually to celebrate scientific success stories. Particularly, the awards demonstrate:
- The human and/or economic benefits of federally funded scientific research
- That scientific outcomes build upon each other
- That advances cannot easily be predicted at the outset of a particular scientific research project
The award historically has honored examples of scientific studies or research that at the time conducted, may have seemed obscure, sounded “funny,” or for which the results were totally unforeseen at the outset – but, which ultimately led (oftentimes serendipitously) to major breakthroughs that have had significant societal impact.
Animal-based research has a long history of winning the Golden Goose! Some examples include:
- 2018: The Goose Gland: Discoveries in Immunology (funded by USDA, NSF, NIH)
- 2017: The Silence of the Frogs (funded by NSF and The Smithsonian Institution)
- 2016: The Honey Bee Algorithm (funded by NSF, ONR)
- 2015: Out of Sight: Neuroplasticity and Vision (Nobel Prize-winning work with cats and monkeys; funded by NIH, Air Force OSR)
- 2014: Rat and Infant Massage (funded by NIH)
- And the list goes on!
In the current climate of anti-animal research activists spreading disinformation about the benefits of animal-based research, nominations of such work are more important than ever.
Do you have an animal-based research project to nominate for a Golden Goose Award? Submit your nomination here by January 21, 2019.
Let’s keep the streak of award-winning animal-based research going!
Happy (nominating) Holidays!
~Speaking of Research
Speaking of Research 