Sounds fanciful, right? Only if you impose the constraint of this being an effort by ~4% of the human population, the population of the United States.
The U.S once spent 75% of global research dollars, it's share has now dropped to below 50% as Asia has come online in this sphere.
If current spending is just 95 billion in the US, that has been quite a drop from previous years, but for a thought experiment, if US level research spending was the same per capita for the rest of the 96% of the human population, we would be somewhere around 2.3 Trillion globally.
There are billions of people outside the U.S, some with minds as sharp as WSU's Joe Harding, who as of right now are left out. But where do we find the money to lift them out of poverty?
One answer, we discover cures for some really expensive ailments, like diabetes, heart and respiratory disease.
What is the cost of disease? It is terrible. With an aging population, it has the capacity to ruin developed nations.
While we tinker around the edges, and manage chronic disease like diabetes with insulin, or Parkinson's with carbidopa, we spend large fortunes and get poor outcomes.
SENS is moving in the right direction. We need the ability to repair ourselves at the cellular level, and we are making progress in this regard.
What is the prize of discovering how to repair the inner workings of the molecular machinery that make us up?
> First, Non communicable diseases already pose a substantial economic burden and this burden will evolve into a staggering one over the
next two decades. For example, with respect to cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, cancer, diabetes
and mental health, the macroeconomic simulations suggest a cumulative output loss of US$ 47 trillion over the next
two decades. This loss represents 75% of global GDP in 2010 (US$ 63 trillion). It also represents enough money to
eradicate two dollar-a-day poverty among the 2.5 billion people in that state for more than half a century. [1]
So yes, $9.4 trillion is a good global goal, but I believe there is opportunity for tremendous cost savings.
Open source drug discovery, open source cancer treatment, that is what I am interested in these day. I would like to see an army of pro-amateurs collaborating online and performing experiments on mice in their garage, a hacker movement for biotech.
We are on the cusp of fantastic gains in health and longevity. We have only just begun to understand the molecular processes that age us and make us sick. Lets pick up the pace.
[1] http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Harvard_HE_GlobalEconomicBu...
And PS:
I checked out your page, you did some work for my favorite band, The Hold Steady. Awesome :)