Hedge fund managers dangle million-dollar research prize

A Harvard Medical School researcher has joined with two New York hedge funds to create a new million-dollar annual award for the best new thinking in cancer research. Harvard's Gary Curhan says the Gotham Prize is intended to spur scientists to share their ideas on cancer research. Winners of the award will be allowed to use the money for anything they want. Entrants will post their ideas on the group's Web site and the organizers hope that institutions and others will use the site to find research projects that have been unable to attract government funding. Hedge fund managers Joel Greenblatt and Robert Goldstein say that the same cash-prize approach has worked well in the business world and could inspire progress in the scientific community as well.

- see the release on the prize
- check out the report on the prize from the The Star-Ledger