Golden Goose Awards Spotlight Federally Funded Research Breakthroughs

The APLU co-sponsored Golden Goose Awards, which spotlight federally funded obscure-sounding fundamental research that has led to outsized societal benefits, announced its 2025 honorees last week.

A group of Michigan State University researchers are being recognized for creating a cancer-fighting medicine called cisplatin that has become the industry standard for chemotherapy. The drug increased the survival rate for testicular cancer from around 10% to over 90%. The National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation funded the lifesaving research.

Barnett “Barney” Rosenberg wasn’t a cancer researcher — but he and his lab team helped unlock a breakthrough cancer treatment. In the 1960s, Rosenberg, working with lab technician Loretta VanCamp and a team of graduate students including Thomas Krigas, examined how electric fields affect cell division in E. coli bacteria.

To their surprise, the bacteria stopped dividing and instead elongated into long, spaghetti-like shapes — a striking, unexplained phenomenon they investigated further. After a couple years of follow-up experiments, they discovered the true cause: platinum compounds released from the electrodes, not the electric field itself.

This serendipitous finding led to the development of cisplatin, a platinum-based chemotherapy drug approved in 1978. At the time, the idea of using a metal-containing compound in medicine was unconventional and met with skepticism due to concerns over toxicity to humans. After harmful side effects were mitigated, cisplatin was approved and delivered unprecedented results. Its success transformed cancer treatment and has saved countless lives.