A 1 to 140 ‘return’ from the Human Genome Project?

(Charles Dharapak/AP)

Every dollar we spent to map the human genome has returned $140 to our economy -- $1 of investment, $140 in return.

--President Obama, Remarks by the President on the BRAIN Initiative and American Innovation, April 2, 2013

Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy.

--Obama, 2013 State of the Union address, Feb. 12, 2013

In announcing a new government initiative to map the brain Tuesday, President Obama repeated a statistic he had used in the State of the Union addressone that we had been meaning to examine more closely.

Certainly, the presidents broader point is correctfederal government investment in research is often an important factor in innovations and scientific achievements that have enhanced Americans lives. But 140 times return on investment? That sounded a bit too good to be true.

Lets dig deeper into the data.

The Facts

The presidents factoidwhich he has asserted without citing a sourcecomes from a 2011 study by the Battelle Memorial Institute titled Economic Impact of the Human Genome Project: How a $3.8 billion investment drove $796 billion in economic impact, created 310,000 jobs and launched a genomic revolution.

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A 1 to 140 ‘return’ from the Human Genome Project?