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HACK cancer. Visit the stars. Cure all diseases. Land on Mars.

In 2016, it seems as if every other week a billionaire announces they have stumped up the cash to tackle a long-standing challenge that mere mortal scientists have failed to crack. Science gets a handsome injection of funds and the donor secures their legacy. But should we welcome the rich stepping up or question the motives behind research backed by the 1 per cent?

Wealthy patronage of science took off in the 19th century but these days things are a little different. Rather than writing a cheque and getting their name on a building, like the Rockefellers and Carnegies of old, today鈥檚 tycoons practise 鈥渧enture philanthropy鈥�, modelled after the venture capital that funds Silicon Valley tech firms. 鈥淭he time horizons are much shorter, the outcomes are well defined, and often the philanthropists are heavily involved in the process,鈥� says at George Mason University in Virginia.

鈥淪lick PR can make it seem like there is a wondrous future, if only government would get out of the way鈥�

Take Sean Parker, Napster founder and Facebook鈥檚 first president. Last month, inspired by his own experience with allergies and autoimmune disease, he pledged $250 million to set up the , bringing researchers from 40 US labs to work on cancer treatments that 鈥渞eawaken鈥� the immune system. PICI will be in charge of managing all intellectual property created by the researchers, which Parker hopes will get drugs to patients faster and fund PICI in the future.

Not to be outdone, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has said he and his wife Priscilla Chan will donate 99 per cent of their shares in the company to the , which will 鈥渁dvance human potential鈥�, including a goal to 鈥�.

Such immense donations are to be welcomed, especially when the alternative is to blow the cash on yachts, private jets and other trappings of a billionaire鈥檚 lifestyle. But their influence doesn鈥檛 necessarily make for plain sailing.

Lacking the wider view of government funding agencies, the wealthy can end up weighting research towards their own interests, in a way that might not deliver the best results, says Institute of Technology. Months before Parker鈥檚 announcement, the US government revealed its own Cancer Moonshot 2020. 鈥溾�� says Murray. 鈥淢aybe we need to focus on other diseases, Alzheimer鈥檚, Parkinson鈥檚. Are we focusing enough on woman鈥檚 health issues, which often don鈥檛 get the same amount of time and attention?鈥�

The lack of high-profile cash for women鈥檚 health reflects the fact that billionaire donors are a fairly homogenous bunch: white men. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a major problem. Medical funding is almost entirely devoted to first world diseases,鈥� says Soskis, though there are exceptions 鈥� has channelled billions into global development, for example.

And these men like to stick together. 鈥淧eople like that tend to back well-known scientists, so you worry these mechanisms don鈥檛 help you get diversity of ideas or approaches,鈥� says Murray.

That said, billionaires do back ideas that can鈥檛 get money elsewhere. This includes rare diseases that governments or drug firms are unable or reluctant to fund, such as the tropical diseases that the Gates Foundation targets, but also more esoteric pursuits that taxpayers wouldn鈥檛 stomach.

Set for the stars

The hunt for intelligent aliens has long been privately bankrolled by Silicon Valley 鈥� the SETI Institute in California has received cash from some of the founders of Hewlett Packard, Microsoft and Intel. Entrepreneur Yuri Milner recently pledged $200 million to the cause. Half will go towards searching for alien signals, the rest to exploring the possibility of getting uncrewed spacecraft to Alpha Centauri, our nearest star.

Sending probes to the stars is a lifelong dream, says Milner. 鈥淭his idea never went away from the time I was a child, but it鈥檚 only in the last few years because of some lucky investments that I was able to think about it practically.鈥�

But is it really a good use of resources? 鈥淢ilner鈥檚 spending decisions seem driven by personal interests, more than the public鈥檚 interests,鈥� says University.

Milner is, of course, free to spend his money how he pleases. But there鈥檚 a danger that Silicon Valley鈥檚 slick PR machines skew public perception of the feasibility of such projects, making it seem like a wondrous future is around the corner, if only the state would get out of the way. 鈥淭hey all adhere to this neo-liberal ideology: the government should leave us alone; technological progress is inevitable, necessary and always beneficial,鈥� says Billings.

鈥淪cience projects funded privately can sometimes take more risks than those paid for by taxpayers,鈥� says Mark McCaughrean at the European Space Agency. 鈥淭he problem comes when private initiatives amp up the hype to a point where they give the misleading impression that they鈥檙e unconstrained by technical and financial practicalities 鈥� or even the laws of physics,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat can make taxpayer-accountable research appear mundane by comparison, risking dwindling public support.鈥�

And these ambitious plans don鈥檛 always work out. In 2013, billionaire Dennis Tito announced funding for a crewed fly-by of Mars by 2018, stating the project could be achieved provided we were willing to take greater risks than those allowed by NASA bureaucracy. In the end, Tito asked NASA to partner in the mission. It rejected the offer.

Now another billionaire, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, is forging his own path to Mars, last month announcing he intends to land an uncrewed vessel on the surface by 2018. Rather than funding research through philanthropy, Musk founded SpaceX as a business, with the long-term goal of colonising the Red Planet. But its major customer to date is NASA, which has given SpaceX billions towards the development of its spacecraft, and will provide support for the Mars mission. This suggests the state still has a role to play.

Ultimately, both governments and philanthropists need to get better at spending money, says Murray, perhaps by combining Silicon Valley experimentation with research on funding itself. 鈥淲e need to examine how we allocate funding, and the degree to which we make good or bad choices,鈥� she says.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淭he new philanthropists鈥�

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