For most scientists, there’s no question that humanity is experiencing a golden age of scientific discovery. Advances in technology, paired with scientific data and human expertise, are unlocking new understanding of biology and disease, and accelerating the development of new cures. But the public’s not getting the message. 

Today’s drug discovery scientists are in uncharted territory. They’ve witnessed how AI technology has upended the tedious, manual work of their Ph.D. years. Sequencing a genome, for instance, has turned from an intensive, expensive undertaking to a matter of course, providing one of many data layers for AI to probe for new therapeutic pathways. Investigating scientific literature, modeling disease response, and designing molecules to exact specifications are all far easier now, too. 

While scientists are by nature and training skeptics, they are, as a whole, increasingly optimistic, too — and even a little giddy. 

Americans’ trust in scientists to act in the public’s best interest is at 77%, 10% lower than it was in April 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

But outside the labs, few people recognize that scientific discovery is having a renaissance. Mainstream media coverage focuses more often on the looming threat AI poses, or how AI is collectively dumbing us down, even while it is driving scientists toward more complex and significant downstream work. The public laments that AI is stealing jobs (with particular, and not unfounded concern for entry-level roles). 

But, at the same time, AI is reshaping the drug discovery workforce in exciting ways — moving scientists more quickly to patient outcomes and creating hybrid roles that allow them to be both computational and scientific experts. 

But those breakthroughs have failed to land convincingly in the public discourse. 

This disconnect was the theme of the inaugural U.S. Science Summit in Cambridge’s Kendall Square in July 2026. The event, the brainchild of Brad Loncar, a biotech investor and analyst turned founder and host of BiotechTV, highlighted the need for science leaders to do a better job communicating why their work matters. 

Losing Trust in Science 

While scientific breakthroughs have been undeniable —including gene-editing therapies, new rare disease treatments, and cancer vaccines — public trust in science has dropped. Scientific breakthroughs driven by AI are often dismissed as hype, and public officials have pulled back support for scientists. According to a January Pew Research report, Americans’ trust in scientists to act in the public’s best interest is at 77%, 10% lower than it was in April 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

That trust in scientists is split along a sharp bipartisan divide. Ninety percent of Democrats have confidence in scientists, versus 65% of Republicans.

As former National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Elias Zerhouni, now president of Opko Health, said at the U.S. Science Summit: “There is a disconnect between the hope we bring and the reality patients experience.” 

The industry as a whole needs to abandon the barriers created by jargon and tell the stories of patients whose lives have been impacted.

Noubar Afeyan, founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, a life science venture capital firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts said in a fireside chat that there’s been an “unprecedented intentional assault on the scientific method.” The assault includes freezing and cutting billions in active government research funding, massive proposed cuts to NIH and National Science Foundation budgets, and terminating contracts focused on mRNA vaccine development, the same type of vaccine that Moderna and Merck showed can lower the recurrence of melanoma in later-stage trials. 

As technology continues to accelerate, we need scientific, fact-based methods more than ever, Afeyan said.

Handing Patients the Microphone

In the end, it may be patients, not scientists, who restore the public’s trust in science. Most speakers at the event agreed: The industry as a whole needs to abandon the barriers created by jargon and tell the stories of patients whose lives have been impacted.

Consider Baby KJ, the smiling, apple-cheeked child born with an ultra-rare, life-threatening metabolic disease known as severe carbamoyl phosphate synthetase 1 (CPS1) deficiency. Doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia treated KJ with the first successful personalized CRISPR gene-editing treatment. (CRISPR is a DNA sequence found in bacteria.) 

In 2012, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier discovered how to use the related Cas9 protein as programmable molecular scissors to make precise genetic cuts, a discovery that won them the Nobel Prize in 2020. 

And KJ went from living in a hospital, on a very restricted diet, to growing and thriving. In December 2025, the journal Nature named Baby KJ one of the Top 10 people who shaped science.

Dr. David Fajgenbaum has a similarly captivating story. He was diagnosed with a rare, deadly condition known as Castleman disease during medical school. As he fought for his life, he also researched for a cure. Ultimately he discovered a repurposed treatment that saved not only him but others with the disease. 

We need to bring more of the real patients’ stories forward so the public can appreciate how scientific discovery in the age of AI is not just a story of hype, but also a story of hope.

Fajgenbaum co-founded the organization Every Cure, which uses AI to discover other medicines that can be repurposed for rare diseases. He’s given a TED talk and told his story on the television shows “Oprah” and “Good Morning America.” His book, “Chasing My Cure,” is being made into a movie by Wendy Finerman, the Oscar-winning producer of the movie “Forrest Gump.”

It’s not surprising that some of the most inspiring speakers at the U.S. Science Summit were also patients and their caregivers. It was powerful to hear Robert Coughlin recount how his son made a full recovery from cystic fibrosis thanks to pioneering modulator therapies after years of struggle and desperation. And to hear sickle cell patient, Jimi Olaghere, who spent a good portion of his life lying helpless in hospital beds, describe how he joined an early CRISPR trial, allowing him to do once-unthinkable feats — climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and run the London marathon. 

These patient stories demonstrate in the most compelling way what scientists today, armed with technological tools, can do.  CRISPR gene editing is now being supercharged by AI to automate experiments and democratize access. Companies are leveraging data and AI to advance new treatments for rare diseases and to better align clinical trials with underserved cancer patient populations. 

These are real patients, who waited a long time for cures, until now with the advent of CRISPR. We need to bring more of their stories forward so the public can appreciate how scientific discovery in the age of AI is not just a story of hype, but also a story of hope.