Question: do you think curing life threatening but rare diseases is more important than curing common, life long diseases like diabetes?

Lilian Hunt answered on 12 Mar 2014:

I don’t think either is more important than the other to be honest as both can severely affect people’s lives. The rare diseases are usually harder to treat and cure as there aren’t enough cases for us to understand them fully. If we can cure common diseases it helps take that strain off of the health services for having to look after so many people. Remember, some common problems like diabetes can also be life threatening, especially if the person has other health problems too. So I really couldn’t choose, thankfully we research both but common diseases do get a lot more funding at the moment than rare ones :/