Actually, the few times I know of that a good data set was put up on the web, it generated a lot of research and progress. I'm thinking of Pat Brown putting up some of the first data on gene expression arrays. Probably hundreds of people worked on that data - everything from statistical methods, to reverse engineering the gene network. It was great. This is probably most valuable when the data is from a new type of experiment that is likely to be widely used.

I hope to do something similar but there is a big problem for geneticists like me. If you post your volunteer's genetic data on the web, there is no way to anonymize it. It would be a simple thing for a medical insurance company to take a cheek swab, run the genetics and then match it against all public datasets to see if an applicant has a known disease. I know of patients that have lost their medical insurance because their insurer found out that they were participating in a research study, and inferred (incorrectly) that the patient had a disease.

I'm a cancer researcher and I agree. Though I'm in it more for the good of society and because it is an engaging problem. I would jump at the chance to cure cancer even if it put my institution out of business and I didn't get the recognition. The reality (of this fantasy) is that most institutions and researchers could easily move on to other diseases/problems. We do it all the time.

In addition, there is BIG money to be made from a drug that cures cancer. Even the ones that cure a small percent of cancer can make Gigabucks these days. This is why big pharma really does try to find new cancer drugs.