From a purely utilitarian perspective, funding research like this is not an effective use of dollars at the margin. How many people could we save if an equivalent amount was put into reducing obesity, smoking, and drinking? How many people could we save if we stopped spending money we don't have to do things that the government isn't competent at allocating anyways?
That's not to say the research itself is not impressive nor important, but think critically about the fact that this money doesn't exist in a vacuum.
That's not to say the research itself is not impressive nor important, but think critically about the fact that this money doesn't exist in a vacuum.