Many scientists I know have trouble explaining to laypeople why basic research is important. The fact of the matter is that not everybody in biology is working to cure a disease, not everyone in chemistry is making pharmaceuticals, and physicists aren't all working on quantum computing. It's difficult to respond positively to these assumptions, in part because most scientists do feel like they're making a contribution — but to explain that contribution means teaching a mini-review course in some area of science that has its own unique jargon.

So it's nice to have freebie examples of why basic research is so necessary. Typically, I think of quantum mechanics and how it seemed so exotic and far-removed from everyday life back in the 1910's and 20's. Now, however, we couldn't go a day without quantum mechanics: what with computers, LEDs, lasers, etc.

But for a biologist it can be even more challenging ("why study so-and-so if you could be curing a disease?"). I recently found one example of work in basic cell biology that has immediate contribution to cancer biology: Medical News Today reviews an article by researchers at HHMI/UPenn that study the cellular response to hypoxia (lack of oxygen). Their findings have implications for treatment of solid tumors (i.e. cancers that are not lymphomas, leukemias, or other cancers of the blood), where the tumor cells grow in hypoxic environments:

In addition to hypoxia, solid cancer tumors are comprised of abnormal cells and convoluted blood vessels, which allow the tumors to resist chemotherapy and radiation treatments. New treatments for cancer are now aiming to turn off [hypoxic response] activity, halting the ability of the cell to signal its low-oxygen alert system and undergo protein synthesis

So in doing basic cellular biology research, they realize that their findings might be used in the treatment of cancer. Results like these are strong arguments for why NIH and NSF should stay well funded — no corporation would have the R&D funding to support research like this, because the results aren't immediately profitable. However, work like this leads to treatments for cancer...

[PubMed link to research article here]