Scientists love the stories of serendipity in which they begin studying one topic and stumble onto something entirely different that proves to be medically important. In our website exhibit called "A Thin Blue Line," we tell the story of research at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development that sought to develop a diagnostic tool for one type of cancer. The investigators knew that one hormone was excreted only when a woman was pregnant or a person had a particular type of tumor. In 1978, the assay they developed to detect this hormone was adapted by commercial firms into the home pregnancy test, which for the first time permitted women to learn in the privacy of their homes whether or not they were pregnant.

Since enactment in 1986 of the Technology Transfer Act, such collaborations with industry have been encouraged even more strongly.