Prizes to solve problems in and beyond medicine, big and small: it can work.

This article complements Dr. Charlton's follow-up of David Horrobin's suggestion in Nature two decades ago to offer sizeable prizes for practical approaches to either eliminate a problem in medicine or reduce the cost of its solution. Examples from the 20th and 21st centuries illustrate that prizes--small and big--have generated sustained and successful attacks on defined problems in biology, physics and, lately, mathematics. Provided that glittering prizes are offered and awarded with care, they can lead to effective problem-solving in medicine and related biomedical sciences as well.