I did a Pubmed search to see the publication trend in a few key areas of scientific research. In all these areas (Synthetic Biology, Cancer, Genetic Circuits), research has been steadily growing as indicated by the number of research papers published, as seen in the right hand side of each picture below.

Cancer: 2.6 million articles as of 30 Sep 2012

Synthetic Biology: 15693 articles as of 30 Sep 2012

Systems Biology: 52083 articles as of 30 Sep 2012

Genetic Circuits: 5197 articles as of 30 Sep 2012

Research & Development Expenditure in various countries 
(billions of Dollars)

made on Manyeyes from IBM.

Military Expenditure for various countries

Source: David Mccandles in The Guardian