Two novel ways:

1) they're funding previously biotech companies (e.g. traditional venture not interested because insurance companies won't reimburse hair loss treatments)

2) incentivizing scientists (and other workers) from anywhere in the world to work part time towards these scientific goals

This is only possible due to the token incentive schemes and DAO governance structure. Crypto was never envisaged as a way to improve science, but it's being adopted anyway.

Neither of those seems novel - privately funded research has a long history - so I guess the argument is that they might have less overhead than other payment mechanisms? Given the skill requirements to assess whether someone is qualified to work on the problem or has made real progress, I’m also curious what value you get from a blockchain versus any other form of organization since the hard part is getting people from the same pool of human reviewers.