Wouldn't the most effective way to advance science be to invest in medicine?

Right now we depend on absolute geniuses for making groundbreaking progress, because these people can do by age 30 what it would take a normal person 90 years to do. However, let's say that we could live to age 150 with an intact mental condition, then regular people would be able to gather enough expertise to advance science significantly, and those who already are geniuses would have even more time and experience to make even more groundbreaking discoveries. There is a lot that is lost when an old and experienced scientist/engineer dies, one's brain builds connections and patterns through an entire lifetime but there is limited time to build these connections, and some connections are never made because of a shorter life. A guaranteed longer life would encourage normal-IQ people to pursue a difficult area of study, as in, the feeling of "I'll never ever understand this" would be reduced dramatically.