U.S. Medical Research Gets $600 Million From Institute

May 27, 2008

Supplements Gap As Government Funds Lag

By Philip Rucker

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, May 27, 2008; A01

One of the world's largest private philanthropies will announce today a $600

million initiative to fund risky but potentially lifesaving medical research by

56 of America's top scientists.

The Medical Institute is expanding its flagship investigators

program to nurture a new class of scientists. By endowing scientists' research

over many years, the institute hopes they will make major discoveries in a

variety of fields, including genetics and biology.

The scientists, chosen from more than 1,000 applicants, said they want to answer

such ambitious questions as how global climate change affects the spread of

cholera, malaria and other infectious diseases and whether doctors can apply the

engineering behind the building of airplanes and computers to the human immune

system.

The initiative comes as scientists are sounding alarms about a slump in federal

research funding since 2003, saying it has starved potentially groundbreaking

research projects of cash and could jeopardize the country's dominance in

science against growing competition in Europe and China.

Private philanthropies -- led by the Chevy Chase-based nonprofit organization

founded by R. , the late aviator, engineer and film producer -- are

helping fill this gap by lavishing money on research that many grantmakers would

consider too risky but that could produce the greatest breakthroughs.

" We identify the best people and then free them up to do what they want to do

and to be flexible and change directions and follow their noses into new

fields, " Institute President R. Cech said.

Just as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is showering grants on programs to

improve U.S. education and global health, the Institute is trying to

foster long-term advances in medicine.

" Today's medicine is the beneficiary of scientific inquiry that took place

decades ago, " Cech said. " Our goal in funding the basic biomedical sciences is

to lay the groundwork for the medical discoveries that will take place 20, 30,

40 years from now. "

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