Guinea Worm Eradication
Only one infectious disease has ever been eradicated: smallpox (gone as of 1980). Soon though, a second affliction will disappear, likely around 2018, when the Guinea worm becomes extinct. This Read more…
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Markey Trust Launches Biomedical Careers
By the time Lucille Markey died in 1982, at age 85, she had seen a lot of death, sickness, and suffering, so she left her fortune (derived from her father-in-law’s Read more…
Komen Races to Cure Breast Cancer
In 1977 Susan Komen was diagnosed with breast cancer and her sister Nancy promised her she would help change the odds on that frightening disease, so more women would know Read more…
Putting Geriatric Medicine on the Map
The number of elderly Americans is in the midst of doubling in less than one generation—to a total of more than 70 million. And they are heavy consumers of medical Read more…
Battling Substance Abuse
For whatever reason, philanthropic activity in alcohol and drug treatment gets relatively little attention or public visibility. At the grassroots level, the most effective force for sobriety in the U.S. Read more…
Braun Labs Opens Up a New Biology
In the late 1970s, researchers at the California Institute of Technology were ramping up new investigations in human biology, talking about establishing a specialized cancer center, and doing all of Read more…
Nurse-Family Partnership
Research has shown that unmarried, poor, and teenage mothers are much more prone to problems of infant mortality, neglect and abuse, fetal-alcohol and drug damage, accidental injury, household poisonings, impaired Read more…
Biomedical Engineering Willed Into Existence
Uncas Whitaker had an unusual combination of expertises: He was both an engineer and a lawyer. Each came in handy as he expanded electronics parts maker AMP from a small Read more…
The Hospice Movement
Historically, hospices were institutions run by religious charities to offer short-term care to terminally ill patients too poor to afford alternatives. They began to be adapted to modern circumstances in Read more…
Emergency Medical Services
In the early- to mid-1970s, much of the U.S. had no well-developed system for stabilizing victims of accidents, fires, crashes, crimes, and other traumas while rushing them to hospitals appropriately Read more…
Kickstarter Exceeds the NEA in Arts Funding
The federal government has never had a major role in arts funding in the U.S.—which is overwhelmingly supported by private patron spending and philanthropy. In 2014, total spending by all Read more…
MacDowell Artist Colony
Tucked into the woods surrounding the quiet town of Peterborough, New Hampshire, there is a powerhouse of explosive creativity. The MacDowell Colony was founded in 1907 by the composer Edward Read more…
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Targeting Cancer’s Weak Spots in Oregon
In 2008, Penny and Phil Knight (co-founder of Oregon-based Nike Sportswear) donated $100 million to the Oregon Health and Science University to create the Knight Cancer Institute. The university’s prior Read more…
Anti-cancer Encyclopedia
One out of every two American men, and one out of three women, will be diagnosed with cancer in his or her lifetime. In 2012, the Broad Institute (see 2003 Read more…
Malaria Vaccine
Malaria remains one of the most intractable diseases in the developing world, killing one million people a year and damaging the economic productivity of many more. Large resources have already Read more…
Top Cancer Center and a Medical Empire in Houston
The M. D. Anderson Cancer Center lies at the heart of the remarkable Texas Medical Center, which has become by far the world’s largest complex for healing the sick. The Read more…
Dental Therapy
Tooth decay is the most common chronic childhood disease, with recent research suggesting it can lead to a wide variety of other health problems. Even though tooth decay is a Read more…
Bridging Elderly Patients from Hospital to Home
Research has shown that one third of Medicare patients who leave a hospital will be readmitted within 90 days, and that a large portion of these rehospitalizations are unnecessary, due Read more…
Pursuing Therapies from Stem Cells
Back in 2008, South Dakota businessman Denny Sanford gave $80 million to bolster the Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in San Diego. In 2013, Sanford donated an additional $100 million to Read more…