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UNRESTRICTED
BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH GRANTS PROGRAM
We
cannot be a strong nation unless we are healthy
nation. And so we must recruit not only men and women
and materials but also knowledge and science in the
service of national strength.
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Christopher
Reeve
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A
little over half a century ago, in the midst of rapidly
escalating world war, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
made this connection between our country’s strength
and its health in dedicating the National Institutes
of Health. Since that time, more afflictions and diseases
have been cured, eradicated or successfully treated
than in all the previous years of human history.
Today,
we stand on the verge of mastering still more illnesses.
In this age of wide-ranging discovery, the Bristol-Myers
Squibb Foundation’s unrestricted research grants
to scientists represent a singular contribution to human
hope and destiny. The $500,000 grants are awarded to
scientists pursuing promising avenues of original research.
Remarkably, these grants are made with no strings attached,
allowing dedicated scientists to follow their instincts
and their research wherever they may lead.
Indeed,
two recipients of the Foundation’s unrestricted
grants -- Dr. Dennis Choi of Washington University School
of Medicine, and Dr. Fred Gage of the Salk Institute
for Biological
Studies -- were recently awarded the Christopher Reeve
Research Medal by the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at
the University of California-Irvine College of Medicine
for their breakthrough research on spinal cord injuries.
Their progress, along with that of dozens of other recipients
of unrestricted grants from the Bristol-Myers Squibb
Foundation, are proof that the freedom to follow one’s
scientific instincts can be a significant step in freeing
us all from the debilitating effects of injury and disease.
--
Christopher Reeve
Actor and Director
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