Boston Blog

Accepting foundation money…how far would you go?

With government funding for biomedical research on the decline, scientists are realizing that the good ol’ days are probably over for some time to come and so are beginning to look for other sources of funding. Philanthropy is becoming an increasingly attractive option.

But some philanthropists fund research in a pretty different way, as shown in this article from the Globe today. The Waltham-based Cure Alzheimer’s Fund was set up by families affected by the disease and has about $3 million to its name (with plans to raise mroe). According to the article, it’s been the subject of some criticism: the fund doesn’t accept unsolicited research proposals. And the scientists who have received funding so far have been the ones who first wrote the fund’s research agenda in the first place, including Rudy Tanzi of MGH. Also, the fund has chosen a fairly narrow approach to tackling the disease: identifying culprit genes, even though there are environmental factors influencing the disease as well.

Philanthropic groups such as these raise some important questions that scientists looking for new sources of funding will need to ask themselves. How far are they willing to operate outside of the norms of academic science for accepting funding? Will they want to deal only with groups that operate like the NIH in the way they give out grants and set the research agenda? Or would they be willing to follow the more unique or stringent terms and agenda set by other donors?

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