Dear readers:
We are very grateful for your continued interest in the Morgridge Institute for Research, and we hope this newsletter offers a useful snapshot of some of the remarkable work our scientists do every day to answer fundamental questions in biomedicine.
In light of current funding threats to the National Institutes of Health and other federal science agencies, it’s more important than ever to communicate the value and importance of curiosity-driven research for American society.
The partnership since World War II between the federal government and American research institutions has led to countless health advances, has vanquished many feared diseases that used to be common, provided the highly trained talent to fight current health threats, and has delivered enormous economic benefit to the nation. In Wisconsin alone, the biomedical industry supports nearly 60,000 high-quality jobs.
It is the ultimate return on investment.
At Morgridge, we believe amazing things come from exploring fundamental questions in biology. Here are a few of the “dream outcomes” our scientists are working toward:
- Better early-warning systems to prevent preterm birth, which impact one in 10 pregnancies in the United States and pose serious health threats to newborns;
- New pathways to treat acute long COVID, a poorly understood debilitating syndrome that affects thousands of Americans;
- New approaches to fighting schistosomiasis, a tropical disease that sickens more than 200 million people annually and is expanding due to climate change;
- Techniques that may, for the first time, help repair human heart tissue that is damaged by heart attack.
All of these possibilities begin with curiosity about the fundamental question: How does the underlying biology work? The benefits can be enormous, and they often arise in unexpected places.
We hope you will continue to join us in singing the praises of curiosity driven research, and the role it plays for society.
Thanks,
Brad Schwartz, CEO