March 30th, 2004
Philanthropic Funding Turns The Wheels Of Progress
An article by Mary Beckman at SAGE Crossroads examines the way in which scientific progress in medicine is enabled by philanthropy. Funding that would otherwise be unavailable is sometimes provided by determined private groups and individuals. John Sperling, for example, or the Methuselah Foundation. If you look back at times of great change in science, you'll see that the early funding often comes from wealthy visionaries, advocates, and the organizations they create. The mainstream funding establishment - private and public - is necessarily risk-averse, yet making advances in medical science towards real anti-aging therapies requires risk and uncertainty.