2010 Annual Report

We believe at the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, just as do all our peers in the donor community, that our grants and gifts make a positive difference. We put this perception to the test this past year when we reviewed the progress of our many awardees. We were pleased to see that, indeed, our awardees have and are continuing to make important contributions in their respective fields. The results can be found below along with audited financial statements, and listings of the grants we made during the fiscal year.

The positive outcome of these studies made it particularly upsetting when the downturn in the economy and our endowment forced us to suspend a majority of our grant programs and reduce payouts to many awardees in 2009-2010. However, our opportunity to make a difference has been restored as the recent increase in our endowment has enabled us to again offer our programs in 2010-2011 and to provide a full payout to our awardees.

During this past year of reduced grant activity, we focused much of our attention on strategic planning that concluded in February. We charted our course for the next five years, concluding that our mission will remain the same—to advance the biomedical sciences by supporting research and other scientific and educational activities. We will continue to fund areas considered important, yet underfunded, while emphasizing career development in those areas.

The distribution of BWF’s grants will remain primarily in our competitive programs. Other funds will be awarded to catalyze areas of interest or to advance science and education through support for meetings, policy, and other activities.

One significant change to the Fund’s program is that the Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research has been discontinued. Since translational research has been emphasized by the Federal government and backed by large amounts of funding, the Board felt there was no longer significant need in this particular area. We will continue, though, to provide modest ad hoc grant support as part of our long-term interest in this field.

The BWF did not suspend all its grantmaking this past year. It was the first year for the Career Awards for Science and Mathematics Teachers, and we selected five outstanding science and mathematics teachers in North Carolina. We are pleased to be able to partner with the State Board of Education and the Department of Public Instruction in this recognition of the professionalism of precollege teachers.

We also held a travel grant program for graduate students and postdocs. The success of that experiment has led us to launch an expanded program of travel grants in 2010-2011 for interdisciplinary collaborations for scientists who travel to work in laboratories in different disciplines than their own. Recognizing the importance of databases in answering biological questions, we also funded an initiative to create a pan-fungal database. We expect that it will become a valuable tool for researchers in the field of mycology, and also for many others interested in comparative biology. As always, we continued to support meetings and were pleased with the very positive interactions generated in areas such as preterm birth and the interface of physics and biology.

For all of us in the foundation world this past year has been a challenging one. As we emerge from a time of funding stress, we do so with a renewed optimism about the positive effect we have on scientific understanding and progress. Foundations can stimulate interactions, can try new areas for emphasis, and can react quickly to changing opportunities.

Even in these difficult times, we remain excited about the research our awardees conduct and the potential it brings. The Burroughs Wellcome Fund remains committed to funding the next generation of scientists and researchers so that they can translate the excitement of science into the rewards that research and education bring to us all.

John E. Burris, Ph.D.
President