We at the Burroughs Wellcome Fund continue to advance our mission of supporting biomedical research and its environment. Since biomedical research in the United States is so heavily dependent on federal funding, we need to continue to present our strong case for the value of research to a bipartisan audience. At the same time, we in the foundation world need to remain committed to providing as much funding as we can to support the ever more exciting research and discoveries.

We are never going to be able to provide dollars approaching those of the National Institutes of Health, but we can provide funding for innovative research in a nimble fashion. This will be particularly important as doubts are now being raised about the sustainability of a federally funded research system where universities and research hospitals have looked to the NIH to continue to increase its budget to support an ever-increasing number of faculty and staff, as well as the construction of new facilities. As we finally confront this central issue, there may be major changes in the federal funding patterns as increases in budgets grow less certain.

With these concerns, the flexibility of BWF, our targeted approach to areas, and our nontraditional selection of areas have and will continue to help us maintain an important spot in the universe of funding for biomedical and medical research and education.

To fulfill our role in science, we need to continue to spend our resources wisely, so that in the future we will be able to trumpet the successes of our awardees. We must continue our commitment to education where we have made important contributions in North Carolina, and where I see us disseminating more of our exciting efforts to a broader national audience.

Our periodic review of our programs, our prudent expenditures of funds, and our conservation of our capital have positioned us to be even more important in the biomedical community. Our role as a foundation is to support research and education in biomedicine and medicine. We have weathered our share of uncertain stock markets and economies. We must, though, continue to recognize that our goal and responsibility is to provide funding—we are constituted to give away money. In so doing, we will continue to support the best and the brightest as we fulfill this responsibility and mission.

John E. Burris, Ph.D.
President
Burroughs Wellcome Fund