The Broad Gets $650 Million For Psychiatric Research

The Broad Institute seems to have gone through a bit of rough funding patch some months ago, but things are looking up: they've received a gift of $650 million to do basic research in psychiatric disorders. Believe it, that'll keep everyone busy, for sure. I enjoyed Eric Lander's characterization of much of the 1990s work on the genetic basis of mental illness as "pretty much completely useless", and I don't disagree one bit. His challenge, as he and the rest of the folks at the Broad well know, is to keep someone from being able to say that about them in the year 2034. CNS work is the ultimate black box, which makes a person nervous, but on the other hand, anything solid that gets discovered will be a real advance. Good luck to them. You might also be interested to know where the Stanley Foundation, the benefactors here, came up with over half a billion dollars to donate to basic medical research (and more to come, apparently). You'd never guess: selling collectibles. Sports figurines. Small replicas of classic cars, trucks, and tractors. Miniature porcelain versions of popular dolls. Leather-bound sets of great (public domain) novels. Order now for the complete set of Presidential Coins - that sort of thing. It looks to be a lot more lucrative than discovering drugs (!)
Source: In the Pipeline - Category: Chemists Tags: The Central Nervous System Source Type: blogs