Johnson Grants Let Scientists Take Risks

In 1989, when Harvard University geneticist Rachael Neve sought funding to test her controversial hypothesis on Alzheimer's disease, her requests fell on deaf ears. "I had been writing a proposal to [the National Institutes of Health] for a year and a half, and it kept getting rejected," recalls Neve, who challenged the conventional wisdom in neuroscience with data indicating that the toxic protein responsible for Alzheimer's was some 60 amino acids longer than previously thought. "I applied to

Paul Kefalides

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Neve then learned of the Focused Giving program offered by health-care giant Johnson & Johnson of New Brunswick, N.J., a 12- year-old initiative that supports basic research at universities to the tune of $2.5 million a year. J&J took a chance on Neve's hypothesis. The company supported her for three years and lent its expertise in setting up a germ-free animal facility for Neve's research mice. The resulting animal model is silencing her critics, and the success has attracted the interest of NIH. Neve now has two additional grants to support her work.

J&J's Focused Giving program has just awarded its 100th grant. Among its recipients are Nobel laureates Baruch Blumberg of Philadelphia's Fox Chase Cancer Center; Gerald Edelman of the University of California, San Diego; and Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein of the University of Texas, Dallas.

Grant recipients say they appreciate the exchange of ideas afforded by the ...

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