Word: biotech
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Ellison believes he does more good for society through his entrepreneurship, particularly his investments in biotech start-ups that he feels may have a leg up on finding a cure for cancer and other diseases. He has made cancer fighting a personal goal; his mother died from the disease...
...bestowed his money the old-fashioned way--by attaching his name to a building at Stanford University, his alma mater. His $150 million grant, establishing the Jim C. Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, reflects his belief that just as computer technology has been driving today's economy, biotech will power it over the next 40 years. "Some people say you should give where the need is greatest," he says, shrugging. "But that's the job for government. For me, with only a few billion, I have more impact targeting a specific priority...
...most straightforward approach to fighting Alzheimer's plaques is to target their main ingredient, a protein called beta amyloid. Last summer scientists from Elan Pharmaceuticals, a biotech firm located in Ireland, reported that they had developed a vaccine that could shrink the plaques--at least in mice. Here the idea is to prime the immune system to treat amyloid proteins just as it would any foreign invader and target them for destruction. The concept is somewhat counterintuitive, since most researchers believe that at least part of the damage in Alzheimer's disease is caused by the immune system's overreaction...
These sorts of tightly focused studies are already beginning to make cancer treatment more effective. Last year physicians approached the Maryland biotech company Gene Logic for guidance. They had a patient with esophageal cancer--an especially lethal type--so they wanted to find the best therapy in a hurry. Would radiation be appropriate? What about chemotherapy? And if so, which type? Or perhaps it made sense to go right to one of the new experimental antiangiogenesis medications that cut off a tumor's blood supply...
With $70 million in long-term funding from the late biotech entrepreneur Wallace Steinberg, TIGR (pronounced tiger) finally gave Venter freedom to do what he wanted. But there was a hitch. First crack at any genes it decoded went to the nonprofit institute's commercial partner, Human Genome Sciences, led by former AIDS researcher William Haseltine...