I was challenged recently to answer the question: Why? Why should someone donate their hard earned money to NWABR. As usual I started to talk about the logic of our work - and I was reminded that people don't donate money for logic. They donate money because the cause is both personal and important.
So I want to let you know today why this cause is personal and important to me, and I want to let you know how you can help.
Three years ago my father died. He had lung cancer that metastasized to his brain. By the time I got back to NZ he was unable to talk, and I spent the last week with him at the hospice facility holding his hand, watching my family melt down all around me, and feeling a complete inability to communicate with my dad. I also watched as my mother's age related dementia showed itself more and more clearly as stress ramped up.
A few months after this as I renewed some life insurance I realized that the actuaries that designed their risk tables now place me in a markedly higher risk category because of my parents' genetic legacy.
Biomedical research can and is turning the tables on the environmental and genetic legacies that we all face. And biomedical research is under attack by a profoundly pervasive anti-science sentiment both in the US and around the world. It is just bizarre to me that when we are on the cusp of so many medical breakthroughs, so many people are prepared to turn their backs on the very research that propelled these advances.
This distrust of science is having an impact. Scientists who should be publicly renowned for their work, perseverance and breakthroughs are loathe to talk about their achievements because of concerns about how this work might be interpreted in this science negative culture.
We urgently need to turn this around. All of the achievements at Boeing, and Google, and Microsoft, and Oracle pale to insignificance compared to the work of the biomedical researchers in the Northwest. A team of researchers from Seattle Children's, Fred Hutch and the UW have harnessed a new technology that could block the ability of HIV to infect cells. This amazing new application is many times more efficacious than other techniques, and yet is now at risk due to a loss of funding.
We all absolutely depend on, and have benefited from, this kind of work. In our annual Middle School Science Competition students write about the impact of Biomedical Research on their lives. These middle school students get it, they have provided thousands of eloquent examples of how biomedical research has directly impacted their lives. At their relatively young age they have drawn the causal link between biomedical research and their own quality of life. Their essays are a testament to the ongoing need for this work.
Now it is our turn to support this work. I know that many of you do just this - devoting your lives to the cause of biomedical research. We now need to take this work out of the lab and to sing its praises, to be honest about its shortcomings and to thoughtfully wrestle with its social implications.
We need to help students be proud for being smart.
We need to create a community that starts to re-trust the promise and benefits of science.
We also need to forthrightly and without fear critique this pervasive push towards distrusting science, scientists and evolving ideas and research.
NWABR has created a Speak Up For Research Education Fund to help publicly promote, talk about and celebrate biomedical research. This fund provides the ability for NWABR to work with and impact thousands of students and community members each year. Our young people are so smart and engaged. You cannot leave an NWABR educational event without feeling hopeful about the future. Community members that engage in NWABR programs leave with a deep understanding of the ethical basis that undergirds all biomedical developments.
Scientists that receive communication trainings from NWABR stand that much taller.
I am so proud to be the leader of NWABR. I am so proud of this profoundly engaging research community. I am excited about the future. I am excited for future generations that may not have to cope in the same way as my mum and my dad with such horribly debilitating circumstances.
And, lastly I am hopeful that with your support we can keep all of this amazing work going - and that person by person, group by group and community by community we can start to uplift biomedical research to where it should be: the fundamental cornerstone of our health.
Please take a look at our giving page. And if you can, give. If you can't give please consider volunteering. We are, for example, actively recruiting mentors at the moment to work with high school students as they produce their Bio Expo projects. If you want to find out more about NWABR and discuss ways that you may be able to help then please call me. My personal number is below. None of us can do this alone - but together we can build a brighter future for biomedical sciences.
Finally, If you have the chance, or the desire, please share NWABR's work with your friends and colleagues. Together we can engage a much broader audience.
Thank you all so much.
Ken Gordon
Executive Director
(206) 595-2450(206) 595-2450
