A Gift . . .

The Broad Institute, a biomedical research center, announced a $650 million donation for psychiatric research from the Stanley Family Foundation — one of the largest private gifts ever for scientific research. It comes at a time when basic research into mental illness is woefully inadequate, and many drug makers have all but abandoned the search for new treatments. It's been about 25 years since any major pharmaceutical strides have been made in treating psychiatric disorders. Broad Institute officials hope that Mr. Stanley’s donation will change that, and they timed their announcement to coincide with the publication of the largest analysis to date on the genetics of schizophrenia.

Why did Ted Stanley make such a generous gift? In 1988, his son Jonathan Stanley (a college dropout)  was visiting New York City when he became convinced that government agents were closing in on him. He bolted, and for three days and nights raced through the city streets and subway tunnels. His flight ended in a deli, where he climbed a plastic crate and stripped off his clothes. The police took him to a hospital, and he finally received effective treatment two years after getting a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. “My son’s life was saved,” his father, Ted Stanley, said recently. When he himself was in college, he added, “those drugs didn’t exist; I would have had a non functioning brain all the rest of my life.”
(thanks to http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/science/650-million-psychiatric-research.html?_r=0)

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