- Person
- Miriam Adelson
- Lived
- b. 1945
- Field
- Addiction medicine
- From
- Israeli-American
The story
Dr. Miriam Adelson is an Israeli born physician and addiction researcher who trained at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University and has been a guest investigator at The Rockefeller University in New York since 1986. The medical research foundation she co-founded was designed to tackle a familiar problem in science: barriers that keep talented investigators isolated, each in their own laboratory, rather than sharing what they learn.
In 2006 she and her husband, Sheldon G. Adelson, established the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation, known as AMRF. Its stated mission is to prevent, reduce or eliminate disabling and life threatening illnesses. Unlike many foundations, it does not simply hand out grants to single laboratories. Instead it builds its own research programs, bringing together investigators from different disciplines and institutions who agree to pool their knowledge and resources and to work closely with clinical scientists so that discoveries can move quickly toward treatments for patients.
Cancer became one of the foundation's main fields. The Adelson Program in Cancer Research seeks therapies that target the mechanisms that make cells malignant. In November 2012 the foundation announced that it had just funded 13 collaborations involving 96 interacting projects, supporting 58 biomedical researchers at 32 academic institutions in the United States and Israel. The cancer work in that round focused on melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, and ovarian cancer.
In 2018 the foundation launched the Adelson Program in Multiple Myeloma Research, a three year effort funding seven investigators at four leading American academic institutions to carry out translational research on this blood cancer. The teams were led by two myeloma specialists, Kenneth Anderson and Robert Orlowski, and set out to pursue new interventions at all stages of the disease.
By insisting that scientists collaborate rather than compete, the foundation has tried to speed the slow path from laboratory discovery to clinical use. Its programs in oncology have supported dozens of researchers whose work is aimed at better treatments for cancers that affect people of every background around the world.
Why it matters
Cancer research funded through the Adelson Medical Research Foundation's collaborative programs is aimed at new treatments for melanoma, ovarian cancer and multiple myeloma, diseases that affect patients everywhere.
About Miriam Adelson
Israeli-born physician who has spent four decades treating heroin and opioid addiction, founded methadone clinics in Tel Aviv and Las Vegas, and funds medical research and Jewish education.
More about Miriam Adelson
Sources
- Adelson Medical Research Foundation Launches New Myeloma Funding Initiative Rare Cancer News (BioNews)
- Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G Adelson Medical Research Foundation MassBio
- Adelson Medical Research Foundation Funds International Collaborations in Cancer and Neurology Firmenpresse (press release)
- Miriam Adelson Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.