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The Institute for Childhood and Neglected
Diseases
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The Scripps Research Institute established the Institute for Childhood and Neglected Diseases (ICND) to apply the new molecular understanding of biology to the goal of reducing and treating childhood and neglected diseases. Diseases of both categories often infect
populations in developing countries where the health infrastructure may be too limited to support major research efforts.
Examples of such diseases include malaria, epilepsy, mental retardation, cystic fibrosis, chronic pain, and depression. The human and
economic costs of these diseases is staggering. Malaria infects 300 million people a year, and the disease kills approximately one million a year,
according to the World Health Organization. About 90 percent of these victims are in Africa, where the disease costs some $12 billion annually. The disease
is especially devastating to children in Africa, where it is the leading cause of childhood mortality.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that epilepsy and its associated seizures affect about 2.3 million Americans, and result in $12.5 billion in medical costs and reduced earnings and production. Mental retardation is another
condition affecting children everywhereÜabout one percent of American children ages 3 to 10 have mental retardation, according to
the CDC.
Housed in a state-of-the-art 54,000-square-foot laboratory building on TSRI°s campus, the ICND is an umbrella group within TSRI for young
scientists who are working in areas relevant to the institute's focus on these sometimes widespread and often devastating diseases.
The concept of the ICND grew out of conversations in 1996 and 1997 among TSRI President Richard Lerner, John Moores, who was interested
in supporting research on illnesses affecting people in developing countries, and the brothers Bernard and Marc Chase, who were interested in supporting
research on childhood diseases. John and Rebecca Moores, Bill Bauce, and other automobile enthusiasts donated a number of vintage automobiles, which were
auctioned to support the initiative. The Moores went on to contribute a valuable coin collection, as well as pledging an additional $5 million over
five years.
Around the same time that these individuals were making donations in support of the ICND, a milestone scientific achievement was nearing completion. The Human Genome Project, which was finished around the same time the ICND opened its doors, has led to a
deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying human disease. But while the isolated identification of genes has yielded glimpses inside the machinery of
the body, it has been difficult to look at genes in the larger context of how they interact with each other and with their surroundings in the cell and the
body. Further, the regulatory mechanisms that have been discovered frequently turn out to be small parts of larger, more complex cascades.
Investigators at the ICND use genomics and advanced imaging
technologies in an effort to understand the mechanisms of action
of a variety of diseases--malaria, mental retardation, neurodegenerative
diseases, neuropathic pain, deafness, sleep disorders, migraines,
and epilepsy, for example--and devise treatments for them. Scientists
will undertake a systematic effort to study not only the genes
themselves but the interactions between them in living systems.
Over the long-term, this approach should lead to medical achievements
that are unimaginable with current technologies.
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