World Wide Reach:  
Wharton Fund Researchers Present Scientific Findings Across the Globe

The Nathaniel Wharton Fund plays a unique role in support of innovative biomedical research on important health issues at the intersection of mind, brain, behavior and physical illness.

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:

In the United States, the principal sources of funding for biomedical research are the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and large foundations, such as the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society. To receive funding from these organizations, scientists submit grant applications describing the research studies they propose. But because these funding bodies tend to focus narrowly — one NIH institute for cancer, another for heart disease, a third for mental health, and so on — opportunities for research that cuts across disciplines are greatly limited, and research proposals addressing important interdisciplinary problems face special difficulty in the competition for funding. These proposals must be especially compelling: they must not only suggest innovative approaches to address important problems but also demonstrate promising results from preliminary studies.

THIS IS WHERE THE WHARTON FUND MAKES ITS IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION:

it provides the seed funding essential to performing these preliminary studies. By providing biomedical “venture capital” for small studies examining the links between mental and behavioral factors and physical disease, the Fund provides the support for the pilot studies which form the basis of highly competitive applications to the NIH and other funders. And once these research studies are approved, the Fund provides critical infrastructure to assure their success.

THIS STRATEGY HAS BEEN EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL.

Since 1997, approximately $11M in Wharton Fund research support has resulted in nearly $70M of additional federal and foundation funding.