The Wellcome Foundation offered me the chance to establish a small academic research unit, modestly funded, but with total independence. The real opportunity, however, came from King's College, London.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
We've already gotten a significant grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and a university consortium. I think the whole sector of Foundations, potentially with government support, is promising - more than promising, I think, it's substantial.
The Wellcome Trust is a hugely important organisation, and it is vital that its fundraising continues unabated.
Helping people getting a great start in life, a great foundation, is an investment.
I have spent my entire adult life trying to make Liberty University the world-class Christian university that was envisioned at its founding.
In 1986, I was asked by the then-Dean of Science at the University of British Columbia, Dr. R.C. Miller, Jr., to establish a new interdisciplinary institute, the Biotechnology Laboratory. I decided that it was time for me to start paying back for the thirty years of fun that I had been able to have in research.
Quickly, after I landed in England, I found out ways to get scholarships. England turned out to be a very encouraging place for me.
When I had made more money than I needed for myself and my family, I set up a foundation to promote the values and principles of a free and open society.
Great research universities must insist on independence from government and on the exercise of academic freedom.
I was very fortunate to be elected to the Society of Fellows at Harvard, which is, in effect, a small research center where you are given three years to do whatever work you want.
I have my own foundation, which I just started, called Believe Anything Is Possible, which is going to be an organization to help the underprivileged.