Burnham Institute

THE BURNHAM INSTITUTE for Medical Research is located in La Jolla, California. It is a nonprofit medical research institute that focuses on cancer research. Because of the research performed at the institute, it is ranked among the top 25 such organizations in the United States. Its publication of its research findings is one of its major products. [Page 48]Through research, the institute's members have contributed to five approved therapies and as many diagnostic tests that are now in use. They have been credited with saving the lives of many people through earlier diagnoses. In addition, the institute has created nine innovative therapies that are now in clinical trials at dozens of medical centers around the world.

The quality of the program at the Burnham Institute is of a very high caliber. Proof is seen in the fact that the institute is the fourth largest recipient of funding grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The Center for Advanced Research rates the Burnham Institute as the most efficient private research institution in America. Over 60 percent of its operating costs are covered by competitive grants awarded to its scientists.

The institute was founded by William (Bill) H. Fishman and his wife Lillian. They moved to La Jolla in the late 1970s from Boston, Massachusetts, to fulfill their goal of founding an independent research center for the study of oncodevelopment. Dr. Fishman turned down a promising career at Tufts University School of Medicine and instead moved to La Jolla to found the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation (LJCRS). The focus of the LJCRS's medical research was on developmental biology and oncology, combined to form the study of oncodevelopment, which is an investigation into the elusive and deadly nature of cancer. The theory that Dr. Fishman held was that the abnormal development of cancer cells could be better understood if their normal development were better understood.

Dr. Fishman has served at the Burnham Institute as a trustee, president, administrator, and scientist. In 1979, his role as scientific director was given to Erkki Ruoslahti, who is from the City of Hope in Duarte, California. In the same year, the institute received a two—year planning grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). It soon was given five acres of land by the Whit—taker Corporation on the Torrey Pines Mesa. Its nearby neighboring scientific institutes were the University of California at San Diego and the Salk Institute. From its small beginnings, the Burnham Institute has grown into an organization employing nearly 800 people. Its annual operating budget is over $100 million.