Ann Lurie

She is the President of Lurie Holdings, Inc., and through personal philanthropy as well as distributions via a private philanthropic foundation, has provided funding for projects in areas such as health care, education, social services and the arts.  Ann steadfastly believes that charitable investments in medical research can change the world; and she has donated more than $300 million toward improving the health and well-being of people in Chicago, Ann Arbor, Africa and throughout the world.  Her financial generosity is matched by the hours of hands-on commitment she devotes to an impressive array of initiatives that have engendered change.

One of my current activities is sponsoring the "Lurie Prize" presented to a young scientist who is deemed to be outstanding in his field, vetted by a jury chaired by Sol Snyder from John's Hopkins. We have just presented the forth award to Jennie Lee from Harvard for her work on sex chromosomes and gene expression:    https://genetics.med.harvard.edu/faculty/lee    A link to the award and to the bios of our previous awardees is available at: http://www.fnih.org/what-we-do/current-lectures-awards-and-events/lurie-prize

The next phase in the plan for this award is to construct a teaching tool for students as "inspiration" to pursue careers in the sciences.