If money talks, it is saying a number of good things about Rhode Island’s ability to create world-class research on brain disease.
The $15 million that former CVS Caremark Corp. Chairman, CEO and President Thomas M. Ryan and wife, Cathy, have committed to the University of Rhode Island to create a neuroscience institute is just the latest piece of the growing sector of the health care industry that is dedicated to finding solutions to all manner of brain-science challenges.
The George and Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience, named after Mr. Ryan’s parents, joins the Brown Institute for Brain Science and the Norman Prince Neurosciences Institute as a dedicated research center in Rhode Island. Each entity has its own specialties – the Ryan Institute will focus on generating treatments and cures for neuro-degenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, stroke and ALS (known clinically as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and colloquially as Lou Gehrig’s disease) – but more importantly, they will work collaboratively within the research community, multiplying the impact of their individual strengths.
So many breakthroughs are the result of unexpected insights generated from different perspectives, so this last part of the plans for the Ryan Institute – made explicit by Mr. Ryan himself – increases the likelihood that something truly remarkable will happen there. In the end, the collaborative approach may be as large a gift as the money itself. •