Recently in the Winnipeg Free Press (December 13, 2014), two half page ads highlighted the research of principal investigators at the St.Boniface Hospital Research Foundation to “…lessen the impact of heart attacks…”. For more details on the research and goals of these scientists at this research centre, readers were directed to a website.
My comments:
1. It is a very opportune time for the foundation to place these ads during the festive season when people are in the mood of buying gifts. I hope their drive for funds is very successful.
My other 2 comments are maybe not so complimentary.
2. The reader will notice that the upper half of one of these pages contains an ad for purchasing liquor. Probably not the wisest decision made by the newspaper editors.
3. My third comment relates to an international symposium entitled “Free Radicals in Health and Disease ” which was held on October 1985 at the A. Cohen auditorium of the St. Boniface Hospital Foundation.
The three main organizers for this symposium included the University of Manitoba, the St. Boniface Hospital Research Foundation and the Kildonan Institute of Gerontology – the latter a private not-for-profit research foundation that I founded in 1987. As the medical director of this foundation, I was pleased that we were able to successfully invite and sponsor for this symposium Dr. Denham Harman, a professor at the University of Nebraska and the “father of Free Radical Pathology”.*
About a decade later in the mid 1990’s our private foundation dissolved basically for lack of funds. Our equipment was donated to the St.Boniface Hospital Research Foundation in the 1990’s, but my knowledge and expertise in the field of cellular gerontology did not accompany this donation, although I personally made the request at the time of the donation as well as on several subsequent occasions.
It is however somewhat gratifying to at least see that some of the research at St.Boniface Hospital Research Foundation is being directed to free radical pathology. However now at the age of 87 I often reflect on “what if” I had the opportunity to work at this research centre, which I was willing to do gratis.
* Dr. Denham died on November 25, 2014 at the age of 98 without receiving the Nobel prize, even though he was nominated some 6 times.
