The Power of Knowledge

You are essential to empowering the greatest scientific minds of our time and providing them with the resources needed to accelerate scientific innovation and save lives. Your generosity enables the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) to further critical medical research across a wide range of disease areas—from Alzheimer's to arthritis to cancer.

Andrew Steinhaus makes a charitable gift to the FNIH that supports a global initiative on cancer, a disease affecting his family for generations. "Many family members, including my parents, lived shorter lives because of cancer. We have a hereditary predisposition to it. Having the BRCA gene has changed the way I look at my own health and the future generations of my family. Knowledge is very important. Knowing your risks is empowering because you can make concrete decisions for the future."

The BRCA Challenge is an initiative supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) designed to ignite new knowledge and data-sharing among researchers on the two most heavily tested genes for cancer predisposition: BRCA1 and BRCA2. These genes can indicate an individual's genetic predisposition to breast, ovarian and other cancers.

With the development of a public database, the most current and reliable data on these genes are shared with scientists, patients and their advocates. With this tool at their fingertips, through desktop and mobile devices, researchers can hasten analysis on these variants by working together to spur scientific understanding and discovery.

By donating to the FNIH, Andrew is furthering the development of this database that already has 20,000 genetic variants aggregated, three times the amount found in the next-largest public database at the project's outset.

"The NIH is really a common denominator in so much of America's biomedical research efforts and without it a lot of diagnostics, treatments and cures would not exist," explains Andrew. "We want to incentivize our best and brightest folks to work on these treatments and cures, and the only way to do that is to ensure their endeavors are well-funded."

We are so grateful for your support. It is extremely valuable to the work we do. Please join other FNIH donors and Andrew to advance this type of vital medical collaboration and research. If you have questions about supporting the FNIH with a planned gift, please contact the Advancement department at advancement@fnih.org or (301) 402-5343.