Table of Contents
Banking on the IMM
JPMorgan Chase gives $100,000 to New Frontiers Campaign
Phil Conway, president of JPMorgan Chase
Bank,
Houston Region
Making its largest pledge ever to The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, JPMorgan Chase, Texas, has committed $100,000 to The Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM) to help uncover the gene and protein causes of humankind’s common diseases.
A leading supporter of the Texas Medical Center and its member institutions for several decades, JPMorgan Chase is partnering with the IMM in the New Frontiers Campaign to help recruit additional scientists and build and equip a new home for the IMM. The $200 million campaign, chaired by Beth Robertson and co-chaired by Ben Love, began in early 2001 and with the help of JPMorgan Chase, passed the $143 million mark in January 2004.
“JPMorgan Chase believes in developing long-term partnerships with the communities that we serve around the world,” said Phil Conway, president of JPMorgan Chase Bank, Houston Region. “The IMM’s ambitious research goals have the potential to impact all of our lives, and we want to play a part in helping bring such discoveries to the forefront of medicine.”
A worldwide financial services firm, JPMorgan Chase operates in more than 50 countries and serves more than 30 million consumer customers. Through the JPMorgan Chase Foundation and JPMorgan Chase Bank, Texas, the company has made significant investments in health and education institutions throughout Houston.
“We see this gift as an investment in the future of our community,” added Kathy Orton, senior vice president of JPMorgan Chase’s Healthcare and Not-for-Profit Group. Both Orton and Conway serve on the UT Health Science Center at Houston Development Board.
Since its inception in 1995, the Institute of Molecular Medicine has established six disease-targeted research centers in human genetics, cardiovascular diseases, vascular biology, protein chemistry, cellular signaling, and immunology and autoimmune diseases. The centers focus on the gene and protein causes behind common conditions like stroke, diabetes, heart disease and hypertension in the search for preventive therapies and cures.
“Whether as individuals or through our families, we all experience the suffering caused by these diseases,” said James T. Willerson, M.D., president of the health science center. “JPMorgan Chase’s support of the IMM is strong proof of the company’s leadership in our community, and we are grateful for their partnership in so important an endeavor.”
Love, former chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase, Texas, and UT Health Science Center Development Board member, added his personal thanks, “How wonderful to see an institution, of which I am so fond, ‘banking’ on the vision of Dr. Jim Willerson and the promise of the IMM!”
The institute broke ground on the site of its new home in September 2003. When completed, the new facility will house additional top scientists and equipment to expand the IMM’s molecular research into new areas, including neurodegenerative, pulmonary and gastroenterological diseases.
— By Amber Buckley, Development