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Becker Family Commits $100,000 to IMM
Diabetes Research
With a $100,000 commitment to the New Frontiers Campaign, the Becker Family Foundation is helping advance metabolic disease research at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM). The gift will establish the Becker Family Professorship in Diabetes Research at the IMM.
“The Becker Family Professorship will be an important tool for us as we recruit and build the team of scientists for the IMM’s new Research Center for Metabolic Diseases,” said James T. Willerson, M.D., president of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
“The family’s generosity will provide valuable resources for our investigations into the gene and protein mechanisms behind juvenile diabetes, adultonset diabetes and obesity,” he said.
“We believe diabetes is one of the diseases that will be most devastating to future generations,” said Gary Becker, manager of the Becker Family Foundation. “For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we want to do what we can to help advance the research, treatment and prevention of this disease.”
Diabetes, a disease in which the body lacks the ability to properly use sugar from the blood, often compromises the immune system and can lead to other complications like heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, kidney disease and blindness.
Individuals with juvenile diabetes, or Type I, do not produce insulin needed to process sugars from the foods they eat. Those with adult-onset diabetes, or Type II, produce insulin, but their bodies do not use it efficiently.
“Insulin only controls diabetes. It does not cure or prevent it,” Willerson said. “Our hope for conquering this disease lies in basic research in areas like stem cell biology, genetics, proteomics and cell signaling. The discoveries of the IMM will lead to treatments like pancreatic islet cell transplants and gene therapy – treatments that will make a major difference in the fight against diabetes.”
The Beckers are well known for creating and managing PACE Entertainment Group, which has produced shows ranging from theatre to mud racing to musical concerts in cities across the United States for over 35 years. By the time the family sold the company to SFX (Clear Channel) Entertainment in 1999, PACE had become the largest privately owned entertainment company in the nation.
The foundation, Becker said, is truly a family organization, involving him and his wife, Susan; his parents, Allen and Shirley Becker; and his siblings, Sunni Markowitz and Brian and Stacy Becker.
The Becker family established the foundation after the sale of PACE and have primarily supported children’s and Jewish organizations. Recently, they turned their attention to health care needs in the community as well.
“Our family has been very fortunate, and we want to give some of that good luck back to the community,” said Becker, who served as president of Houston Children’s Charities for four years and will do so again in 2005.
In addition to the UT Health Science Center, the Becker Family Foundation has given to diabetes research at Baylor College of Medicine and to numerous programs at Texas Children’s Hospital.
The IMM campaign, chaired by Beth Robertson and co-chaired by Ben Love, has received $183 million in gifts and commitments as of September 2004. The health science center launched the $200 million fund raising effort almost three years ago in order to build a new home for the IMM and recruit and support additional world-class scientists.
Construction on the new building began in September 2003 and is expected to be complete by the end of 2005.
— By Amber Buckley, Development