The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

The George and Barbara Bush Endowment for Innovative Cancer Research is a critical and permanent part of M. D. Anderson Cancer Center's research effort. Launched in 1999 through a fund-raiser, Milestones & Miracles, celebrating their birthdays, the endowment began with $10.2 million.

In conjunction with former President Bush's 80th birthday celebration, 41@80 in June 2004, the endowment surpassed its goal of $50 million in cash and pledged gifts.

Each year, funds distributed from the endowment support new and innovative avenues of research, reducing the time researchers must spend writing grant applications and allowing them to focus more fully on acquiring knowledge and other scholarly pursuits. Only distributions from the endowment fund are used to fund research, allowing the endowment capital to remain untouched as a long-term, predictable source of revenue for the future. The endowment is invested in the Long Term Fund.

The George and Barbara Bush Endowment for Innovative Cancer Research is dedicated to funding cancer research at the molecular and genetic level. The initial grants awarded from The Bush Endowment are supporting gifted physicians and scientists who are pursuing investigations of the many facets of cancer, each of which is a potential target for therapy. Seed money from this endowment gives these researchers the freedom to unleash their creativity, pursue new pathways of discovery and leverage the resulting data into larger grants from federal and other grant-making sources. Their contributions to cancer research knowledge speed the pace at which scientific breakthroughs are transformed into more effective options for cancer treatment and prevention.

"We are blessed to have such talented and dedicated scientists at M. D. Anderson. Their research will touch the lives of thousands of patients and their families, both now and for years to come, and Barbara and I are honored to be a part of it."

- Former President George H. W. Bush