AlzDigest

The ripples of a financial scandal on Wall Street are being felt in the Alzheimer’s research community.

The Picower Foundation announced it would shut down after almost 20 years because of losses it sustained when a prominent New York money manager’s fund, in which the foundation had invested, collapsed. The foundation provided $50 million in initial funding for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.

“It’s obviously terrible news,” an MIT official said. “The Picowers have made an enormous contribution to neuroscience. Everyone here was shocked and very much saddened.”

As recent as last May, the foundation gave the Picower Institute $4 million, which created the Picower Institute Innovation Fund. The target of the fund was to provide support for cutting-edge research by neurologists on the Picower Institute faculty.

For example, the research included the use of lasers on brain cells to restore memories.

But this week, the foundation announced it would shut down because of losses it sustained, which it said were associated with New York money manager Bernard Madoff’s investment fund.

While the initial $50 million grant was fully funded, the MIT official had no comment on the status of other grants from the foundation to the school.

Founded in 2002 to study neurological disorders including Alzheimer’s, the institute was initially called the Picower Center for Learning and Memory. It was renamed in 2005. At the time, the $50 million represented the school’s largest single gift from any foundation.

Image: MIT

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