Portland, 2007
Have your heard the story of the Widow’s Mite? Well, believe
you me, if you had been sent to Sunday School at the Beaumont Community Church
in the 1940s you would know all about it.
Here is one version (Mark 12: 41-43).
Jesus is teaching his
disciples:
41 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the
people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.
42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two
mites, which make a farthing.
43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them,
Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they
which have cast into the treasury:
44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her
want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.
I was reminded of this when I read a
story in the latest Fred Hutch newsletter.
Here it is:
The article mainly concerns research
in immunotherapy conducted at the Hutch – which seems to be in the forefront of
this sort of thing. I would be tempted
to suggest that immunotherapy is the Next Big Thing in cancer therapy, had I
not learned from my friend Cliff (The
Truth in Small Doses) how few Next Big Things pan out. This effort was kicked off by a $20 million
contribution from the family of Jeff Bezos – yes, the ,man who started
Amazon (The Economist recently published a cover illustration showing an astronaut
making an Amazon delivery on – I think – Mars.
I guess Bezos has been pretty successful.)
I also contribute to cancer research. My total contribution so far, divided by
Bezos’ initial donation, figures out to about 2.5 X 10-4. So why do I bother? Well: (1) Like they say, every little bit helps: (2) I can
direct my money toward what I consider the best avenues of research, and; (3)
It makes me feel good. I wish I had Jeff’s
money to spread around, but what the Hell – we do the best we can.
This Quest article contains very
little science, but you might enjoy reading it anyway. In fact, the whole issue is interesting. Just Google Fred Hutch/Quest
Here is a very interesting article from that same issue of Quest:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fhcrc.org/en/news/quest/2014-06/living-longer.html
The Turks continue their reading frenzy. As of this moment weekly statistics show 137 hits from Turkey, 122 from the U.S., and 42 from the rest of the world. Masybe the Turks share my sense of humor?
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