In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Eight W H I T E H E A D I N S T I T U T E The testyou willface is the toughest one imaginable: can the published experiments be replicated l y others and, even more important$; doyour experiments proride a basisfor further scient$c development? This is how we ascertain truth. D A V I D B A L T I M O R E k t l m o n j to congroslonul commlttce, .lfaj 1989 EDWIN "JACK" WHITEHEAD started a biomedical company called Technicon in 1939.Over the next forty years he led the company to success, and he sold Technicon to Revlon for $400 million in 1980.Whitehead, an energetic and persistent man, wanted to use some of his wealth to found a biomedical institute, and in 1974, with the help of his advisers, he began searchingfor a suitable location.The searchwas complicated. He commented many years later, "It's easier to make $100 million than to give it away." Several medical schools rejected his offer because Whitehead burdened the gift with too many special conditions: Duke University initially accepted, but then found the restrictions too cumbersome. Whitehead insisted that the research facility be set up as a company, for various tax and business reasons, and that the Whitehead Institute, not the university, would own the company. Jack Whitehead himself would thereby be able to maintain close control of the company and the institute. No university wanted to build a new institute that they couldn't control, and so no one would touch the money. After five years of frustration, Whitehead gave up and began exploring broader possibilities. In August 1980,Whitehead's advisers suggested that he approach David Baltimore as a possible consultant for the philanthropic project. Baltimore had a history of rejecting such administrative proposals. He had been approached innumerable times to become a dean or department chair at various universities. He turned down all these offers because he knew that they would burden him with petty politics and the drudgery of fundraising.However , the Whitehead project had a very different flavor to it. Baltimore saw in it the possibility of starting an important institution for biological research . Baltimore agreed to meet Whitehead and his advisers at Rockefeller University, an obvious model for a new institute. At Rockefeller, Whitehead asked Baltimore outright what he would do with a research institute if he had one. Baltimore said that he would focus it on the molecular aspects of development, because he felt that this was going to be the era of developmental biology, the study of the procession from fertilization to adult organism. Whitehead liked Baltimore's style. His energy and confidence were traits well suited to the director of an institute. In Whitehead's mind, the research challenges Baltimore outlined were the kind that could energize a research facility. He invited Baltimore back a few days later and made an offer: if Baltimore agreed to design and establish the institute, Whitehead would provide $35 million for the building and an additional endowment of $100 million. No inherited administrative baggage, no fundraising just pure opportunity. Baltimore was confident that he could maintain the momentum of his own laboratory while directing the Whitehead Institute, but he still hesitated, reluctant to commit himself. He knew the history of Whitehead's attempts in philanthropy, and he wasn't going to be stuck in a project with unreasonable special conditions. He also didn't want to leave MIT. Baltimore refused to commit to being the director of the institute until he knew where it was going to be located, what its specificfocus would be, and which university it would be connected with. Whitehead agreed to the conditions, Baltimore signed on as a consultant, and they became good friends. Baltimore began formulating plans, drawing on his past experiencewith various universitiesand institutes. He immediatelydecidedto try to establish the institute at MIT. The Whitehead Institute wouldn't have the intellectual critical mass necessary to survive on its own. Baltimore viewed MIT as a down-to-earth, honest institution, and he was comfortable there. He also felt that the university focused on research and did it well. He wanted to establish aviable research community, much as Cyrus Levinthalhad done with the MIT biology department and Salvador Luria had done with the Center for Cancer Research. Baltimore set his goal: I 4 0 W H I T E H E A D I N S T I T U T E [3...

Share