http://www.carnegiebaltimore.org/background.html
The Carnegie Institution: Baltimore's Best-Kept Secret 
Andrew Carnegie: The father of modern philanthropy
When Andrew Carnegie sold what is now U.S. Steel to J.P. Morgan in 1901 for $480 million ($10.6 billion in today's dollars) he began the era of modern philanthropy, embarking on an energetic and ambitious effort to give away the bulk of his wealth before he died. Over the next 18 years, he established a number of different institutions and trusts that still bear his name. By the time of his death in 1919, he had financed the construction of almost 2,000 libraries in the U.S. He had also given away almost 90 percent of his fortune. 
The Carnegie Institution of Washington
Andrew Carnegie's first philanthropic initiative was the 1902 creation of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, an independent research organization to support scientific investigation and discovery simply for the sake of increasing knowledge. 
Since then, Carnegie scientists have been leaders in their fields, guiding and, in many instances, radically redefining them. Edwin Hubble, for whom the Hubble Space telescope is named, spent many a sleepless night at the institution's Mount Wilson Telescope near Pasadena in order to discover that there are galaxies besides our own, and that the universe is expanding. Charles Richter transformed earthquake science by developing a technique to accurately record and measure earthquakes, even those occurring far from the measuring device. Using a common kitchen blender, Al Hershey discovered that DNA contained the code for life; he later won a Nobel prize for this discovery. By devoting her career to the breeding of corn, Barbara McClintock demonstrated that genetic elements are not stable and often move around in the genome. She, too, won a Nobel prize. 
The Carnegie Institution's first president, Daniel Coit Gilman, had earlier been John Hopkins University's first president. Just a few years after it was founded, the Carnegie Institution began a relationship with The Johns Hopkins University and the city of Baltimore that has flourished ever since. 
The Department of Embryology
In 1913, affiliating with Johns Hopkins University's Department of Anatomy, the Carnegie Institution opened its Department of Embryology on the university's Baltimore campus. In 1960, it expanded its relationship with Hopkins to include an alliance with the university's Department of Biology. 
The Carnegie Institution's Department of Embryology has been deciphering gene structure and function for most of the last 100 years, but for the last half-century, investigators have focused on understanding fundamental developmental mechanisms at the cellular and molecular levels. Throughout its history, it has been guided by a philosophy unique within the vast enterprise of biological research: 
•	First, seek out exceptional scientists and encourage originality and long-term significance 
•	Second, carry out research on a wide variety of different animal organisms because much can be learned by comparing processes and gene functions among different species, 
•	Third, encourage a steady flow of new associates, fellows, students and visiting scientists to spark new ideas and learn new techniques. (While he was a visiting scientist at Carnegie's Department of Embryology, this year's Nobel prize winner in chemistry, Johns Hopkins' Peter Agre, succeeded in isolating a membrane protein. A year or so later, he realized it must be the long-sought-after cellular water channel, for which he was awarded the prize.) 
•	Fourth, keep research groups small to fewer than 10 members to enhance communication between faculty and lab staff and make it easier for faculty to remain engaged in experimentation. 
This philosophy has placed the Carnegie Institution's Department of Embryology at the forefront of research in developmental biology. Today, more than 90 people, including 13 principal investigators, 25 postdoctoral fellows and 15 Johns Hopkins graduate students work together in a molecular biology and genetics "think tank." In small groups, these scientists seek to understand the basic mechanisms of cell differentiation, genetic signaling, and cell growth. Dramatic advances in medical science depend on the scientific understanding of these basic mechanisms. 
To take just one example, in 1997 Carnegie scientist Dr. Andrew Fire and his colleague, the University of Massachusetts' Dr. Craig Mello, discovered how to synthesize RNA interference, or RNAi. This discovery is revolutionizing scientific understanding of how genes are regulated. Not only has Dr. Fire's research led to a new, quick and highly precise method of silencing gene function in lab animals -- an improvement over the time-consuming method of breeding research animals with "knocked out" genes, but his discovery is also leading to a better understanding of how living creatures resist harmful viruses and remain stable in the face of environmental assaults. The journal Science identified Dr. Fire's discovery as the most important "Breakthrough of the Year" in 2002; its editor- in- chief, Don Kennedy, has said RNA will be the focus of science for the next 50 years, just as DNA was for the past 50. 
Already more than 35 license agreements have been negotiated with companies who are using Fire's patented discovery to search for ways to treat conditions ranging from cancer and AIDS to obesity and macular degeneration. 
Carnegie's "Stealth" Contribution to Higher Education in Baltimore
Every year, young scientists from all over the world gravitate to the Department of Embryology to work with senior Carnegie scientists who are leaders in their fields. Most of these talented young people come to Carnegie as postdoctoral fellows on one to three-year postings immediately following the receipt of their PhDs. 
In today's international world of science, a postdoctoral fellowship is an essential step towards leadership and independence in one's field, essentially setting an individual's scientific career course for the next 30 years. The Carnegie Institution is known world-wide as a top-tier institution offering young scientists who are invited to be postdoctoral fellows unparalleled opportunities to explore new research paths, grow, and advance. 
Many of these individuals in turn contribute to academic life in Baltimore. Recently one of the Department of Embryology's post docs, Rachel Brewster, was hired as a member of the faculty at the University of Maryland's Baltimore Campus and a staff associate, Erika Matunis, just joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins' Medical School. 
The Maxine Singer Building
The Department of Embryology moved to its present building on the Homewood Campus in 1960. Now, with more scientists on staff than ever before and the complexity and diversity of their projects placing unprecedented demands on the existing facilities, it has outgrown the building. Thus, when Johns Hopkins University president William Brody offered Carnegie a new building site in recognition of the Department of Embryology's outstanding contribution to biomedical research and intellectual life at the university, Carnegie Institution officials happily accepted the offer. 
The new building is to be named after Carnegie's President Emeritus, biochemist Dr. Maxine F. Singer, and is being built on the western edge of Johns Hopkins University's Homewood Campus. Inside, the building will comfortably house more than 100 Department of Embryology scientists, lab technicians, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and administrative staff. Besides its 13 modern and well-equipped laboratories, the building will contain a library, meeting rooms, animal quarters, supply rooms and an auditorium. It will be completed by February 2005. 
The Maxine F. Singer Building Project will cost $46 million -- $31 million in construction costs and an endowment of $15 million for maintenance and operations. A construction bond from the state of Maryland covers all but $20 million of the total project costs. Carnegie has embarked on a campaign to raise $20 million from the private sector and has raised just over $10 million, or 50% of the support required. 
A New President for the Carnegie Institution
A trustee of the Carnegie Institution since 1992, Dr. Richard A. Meserve became its ninth president in 2003, after stepping down as chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). 
Before joining the NRC in 1999, Meserve was a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Covington & Burling. With his Harvard law degree, received in 1975, and his Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford, awarded in 1976, he devoted his legal practice to issues arising at the interface of law and science. 
"Andrew Carnegie pledged to support innovative individuals of exceptional ability in an environment that is free from the constraints typically found in academic settings. For over a century, the institution has taken the unusual approach of championing creative and often high-risk science by encouraging its researchers to pursue their own visions-- not the visions of others," Meserve said. 
"As the 21st century unfolds, Carnegie will continue to pursue science of the highest caliber, and thereby help to shape the course of human progress," he concluded. 
Carnegie's Other Gifts to Baltimore
To the general public, the name "Carnegie" probably is linked most closely to "libraries." With an endowment of $60 million, Carnegie built almost 2,000 public libraries in the U.S. and another 865 worldwide. A firm believer in education as well as self-help, Carnegie gave money for the buildings only, making acquiring the books the community's responsibility. 
In 1905, Enoch Pratt, who endowed Baltimore's first public library in 1886, asked Carnegie for a grant of $500,000 to build 20 libraries in the city. Carnegie agreed. Today, six of those libraries still stand: Patterson Park, 158 N. Linwood Ave.; Forest Park, 3023 Garrison Blvd.; Clifton, 2001 N. Wolfe St.; Hamilton, 5910 Harford Rd.; Govans, 5714 Bellona Ave.; and Brooklyn, 300 E. Patapsco. 
Nearly a century later, in commemorating the centennial of the Carnegie libraries, the Carnegie Corporation of New York (an institution separate from the Carnegie Institution that was also founded by Andrew Carnegie) donated another $500,000 to the Enoch Pratt Library. Said Vartan Gregorian, the corporation's president and former president of the New York Public Library: "These grants symbolize Carnegie Corporation's faith in the public library as the guardian of freedom of thought and of the free exchange of information and idea. No search engine can replace the library, or the librarian, whose role is to distill the best, to separate fact from fiction, to provide a structure for knowledge and learning. The library, as Norman Mailer put it, is 'the people's palace.' It contains the DNA of our culture." 
Andrew Carnegie's initial philanthropic efforts have advanced science and knowledge in ways he probably never imagined. From the 2,000 libraries across the United States to the founding of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Carnegie's gifts have not only increased our cultural DNA, but also led to the discovery of biological DNA. Now, more than a century later, Carnegie's gifts to the nation continue to multiply. 
For more information go to www.CarnegieBaltimore.org <http://www.CarnegieBaltimore.org>.