Focus
Spotlight
November 20/27, 2000
Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute Honors Larry King
Larry King, host of CNN's Larry King Live and fourth recipient of the David Mahoney Prize, and Hildegarde E. Mahoney, chair, Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute
CNN's Larry King became the fourth recipient of the David Mahoney Prize, awarded annually by the Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute. The award recognizes King's outstanding contribution to increasing public understanding about brain research. The Emmy awardÐwinning interviewer joins a list of distinguished recipients of the David Mahoney Prize, which includes former President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy; Mike Wallace, interviewer and co-editor of the CBS-TV news program 60 Minutes; and Roone Arledge, former chairman of ABC News.
Left to right, Herbert Siegel, chairman and president, Chris-Craft Industries; Carla Shatz, chair, HMS Department of Neurobiology; Joseph Martin, dean of the HMS Faculty of Medicine; Marilyn Albert, HMS professor of psychiatry and neurology, and director, Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute; Larry King; Hildegarde E. Mahoney; Edward Rover, president, Charles A. Dana Foundation; and Daniel Tosteson, dean emeritus of the HMS Faculty of Medicine.
The Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute was established in 1990— the creation of neuroscience philanthropists David and Hildegarde Mahoney— to increase public awareness of the critical importance and the promising future of neuroscience research. The institute's neuroscience newsletter On The Brain, as well as public symposia conducted throughout the country, are key components of these outreach efforts. Today, the institute also provides for some 60 neuroscience fellowships at HMS.
Dean Joseph Martin's Tribute to David Mahoney
(Transcript of remarks from the award ceremony on Oct. 23)David Mahoney, who passed away last year, spent all of his early working years in marketing. By the 1970s, in his capacity as chairman of the conglomerate Norton Simon, Inc., he was considered one of America's most widely watched business leaders. His second career, as a fighter for neuroscience, began in the mid-1980s. David Mahoney and his wife, Hildegarde, founded the Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute in 1990.
I'm extremely pleased to be here this evening to honor a very great man, David Mahoney; to honor one of our foremost educators in the media, Larry King; and to tell you just a little bit about my excitement for neuroscience, and for the opportunities our research is creating to help with those dreadful illnesses that affect the mind and the soul.
David was a remarkably able and provocative leader. The first time that I remember him well was at a meeting in Cold Spring Harbor in 1992. He and Jim Watson convened a group of neuroscientists. There were 30 of us: psychiatrists, neurologists, and neuroscientists. It was to talk about the future of brain research, and what had just been identified in the 90s as the Decade of the Brain.
George Bush had signed this into law at the end of his presidency. The challenge that David gave to us was, "What are you going to do in the Decade of the Brain to make a difference?" We were quite theoretical at the beginning. We talked about the areas in which we each were expert. About the things we thought we would like to see accomplished in our departments and our laboratories.
He made it very explicit, "You've got to tell a message. You've got to say something that will mean something to the community out there who will be asked to support your research."
We came away from that meeting with 10 specific targets and goals to achieve during the '90s. I had the opportunity a year ago to review the progress of each of those. It's quite remarkable, I think, how much has been accomplished.
So David for me is a great hero. Someone who took for a mission the specific project of lighting the world. Lighting the candle underneath neuroscientists. He was awarded some of the major prizes at the Society for Neuroscience, for example. That's a group that now numbers 35,000 individuals who are interested in solving the problems of brain research.
Larry, it is a great, great pleasure to give you tonight the special award, to honor the contributions that you have made to brain science; to informing the public about brain disease. We're very grateful to you for that.