Boston Biomedical Research Institute is an independent not for profit institution dedicated to basic biomedical research to promote the understanding, treatment and prevention of specific human diseases, and to the training of research scientists.

Investigators focus on the structure and function of proteins that control cellular communication, muscle contractility, cell movement, growth and differentiation and on the underlying causes of human disease from the study of disease models in order to drive development of novel therapeutics.

In a uniquely collaborative environment that fosters innovative multidisciplinary research, our mission is to advance the frontiers of human knowledge in the biomedical sciences and to develop cures for a wide range of diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and degenerative diseases including muscular dystrophy and Alzheimer's disease.

The Facts – Boston Biomedical Research Institute

• was founded in 1968
• focuses its research in four programmatic areas: Cancer Biology, Cardiovascular Biology, Integrated Protein Biology, and Regenerative Biology
• is a fully independent nonprofit institute, unaffiliated with any hospital or university
• scientists have access to a suite of shared, state-of-the-art equipment, and they conduct their work in a non-hierarchical, interdisciplinary setting
• has unique internal mentorship program for grant writing, which increases the success rate of NIH grant funding above the national level
• gets more than 75 percent of its funding from federal grants
• is home to nearly 100 biomedical researchers, including 35 faculty members
• provides training to 30 postdoctoral fellows as part of its educational outreach mission
• has a 26-member Board of Trustees and 70 Corporators, along with a six Trustees Emeriti and a Scientific Advisory Board who provide leadership to the Institute
• has recruited 8 talented scientists since 2007 from some of the foremost labs in the country
• is an awardee of the National Institutes of Health $9 million Senator Paul Wellstone Cooperative Research Center grant for the study of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy
• has established an Adult Stem Cell Technology Center under the direction of Dr. James Sherley, who has been a Pew Scholar, an Ellison Medical Foundation Scholar, and is currently an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award Recipient

History of Scientific and Organizational Excellence

1949 – The Retina Foundation is founded by Charles Schepens

1951 – The laboratory of the Retina Foundation is established in a tenement house on 30 Chambers Street of Boston’s old West End, with Endre Balazs as the first full-time member of the research staff creating a program centered on the biology and physical chemistry of hyaluronic acid, a key component of joint and eye fluids.

1961 – John Gergely joins the Foundation to initiate a program in muscle research which subsequently becomes internationally prominent. This program makes fundamental contributions to the characterization of the proteins that constitute skeletal muscle. These include the elucidation of the role of the troponins, which are important regulatory components of skeletal and heart muscle now known to play a role in the early diagnosis of heart attacks.

1962 – The Institute of Biological and Medical Sciences of the Retina Foundation moves into a new building at 20 Staniford Street in Boston. The building is erected, at the cost of $2 million, on land made available by the urban development project in the West End of Boston

1964-69 – The research facilities at 20 Staniford Street are enlarged and scientists in other areas of basic biomedical research, such as bioenergetics and developmental biology, are recruited so as to provide a well-rounded biomedical research program to complement the Institute’s clinical eye research efforts.

1968 – The Retina Foundation evolved into two separate institutions: the Boston Biomedical Research Institute, which is granted a rent-free 50-year lease of one-half the space at Staniford Street, and the Eye Research Institute of the Retina Foundation, which is later known as the Schepens Eye Research Institute.

1972-1979 BBRI's muscle research program makes fundamental contributions to the characterization of the proteins that constitute skeletal muscle. These included the elucidation of the role of the troponins, which are important regulatory components of skeletal and cardiac muscle and have come to play a key role in the early diagnosis of heart attacks.

1982 – Boston Biomedical files its first patent application in the area of immunotechnology and received corporate research support for further research in this field. This patented technology is later licensed to a biopharmaceutical company for use in cancer immunotherapy.

1992 – A major 15-year program in smooth muscle research is initiated at the Institute with the support of three consecutive $6 million program project grants from the National Institutes of Health. A better understanding of smooth muscle contraction has great relevance to numerous diseases including hypertension, stroke, asthma and premature labor.

1995 With the appointment of Kathleen Morgan as BBRI's Director, the Institute concentrates on three major areas relevant to muscle research - cell motility, cell communication and cell growth.

1996 – A challenge grant from a leading Boston foundation provides the cornerstone for the establishment of a major structural biology facility at the Institute for the analysis of proteins at the atomic level. This bold move has led to BBRI forming an excellent structural biology group that has made important discoveries published in Nature and Science.

2000 – The Institute moves to a new state-of-the-art research facility in Watertown, Massachusetts. The new facility allows 50% more space for the expansion of its faculty.

2003 – Boston Biomedical recruits Dr. Charles Emerson, formerly Chair of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, to be its Director. Completing its $6.5 million A Campaign for BBRI: Intellectual Partners for the Future of Science, the Institute meets two major challenge grants from the Kresge Foundation and a second anonymous foundation.

2006 – The Institute drafts a five-year strategic plan and forms four interdisciplinary programmatic initiatives that focus on disease-based basic research and build upon and bring together the unique strengths of the Institute. Programmatic areas include Cancer Biology, Cardiovascular Biology, Degenerative Disease and Regenerative Biology, and Integrated Protein Biology.

2007 – The Institute welcomes eight researchers, both established and new investigators to add new expertise and collaborations to existing research programs in areas of muscle disease and heart damage, developmental signaling and stem cell cancers, stem cell biology, aging and tissue regeneration, and mathematics/computational biology.

2008 – US National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards a nine million dollar grant to open the Senator Paul D. Wellstone Center for Cooperative Research. Boston Biomedical is the host institution, and Charles Emerson, Jr. PhD. is named co-director. One of five Wellstone Centers in the United States, it is the only one in New England, and the only center in the world to focus solely on finding treatments and cures for the second most common adult form of muscular dystrophy known as facioscapulohumeral (FSH) muscular dystrophy.

The Institute celebrates 40 years of Independence, honoring co-founders Dr. Endre Balazs and Dr. John Gergely