“What she’s done for medical science, the arts and education is outright phenomenal,” says Tom Wight, PhD, Director of Benaroya Research Institute’s Matrix Biology Program. He’s talking about his grade school friend Ann Ramsay-Jenkins. They were good friends growing up together in Portland, Maine, but lost track of each other after high school.

Ann graduated from Skidmore College with a bachelor’s degree in public health administration and eventually was selected as a White House Fellow, and assigned to the Special Action Office of Drug Abuse Prevention in the White House. She served in the Office of Management & Budget, Executive Office of the President, and as director of the Office of Budgets at Harvard University. She was a director of Indian Heads Bank and assistant general manager of a public television station in New Hampshire and held a variety of other positions.

Renewing a Friendship

Eventually she made her way to the Northwest and served on the boards of many organizations. It was while she was chairing the board of UW Medicine that she saw a photo of her friend Dr. Wight in the lobby. As a professor of pathology at UW, he was a featured speaker at an upcoming lecture. When Ann called his office, their friendship was renewed. She recently asked Dr. Wight for a tour of his lab at BRI.

“The significance of his research is enormously impressive so I wanted to support his work,” says Ann. “I think it’s vitally important to push discoveries forward and encourage people to give to these cutting-edge endeavors.” With a $300,000 gift, Ann created the Ann Ramsay-Jenkins and William M. Jenkins Fellowship for Matrix Biology.

“We will use the generous fellowship to ensure bright young scientists with great potential can have an opportunity for support while they begin their research careers,” says Dr. Wight. “It is very difficult to get grant funding right away and this fellowship will help us keep talented young people. This is a tremendous boost to our program and will help accelerate our research. We greatly appreciate Ann’s gift.”

The Matrix Biology Program at BRI focuses on the extracellular matrix, which is the material surrounding cells. Scientists are working to develop therapeutics to treat diseases based on regulating the impact of extracellular matrix on disease progression. The extracellular matrix contributes to heart and blood vessel diseases, cancer and diseases of the immune system such as type 1 diabetes.