2010 ALR One Love. One Cause. Gala Celebration
December 8, 20106:30 pm Cocktail Reception 7:30 pm Dinner and Award Presentation
Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 80 Columbus Circle at 60th Street, New York City
The Alliance for Lupus Research (ALR) was pleased to honor Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation Chairman and CEO, at its 2010 One Love One Cause Gala event on December 8, 2010. Mr. Murdoch’s eloquent and powerful speech at the celebration, along with his and News Corporation’s unwavering support of the ALR, demonstrates why he was chosen as the 2010 Gala honoree. We would like to share Mr. Murdoch’s touching words as inspiration in the continuation of the ALR’s mission to Prevent, Treat and Cure lupus:
Rupert Murdoch Remarks – ALR Dinner
Wednesday, December 8, 2010Thank you too for this award.
I’m very proud to be here tonight with the Alliance for Lupus Research. I do not need to tell anyone in this room how cruel this disease is. It is cruel because it turns our own immune systems – something that is supposed to protect our bodies – into something that attacks our bodies.
Like Woody and Bob, most of you are here tonight because you have someone close to you who suffers from Lupus. In other words, you are here out of love. And because you love, you refuse to accept that there is nothing you can do.
And you are right.
The ALR is a unique institution. Most institutions are looking for ways to perpetuate themselves into eternity. In sharp contrast, your work is all designed to bring us to a great day – the day that ALR will no longer be needed.
I cannot think of a more splendid endeavor.
As the chairman of a media company, scientific research is well outside my area of expertise. And all of you, of course, know much more about lupus than I do.
In many ways, however, we seek the same precious commodity: information. Information is the lifeblood of my world. Information is also what will eventually unlock the mystery of lupus – and lead to its defeat.
When ALR started up a decade ago, lupus was only dimly understood. You have changed that.
Because of your good works, some of our most brilliant minds are now devoting their talents and energies to unraveling the causes of this disease. Thanks to modern communications technology, these scientists literally have a world of knowledge before them.
A century ago, a scientist working in a research lab would be limited by time and distance. Your own list of grantees shows how much that has changed.
All of them have instant access to others. Today, for example, a researcher working at, say, the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia can instantly communicate his findings and questions to colleagues and scientists in Bombay, Boston, or Buenos Aires.
Widening the circle of communications is the key to discovery. Think about that. Today the answer to a question in Geneva might easily lead to a breakthrough tomorrow at Yale.
In the last few decades, this process has accelerated human progress – and greatly increased the chances for quickly finding a cure.
What does this mean for real people?
In business terms, it means that your approach – funding high-risk ventures geared to results – is paying off.
In scientific terms, it means that we can expect an increasingly shorter time between a scientific discovery in a lab and a treatment offered by a drug company.
Most important, in human terms it means that a mom sitting in a hospital room next to a son diagnosed with lupus can look to the future with hope.
When I was a child, science was not nearly as advanced as it is today. It wasn’t all that long ago that mothers and fathers kept their children out of swimming pools because they feared polio. Today polio is something that largely belongs to history.
And not only polio. In my lifetime, I have seen medicine find treatments or cures for many once deadly diseases: malaria … smallpox … tetanus … diphtheria … whooping cough … measles ... and so on.
With each grant, you increase the possibilities. With each breakthrough, the list grows. And with each breakthrough, another human life becomes whole … another dream is made real … and another family is rewarded for never ever giving up hope.
Ladies and gentlemen, I leave you tonight with two thoughts. The first is that one day soon, we will add “lupus” to the roll of once-deadly diseases that we have brought under control. The second is that when that great day arrives, we will have the ALR to thank.
Thank you for listening … thank you again for this award ... and thank you for all you do to create a world where no man, woman, or child is ever again touched by lupus."
