Pearson Family Chair to Support Forward-Looking Alcohol and Addiction Research
By Mika Ono Benedyk
Endowed chairs bring with them prestige and security, so when Professor Barbara Mason learned she would hold The Pearson Family Chair, a newly endowed position in alcohol and addiction research at The Scripps Research Institute, she was thrilled.
"The chair provides assurance that the team I assembled at The Scripps Research Institute can carry on our exciting work, which has great potential to help people in recovery," says Mason. "As part of the Pearson Center, the chair also gives me the freedom to conduct early proof-of-concept studies and quickly build on preclinical and clinical findings, work that could be delayed for years if we had to wait for National Institutes of Health funding, or never done at all."
The Pearson Family Chair was established with a gift from philanthropist and entrepreneur Mark Pearson, who also established the Pearson Center for Alcoholism and Addiction Research at Scripps Research in 2003. The center, co-directed by Mason and Professor George Koob, combines the latest biomedical research with new clinical treatments to fight the devastating, costly, and deadly disease of alcohol and drug addiction.
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