W. M. KECK FOUNDATION 2013 annual report IMPACT 3D printing of customized BONE IMPLANTS Apps as a gateway to majoring in COMPUTER SCIENCE Technology harnessed for EDUCATIONAL GAINS Nanodiamonds sensing BRAIN CIRCUITRY W. M. KECK FOUNDATION 2013 ANNUAL REPORT CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE As we celebrate the W. M. Keck Foundation’s 60th anniversary in 2014, it is with great pride that I write to you about the tremendous impact our grantees continue to make in diverse fields of science and medicine, in undergraduate education and in the Los Angeles community. With a mission to provide far-reaching benefits to humanity, the W. M. Keck Foundation is not only engaged in grantmaking that makes possible the cutting-edge research it funds today, but it is also investing in the exponential impact that the research and its findings will have in the future. I am pleased to share accounts of past grants in this year’s report that exemplify recent impact. After you have read these, I encourage you to visit our website periodically to read other impact stories that we post. You will read about 3D printing technology that researchers are harnessing to manufacture replacement parts for the human body. After years of struggling with less precise methods, the scientists we fund are developing new ways to monitor neuronal activity in the brain. Ironically, since this is our diamond jubilee, I note that their breakthrough involves the use of diamond crystals. In this era of growing need for a technologically savvy workforce, a grantee in our undergraduate program is attracting students into programming through an alluring “App Inventor.” We also continue our commitment to promoting the arts, civic engagement and community services, early childhood and K-12 education, and health care programs in Los Angeles. This year’s report highlights a charter school organization that is piloting a blended learning model that fosters the highest levels of excellence in very low income neighborhoods. Since our last report in June 2013, we have had a number of changes to our board. After retiring in December 2012, Marsh A. Cooper passed away in July 2013. Marsh joined the board in 1980 and served for 32 years on numerous committees. His guidance, thoughtful advice, irreplaceable friendship and selfless devotion to this Foundation were instrumental in its growth from its early funding through his retirement. In January 2014, we were saddened by the passing of my younger brother, Theodore James Day. T.J.’s selfless devotion to the causes he loved extended to this Foundation started by our grandfather, W. M. Keck, Sr. T.J. served for more than 40 years on our board as director and on numerous committees. T.J. was a director of a private exploration company, Western Page 2 | W. M. KECK FOUNDATION Exploration and Development, and a director of the Reno Championship Air Races. He served for 25 years as a director of NV Energy and its predecessor, Sierra Pacific Resources. T.J. sat on numerous philanthropic boards, including Linfield College, Stevenson School and the Nevada Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. In May 2014, we also lost my cousin, William Myron Keck, II. Bill served for more than 50 years on our board as an officer, director and on numerous committees. Bill always worked hard to preserve our family’s heritage and to extend our Foundation’s charitable reach begun with our grandfather’s founding gift. Bill was the president of Coalinga Corporation and active on the board of the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics. He also served on numerous educational and charitable boards, including USC, Harvey Mudd College and the Good Samaritan Hospital. T.J. and Bill each will be missed tremendously by all of us on the board as well as by our staff, family and friends. This year also saw the retirement of two significant contributors to our board, the Honorable David A. Thomas and John E. Kolb. Both served the Foundation for 28 years with distinction, knowledge and wisdom. The members and directors of the Foundation join me in expressing their deep appreciation and thanks to David and John for their many years of service to the Foundation, to charity and to the public. I am delighted to welcome two leaders to our board, Dr. William R. Brody, President of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and Dr. James S. Economou, Vice Chancellor for Research at UCLA. They have already begun to contribute their good judgment. We welcome their insights. I am pleased to report that the Foundation continues to prosper financially, with year-end total assets of $1.25 billion. The directors approved 62 grants totaling $36.8 million, and we distributed grants totaling over $54 million, including prior commitments and new awards. We look forward to continued growth in 2014. For 60 years, the Foundation has supported the highest levels of academic inquiry and discovery conducted by the finest researchers at the most innovative institutions in the United States. The W. M. Keck Foundation has made grants totaling over $1.6 billion. We have seen the real-world impact as these ideas have come to fruition. We look forward to promoting high-risk, high-impact projects for years to come. Sincerely, ROBERT A. DAY Chairman and Chief Executive Officer W. M. KECK FOUNDATION | Page 3 — I M P A CT — Washington State University 3D printing of customized BONE IMPLANTS In an age when 3D printers are increasingly being used to make custom-designed objects, a team of researchers at Washington State University (WSU) is using the technology to manufacture replacement parts for the human body. A husband and wife duo, materials scientist Susmita Bose and materials engineer Amit Bandyopadhyay, are leading the effort to create not only custom-designed implants, but implants that can also mimic the properties of human bone. A 2004 W. M. Keck Foundation grant helped them develop this capability through a combination of rapid prototyping and materials processing technologies and an understanding of interactions between bone cells and implant materials. Example of patient-specific implants using 3D printing Ten years ago, the duo realized they would need twelve years – a statistic that has remained constant to address three major problems with bone implants: for the past sixty years. The researchers at WSU saw 1. The difference in stiffness between implant metals the need for a technique that would enable precise and natural bone causes stress-shielding; because control of the microstructure, porosity, shape and size the much stronger metal carries the load, the of any given part. They found this capability in “laser surrounding bone weakens, loosening the implant engineered net shaping” (LENS®). In one operation, and making the remaining bone more vulnerable the LENS® technique uses computer-aided models to fracture. based on body scan data to form implants that 2. The dense metallic structure does not bond well match exactly the shape and size of the real bone. with the variably porous bone. It also allows the formation of features such as 3. The gradual release of metal ions from the hollow passages, the deposition and encapsulation of implant results in a biocompatibility conflict multiple materials, and a transitioning between those between the implant and the natural bone. materials in both abrupt and graded fashions. The These problems have meant that total hip team went further in developing new implant lining replacements have an average life of only seven to materials in the form of nano-crystalline calcium Page 4 | W. M. KECK FOUNDATION phosphates that can be absorbed by the body. The hours, the first iteration of design can be done. It specific composition of the calcium phosphate lining then takes another five to six hours to manufacture it. can be tuned so that the rate at which it is absorbed As long as the physician is connected to the Internet, matches the rate of new bone growth. within three days he or she can have a custom, According to Dr. Bandyopadhyay, “the most patient-specific implant in hand.” This is crucial exciting part is it doesn’t take months. Within a few for developing solutions for people with complex injuries, such as victims of traffic accidents or natural disasters. The WSU team expects that by 2020, custom-designed and manufactured implants will become commonplace. Personalized medicine has become a popular phrase just in the last ten years – this Keck grant is also showing the power of personalized engineering for our very own bones. Q Left: Measuring the electrochemical performance of ceramic lining materials Amit Bandyopadhyay and Susmita Bose in the W. M. Keck Biomedical Materials Research Lab — IMPAC T — University of San Francisco Apps as a gateway to majoring in COMPUTER SCIENCE For years, a disparity has grown between the technological needs of today’s workforce and the number of students willing and able to master a fundamental language of the culture: programming. With a W. M. Keck Foundation grant, the University of San Francisco (USF) is addressing this problem by teaching students to create apps for their own mobile devices – an activity deeply motivating for the college-age population. The approach is made possible by a new programming language called App Inventor. Developed at Google and MIT (with contribu- tions from USF), App Inventor features a simple, visual interface in which users point, drag and click to generate a program rather than having to go through the arduous process of learning traditional code. App Inventor is intuitive, quick and easy; and of students engaging with computing. In 2013, the the process requires students to use the same kind Lab attracted more than 330,000 unique visitors to of problem-solving logic they would use for any a website it developed to teach beginners how to other programming language.