Rosetrees Trust

Rosetrees Trust is a registered charity (298582) based in the Edgware, North London, that provides grant funding to biomedical research.

Rosetrees Trust was created in 1987 and uses venture philanthropy to find and fund medical researchers across a broad range of illnesses.^[1]

Chairman and Trustee Richard Ross won Spears' Philanthropist of the year in 2011.^[2] He notably donated so much of his fortune to charity that in 2015 he dropped off the Sunday Times Rich List ^[3]

History

Rosetrees is a private family charity, established in 1987 by Nat and Teresa Rosenbaum, who decided they wanted to give back to society, having started with nothing themselves. They agreed that prevention of illnesses was far more effective than paying for treatment and care, and medical research became their absolute passion.

More than 25 years later, Rosetrees supports over 250 medical research projects across all major illnesses. The trust uses an endowment provided by the founding family and co-funds with a number of partners including the Stoneygate Trust, Lombard Odier, Market Securities and Wessex Medical Research. Development finance lenders Regentsmead make donations to Rosetrees Trust.

Aims of Charity

The vision of Rosetrees Trust is to make a difference today and every day, through medical research.^[4]

Rosetrees provides grants to researchers both established and at the start of their career, to conduct medical research, with the principal aim of patient benefit.^[5]

A high percentage of grants are awarded to early career stage basic and clinician scientists to encourage the next generation of leading researchers, and pilot/proof-of-concept projects to generate the preliminary evidence required to obtain funding for large-scale studies.

Activity

Rosetrees Trust supports a network of researchers and universities across Great Britain and Israel. The Trust currently supports over 250 projects across all major illnesses, including neurodegenerative disorders, cancer, infectious diseases, obesity, paediatrics, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and more.^[6]

Since its establishment it has helped to secure over £200 million of grants from major funders such as the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council (UK) and Cancer Research UK.

Current initiatives include a yearly inter-disciplinary prize and a PhD prize.^[7]

Recent achievements

Alongside other funding bodies Rosetrees Trust has made donations to research that has led to breakthroughs covered by the media:

1. Pre-clinical studies for research that reversed a man's paralysis using cells from the nose^[8]
2. Finding a potential cause for 40% of pre-term births^[9]
3. Discovering that lung cancer can stay dormant for 20 years^[10]
4. Using stem cells to treat blindness^[11]
5. A discovery into the genetic makeup of tumours which reportedly has the potential to open a new front in the war on cancer, delivering therapies tailored to individual patients^[12]

References