From its beginnings, much of the research has been focused on understanding the nature of what made a person healthy, and understanding what happens when immunity malfunctions. ^[1] OMRF scientists continue to study how the human immune system forms — or fails to form — immune responses, and to create and test effective treatments.^[2]

At one time, the Foundation operated a research hospital, where patients would come for ongoing study and experimental treatments. The 14-room hospital opened in July, 1951 and the first patient was Lillian Sims. ^[3] Other patients allowed researchers to study the effects of idleness and of nutrition. Many children came as a last-ditch hope in their waning days of serious illness.^[4] The hospital closed in 1976 and now only does out-patient study and consults to nearby hospitals. ^[5]

OMRF uses a cross-disciplinary approach to medical research that has helped its scientists generate more than 700 U.S. and international patents.^[6] The top areas of study are heart disease, Cancer, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and immune-response diseases such as Lupus, Sjögren's syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis and Arthritis^{[7] [8]}

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Request minor revision to 2d paragraph:

OMRF’s scientists (remove 'who include a member of the National Academy of Sciences,') conduct quality health research at lead to commercial products.^[1] Together, they hold more than 700 U.S. and international patents and have spun off 11 biotech companies. Example discoveries at OMRF are technologies that led to Xigris (the first FDA-approved drug for the treatment of severe sepsis), Ceprotin (a therapy for people suffering from a rare and life-threatening blood disorder known as protein C deficiency) and the enzyme believed responsible for Alzheimer’s disease, which laid the groundwork for OncoVue,[2] a breast cancer risk assessment test.

DeknMike (talk) 18:25, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Recommend changing the last paragraph and renaming 'Funding'

OMRF is funded through individual contributions and foundation and government grants. Although most of the current funding is from federal grants, the bulk of the remainder comes from within Oklahoma.^[2][3] In the early days, Oklahoma oil companies funded the majority of the work, although contributions also included passing donation buckets at college football games, farmers dedicating the profits from one acre of wheat, and even Foundation staff soliciting contributions on the city streets.^[4] Memorial grants continue to play a meaningful role in funding, and social societies routinely make significant bequests. ^[5][6] All but the first of its seven buildings came from major gifts to the Foundation. ^[7]

Independent rating service Charity Navigator notes 91.1% of the charity's $75 Million of expenses are for the programs and services it delivers and only 6.1% on administrative expenses. Charity Navigator has a rating score that assesses financial health, accountability and transparency; for 2017, they assessed OMRF as Category 4 of 4 (the highest) with a score of 93.94.^[2]

One of the more unusual contributions is a share in the royalties of the musical Oklahoma!. Lynn Riggs wrote one of the play's songs, “Green Grow the Lilacs.” When he died, he willed his 1% royalty to his 4 siblings. When his brother William Edgar Riggs died, OMRF received rights to that one-quarter share. As of the end of 2018, it has generated over $700,000 in earnings.^[4]

Recommending adding a new section about the President of the Foundation, titled 'Leadership'

Dr Stephen Prescott became President of OMRF in 2006. He had already established his credentials as a leader in studies of the basic mechanisms of human disease, authoring more than 250 scientific articles and training 40 research students and postdoctoral fellows. At the University of Utah, he founded the Eccles Program in Human and Molecular Biology & Genetics and was executive director of the Huntsman Cancer Institute. He has been elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association of American Physicians, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland, and the Royal Academy of Medicine in Spain. He is the founder of the biotechnology company LineaGen. ^[8] In addition to serving as President of a cancer research center, Dr Prescott also serves on medical and scientific advisory committees for the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society. ^[9]

First proposed change: In the Research section (Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation#Research), please insert the following sentences to make a new paragraph at the beginning of the section:

OMRF conducts its research across five different divisions: Aging & Metabolism,^[1] Arthritis & Clinical Immunology,^[2] Cardiovascular Biology,^[3] Cell Cycle & Cancer Biology,^[4] and Genes & Human Disease.^[5]

Why it should be changed: This paragraph provides up to date information about how the foundation organizes its research clusters, and is supported by reliable sourcing.

Second proposed change: In the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation#Alzheimer's and brain diseases subsection, please replace the existing content with the following two sentences:

In 2000, OMRF researchers created an inhibitor that, in vitro, stopped the enzyme thought to cause Alzheimer's disease.^[6][7] In 2007, OMRF researchers found evidence of a molecular mechanism that links an Alzheimer’s susceptibility gene called “E4” to the onset of the disease.^[8]

Why it should be changed: The present subsection is very poorly sourced, with much of the information having no source at all. Parts of it read like resumes for individual researchers, or are otherwise WP:PROMOTIONAL in tone. This new version is condensed and only contains information that can be confirmed by reliable press reports.

Third proposed change: In the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation#Alzheimer's and brain diseases subsection, please add the following sentence to become the new third sentence, following the two sentences proposed in item 2.

In 2023, OMRF researchers began studying the connection between estrogen and Alzheimer’s in postmenopausal women.^[9]

Why it should be changed: The current subsection is missing information past 2007. The suggested sentence uses a reliable source to summarize recent research at OMRF and helps to bring the subsection up to date.

Fourth proposed change:

In the Research section’s subsection, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation#Alzheimer's and brain diseases, please change the heading from “Alzheimer's and brain diseases” to “Aging & Metabolism.”

Why it should be changed:

‘Aging & Metabolism’ is the current name of this research program at OMRF and this is how the press now refers to it. See: the Journal Record and The New York Times In this case, the name of the program is a “straightforward, descriptive statement of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.” so can also be established with the OMRF website.

Fifth proposed change:

In the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation#Cancer and immunobiology subsection, please replace the existing paragraph with the following version:

In 2003, OMRF researchers developed a genetic test for assessing breast cancer risk in women.^[10][11] In 2006, OMRF researchers were able to reverse mitotic exit (cell division) in vertebrate cells.^[12][13][14]

Why it should be changed: The existing version contains inaccurate or out of date information, is poorly sourced, and in places reads like a resume for individual researchers. This new version removes WP:TMI, provides reliable sourcing for all statements and focuses only on research findings from leading peer-reviewed journals.

Not all of the sources cited above are easily found online, so here’s the content from ones which are not readily available:

The Scotsman, 13 April 2006:

A team led by Dr Gary Gorbsky at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) was able to interrupt and reverse cell division by manipulating a key protein.
The findings may prove important in controlling the development and spread of certain cancers. They also hold out the promise of prevention and treatment of birth defects and a wide range of other conditions.

Birmingham Mail, 13 Apr 2006:

A team led by Dr Gary Gorbsky at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) was able to interrupt and reverse cell division by manipulating a key protein.
The scientists were even able to send duplicate chromosomes, the packages of DNA containing genes, back to the centre of the original cell that gave rise to them - an achievement previously thought to be impossible.
Dr Gorbsky, whose research appears in the journal Nature today, said: "No-one has gotten the cell cycle to go backwards before now."

Sixth proposed change:

In the Research section’s subsection, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation#Cancer and immunobiology, please change the heading to “Cell Cycle & Cancer Biology”.

Why it should be changed: ‘Cell Cycle & Cancer Biology’ is the current name of this research program at OMRF and this is how the press now refers to it. See for example, the Journal Record. In this case, the name of the program is a “straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.” so can also be established with the OMRF website.

Seventh proposed change: In the Heart and blood diseases subsection, please replace the existing two sentences with the following:

In the 1980s, OMRF researchers conducted several studies on protein C and developed a treatment for sepsis which utilized activated protein C.^[15][16][17]

Why it should be changed: This version provides information about OMRF research into protein C in the 1980s that eventually led to the development of a treatment which was later patented in 1991 and licensed to drugmaker Eli Lilly and Company in 1994. It’s an important highlight that merits inclusion in this article.

Eighth proposed change: The current version of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation#Lupus and autoimmune diseases subsection can be shortened into a brief paragraph comprising of the most important details, which unlike the present version, is supported by secondary sources rather than WP:PRIMARY websites:

In 1995, OMRF researchers established a national registry and data repository for studying the genetic causes of systemic lupus erythematosus.^[18][19] In 2021, a study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that over a 50-year period beginning in 1971, OMRF contributed the most publications on lupus in the United States.^[20]

Why it should be changed: The existing paragraph is poorly sourced and contains both WP:TMI and some WP:PROMOTIONAL content. The proposed replacement rectifies those issues, and also replaces questionable WP:PRIMARY sources with a reliable press source and a relevant primary source, not to establish facts, but just for reference.

Ninth proposed change: In the Research section’s subsection, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation#Lupus and autoimmune diseases, please change the heading to “Genes & Human Disease”.

Why it should be changed: ‘Genes & Human Disease’ is the current name of this research program at OMRF and this is how the press now refers to it. See for example, the Journal Record here. In this case, the name of the program is a “straightforward, descriptive statement of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.” so can also be established with the OMRF website.