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University of Sydney researcher wins coveted $8 million Snow Fellowship

Image: Professor Ju’s micro-device is being developed to help monitor blood for dangerous changes and potential clots. Credit: University of Sydney

The Fellowship will support the development of a micro-device that monitors and alerts people at risk of a heart attack or stroke to dangerous changes in the blood and possible clots.

Associate Professor Ju is the first engineer and University of Sydney recipient of the Fellowship. This year, he is one of only two emerging medical researchers, including Dr Michelle Boyle from the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, who will receive a million dollars a year for eight years, creating an unprecedented level of long-term support for their work. The Snow Fellowships are provided by the Snow Family, through Snow Medical, in recognition of the exceptional, visionary work the Fellows, and their teams, are doing in their chosen biomedical field.

“The impact of this Fellowship cannot be overstated. I congratulate Associate Professor Ju and his team on this powerful endorsement of their research which has the potential to save the lives of countless people both in Australia and around the world. I applaud Snow Medical Research Foundation (Snow Medical) for their generosity and commitment to the future of medicine and to accelerating the possibilities of this research,” said Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Mark Scott AO.

“We are proud and grateful to work with Snow Medical in mutually pursuing the ambitious goal of undertaking world-class research to solve global challenges.”

Professor Ju and his team. Credit: University of Sydney

Associate Professor Ju is an award-winning biomedical engineer who applies engineering principles to understand the cardiovascular system at molecular and cellular scales, leading the development of microtechnologies to monitor changes in the blood.

Associate Professor Ju said: "I'm incredibly honoured to have been awarded the Snow Fellowship and I would like to express my sincere gratitude for their trust and support in our work.

"The road from research and development to the deployment of new medical devices is often challenging. The Fellowship, which provides unparalleled and sustained funding for eight years, will give us the necessary support to navigate this journey.”

University of Sydney Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Emma Johnston congratulated Associate Professor Ju and thanked Snow Medical and the Snow family for their support: “We are immensely proud of Arnold – the University’s first Snow Fellow. Arnold is an exciting young engineer and physicist whose multidisciplinary work is set to revolutionise cardiovascular health in Australia and globally.

"The remarkable generosity of the Snow family and the Snow Medical Research Foundation in funding these 8-year fellowships is truly transformational. Their vision is accelerating the ambitious research of extraordinary talents like Arnold."

The Snow Fellowship will support Dr Ju and his team to investigate cardiovascular mechanobiology at a cellular and biomolecular level, allowing them to gain insight into how sticky blood clots are triggered. This knowledge will be the foundation for the development of cutting-edge biomechanical nanotools and analysis that will form the basis of a clinical grade micro-device to predict blood clot tendency.

"Heart attacks are the leading cause of death globally. With Snow Medical's generous support, we’re hopeful we can make significant progress towards developing a finger prick test and device that can detect early signs of blood clots and alert individuals before a heart attack or stroke happens,” said Associate Professor Ju who heads the University’s Mechanobiology and Biomechanics Laboratory (MBL).

Associate Professor Ju is motivated by his family's experience with heart disease and his desire to make a difference to the lives of those at risk of heart attacks and strokes.

“The motivation for my research is personal,” he said. “My father had a heart attack when he was just 54 years old, inspiring my personal quest to build a simple test to notify people at risk of developing a deadly blood clot.”

Associate Professor Hu's research inspiration is his father, Li Hu. Credit: Associate Professor Lining (Arnold) Ju.

The additional $16 million investment for these two new Fellowships brings Snow Medical’s commitment to the medical research sector to over $100 million since its establishment in 2020.

"Michelle Boyle and Lining Ju are amongst the best biomedical researchers globally. They join nine other truly outstanding Snow Fellows across Australia. Our Snow Fellows have the passion, dedication, and vision to make a real difference in the world, and we are excited to see how they will push the boundaries for science," said Snow Medical Chair Tom Snow.

"Snow Medical wants the best minds in the country focused on solving the world’s big problems instead of being wasted chasing funding. The existing system of short-term funding cycles creates a rut for our brilliant researchers, cutting back their ability to make a difference. We wanted to change that. Our 11 Snow Fellows, and their teams, are changing the face of healthcare in Australia and globally.

“Our family recognised that short term funding cycles were creating a rut for many of our brilliant and highly advanced researchers, with these research teams and their institutions, spending too much time securing capital, cutting back their ability to make a difference. We wanted to change that."

Micro-device designed to monitor the blood for dangerous changes

Snow Medical Founder Terry Snow added: “I want this funding to change the status quo, I don’t want our Snow Fellows wasting time applying for short term funding. I want them to take this opportunity, use it to do what they do best, and get on with the business of research; to push the boundaries of what's possible."

"Without investing in the people who will drive innovation and take risks, we're missing the point. By supporting Australia’s brightest minds to lead the way, they’ll find solutions that will make a real difference in people's lives."

The Snow Fellowship Announcement comes on the back of a recent announcement by Snow Medical of a new Gender Equality Benchmark that assesses gender equality in education institutions, across thirty-two gender equality measures in three key areas: women’s inclusion in senior leadership, recognition of women through awards such as honorary doctorates, and the promotion and recruitment of women in scientific staff. Results of the benchmarking will determine eligibility for future Snow Medical funding.

The making of the micro-device

About Associate Professor Arnold Ju

Associate Professor Ju received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, before working at the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases and the Heart Research Institute. He has received numerous awards, including the Royal Society of NSW Edgeworth David Medal, and was recognised as an Innovator Under 35 by MIT Technology Review in 2021 and a Young Tall Poppy Science Award Winner in 2020. He is a member of Sydney Nano and the Charles Perkins Centre. 

About Snow Medical Research Foundation The Snow Medical Research Foundation (Snow Medical) is the creation of Canberra’s Snow family and is a vision of businessman and philanthropist, Terry Snow. Snow Medical’s pivotal program, the Snow Fellowships, targets emerging global research leaders that show the potential to drive, manage and influence the next generation of health and medical innovation.

The eight-year Snow Fellowship, funded at up to $1 million per year, provides outstanding biomedical researchers the independence to focus on building ambitious multidisciplinary research programs and teams capable of changing the face of healthcare in Australia and globally.

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Snow Medical to revolutionise immunology research globally with $100 million gift

• Emphasis of funding is the long-term support for scientists to undertake bold research.
• Debilitating autoimmune disorders collectively affect up to 10% of the population.
• Centre to open in 2024 and will look at immune health from a whole-of-person perspective.

In one of the largest and longest-running philanthropic partnerships in Australian history, the Snow Medical Research Foundation (Snow Medical) announced this week that it will work with the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute to establish one of the world’s leading immunology research centres with an initial commitment of $100 million over 10 years. It will be called the Snow Centre for Immune Health, and the emphasis of the funding is to create the long-term capacity to allow scientists to pursue bold research programs. Ongoing investments are expected beyond 10 years.

Snow Medical says the gift will help move away from incremental science in a bid to solve the grand challenges of immunology. The partnership is people-focused and will support some of Australia’s best scientists and their teams to pursue their visionary and high-risk, high-reward work that is expected to fundamentally change how immunological diseases are treated.

Snow Medical Chair Tom Snow said: “We searched the country to find the best teams with the brightest ideas, and we chose to home this project at WEHI as we are confident it will help transform the lives of so many Australians with immunological disease.

“We empower bold, transformative research across Australia by backing the best and brightest researchers – and resourcing them with the tools they need to be world-class.”

The $100 million commitment more than doubles Snow Medical’s investment in medical research from $100 million in the four years since 2019 to more than $200 million.

“This is about our family’s commitment to long-term sustainable positive impact for the community, and it builds on the legacy of the Snow Fellowship program, research funding and other community-based philanthropy. We could not be more proud.”

Terry Snow, Canberra businessman, philanthropist and Snow Medical founder, said: “Australia has some of the best researchers in the world. We want to get them out of short-term funding cycles and give them freedom to experiment and take risks – we’re here to back them.

“ WEHI researchers have always been known for their outstanding commitment to excellence. They presented us with a bold and ambitious vision for Australian research – they’re going to change the lives of millions of Australians living with immune health issues,” he said.

Debilitating autoimmune disorders such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis collectively affect up to 10% of the population and account for some of our most significant chronic health problems. Treatments for immunological diseases are limited – many people are treated with blanket approaches and in some cases treatments don’t exist.

Most research globally to-date has focused on a disease by disease, project by project approach, and has frustratingly led to few new treatments. For the first time globally at scale, the centre will look at immune health from a whole-of-system, whole-of-person perspective, to deliver transformational real and measurable impacts for patients living with these debilitating diseases. The Centre will translate discoveries made in the lab to benefits for patients at unprecedented scale and speed.

As well as funding the next generation of exceptional young talented researchers, the Snow Medical partnership will also fund Snow Research Clinics. Initially with founding partner, the Royal Melbourne Hospital and then progressively across Victoria. The Snow Research Clinics will allow patients to join immune system trials, while also concurrently treating those most at-need with the best and latest research treatments. It will leapfrog Victoria forward to be one of the best places globally to treat immune diseases with the best treatments, says Snow Medical.

WEHI acting director Professor Alan Cowman said the Snow Centre for Immune Health will completely change the way we view the immune system, with the ambitious aim of revolutionising healthcare delivery to be about proactively predicting and preventing, instead of reacting to and treating, immune illness and disorders.

“The Centre will rapidly accelerate this growing field of research and do it at a scale not seen anywhere else in the world. We are deeply grateful to the Snow Medical Research Foundation and the Snow family for their vision, boldness and generosity, in backing this talented team and their revolutionary approach to how we understand and treat immune disease.”

The Centre will commence operation in early 2024, and is expected to employ more than 50 scientists, clinicians and staff within the first five years. Snow Medical said it chose to partner with WEHI to lead this initiative with national and international collaborators because of WEHI’s leadership and culture, which encourages scientific curiosity, develops young researchers and empowers high-performing teams. Built from strong philanthropic beginnings, WEHI has an outstanding track record in science and medical research, advancing equity and equality, institutional leadership and successful commercial development.

Jack Heath, CEO of Philanthropy Australia, said: “This is a stunning gift from the Snow Medical Research Foundation with the potential to benefit literally millions of people. Importantly, it stretches over a 10-year period, which gives the WEHI and Royal Melbourne Hospital teams the ability to plan for the long-term and maximise impact.” 

Professor Jo Douglass from the Royal Melbourne Hospital, who will co-lead the Centre, said that the long-term vision and funding from the Snow Medical Research Foundation would ensure her team could move beyond the short-term thinking that currently slows down major research discoveries from being translated.

The aim is for an efficient translation of research from bench to bedside, and the program will target rapid development of new diagnostics and therapies. “The integrated design of the Snow Centre for Immune Health will ensure the best treatments are immediately available to patients in the clinic. This signals a new era of partnership and reflects our shared purpose of building highly impactful and multidisciplinary research, together,” she said.

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Snow Centre for Immune Health to revolutionise global immunology research

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The Snow Medical Research Foundation (Snow Medical) will establish one of the world’s leading immunology research centres at WEHI through a partnership with an initial commitment of $100 million over 10 years – one of the largest and longest running philanthropic partnerships in Australian history. Further ongoing investments are expected beyond 10 years.

The substantial, long-term funding will allow researchers to pursue a bold and far-sighted research program beyond the short-term funding largely available in Australia. It helps move away from incremental science to solving the grand challenges of immunology. The partnership is people-focused and will support some of Australia’s best scientists and their teams to pursue their visionary and high risk, high reward work that is expected to fundamentally change how immunological diseases are treated.

“We empower bold transformative research across Australia by backing the best and brightest researchers – and resourcing them with the tools they need to be world-class,” Snow Medical Chair Tom Snow said.

“We searched the country to find the best teams with the brightest ideas, and we chose to home this project at WEHI as we are confident it will help transform the lives of so many Australians with immunological disease.”

This $100 million commitment more than doubles Snow Medical’s investment in medical research from $100 million over the four years since 2019 to over $200 million. “This is about our family’s commitment to long-term sustainable positive impact for the community, and it builds on the legacy of the Snow Fellowship program, research funding and other community-based philanthropy. We could not be more proud.”

“Australia has some of the best researchers in the world. We want to get them out of short-term funding cycles and give them freedom to experiment and take risks – we’re here to back them,” said Terry Snow AM, Canberra businessman, philanthropist and Snow Medical founder.

“WEHI researchers have always been known for their outstanding commitment to excellence. They presented us with a bold and ambitious vision for Australian research – they’re going to change the lives of millions of Australians living with immune health issues,” he added.

Through one of the largest and longest running philanthropic partnerships in Australian history, the Snow family will establish a world-leading research centre at WEHI that will revolutionise how we understand and treat immune diseases.

The Snow Centre for Immune Health will be co-led by WEHI and the Royal Melbourne Hospital and will bring together a team of leading Australian and international researchers to transform how we research and treat the immune system.

Debilitating autoimmune disorders such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis collectively affect up to 10% of the population and are some of our most significant chronic health problems. Treatments for many immunological diseases are limited – many people are treated with blanket approaches, and in some cases treatments don’t exist. Most research globally to-date has focused on a disease by disease, project by project approach, and has frustratingly led to few new treatments.

For the first time globally at a large scale, the Centre will look at immune health and the immune system from a whole-of-system, whole-of-person perspective, to deliver transformational real and measurable impacts for patients living with these debilitating diseases. The Centre will translate discoveries made in the lab to benefits for patients at unprecedented scale and speed.

As well as funding the next generation of exceptional young talented researchers, the Snow Medical partnership will also fund Snow Research Clinics. Initially with founding partner the Royal Melbourne Hospital and then progressively across Victoria. The Snow Research Clinics will allow patients to join immune system trials, while also concurrently treating those most at need with the best and latest research treatments. It will leapfrog Victoria forward to be one of the best places globally to treat immune diseases with the best treatments.

WEHI acting director Professor Alan Cowman AC , said the Snow Centre for Immune Health will completely change the way we view the immune system, with the ambitious aim of revolutionising healthcare delivery to be about proactively predicting and preventing, instead of reacting to and treating, immune illness and disorders.

“While research into immune health has traditionally focused on specific diseases or cells, the Snow Centre for Immune Health will invert this and look at the immune system from a ‘whole-of-system’ perspective – like we do for the cardiovascular and respiratory systems,” he said.

“The Centre will rapidly accelerate this growing field of research and do it at a scale not seen anywhere else in the world.

“We are deeply grateful to the Snow Medical Research Foundation and the Snow family for their vision, boldness and generosity, in backing this talented team and their revolutionary approach to how we understand and treat immune disease.”

Former WEHI Director Dr Doug Hilton AO played an instrumental role in co-developing the vision for the Centre with the Snow family.

“This Centre has the potential to entirely change the game when preventing, diagnosing and treating immune disease, which has a tremendous burden on the global community,” he said.

“This extraordinary investment from the Snow Medical Research Foundation has the power to solve some of the greatest puzzles in the human body. The scale of the centre, as well as the long-term backing of some of the brightest scientists in the country by the Snow family, will help accelerate this research for the good of the community.”

Professor Jo Douglass from the Royal Melbourne Hospital who will co-lead the Centre said that the long-term vision and funding from the Snow Medical Research Foundation would ensure her team could move beyond the short-term thinking that currently slows down major research discoveries from being translated.

“The Royal Melbourne Hospital is very proud and honoured to be working with Snow Medical and WEHI on the Snow Centre for Immune Health,” she said.

“The integrated design of the Snow Centre for Immune Health will ensure the best treatments are immediately available to patients in the clinic.”

“This signals a new era of partnership and reflects our shared purpose of building highly impactful and multidisciplinary research, together.  The Royal Melbourne Hospital looks forward to building on its commitment to research excellence for the best of health for all Victorians, the wider community, and beyond.”

Banner image left to right: Snow Medical Research Foundation Founder, Terry Snow AM, Snow Medical Research Foundation Founder, Ginette Snow, Snow Medical Research Foundation Chair, Tom Snow, at the announcement of the Snow Centre for Immune Health. Credit: WEHI

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Snow Centre for Immune Health to revolutionize global immunology research

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute

Left to right: Snow Medical Research Foundation Founder, Terry Snow AM, and Snow Medical Research Foundation Chair, Tom Snow. Credit: WEHI 

Credit: WEHI

The Snow Medical Research Foundation (Snow Medical) will establish one of the world’s leading immunology research centres at WEHI through a partnership with an initial commitment of $100 million over 10 years – one of the largest and longest running philanthropic partnerships in Australian history. Further ongoing investments are expected beyond 10 years.

The substantial, long-term funding will allow researchers to pursue a bold and far-sighted research program beyond the short-term funding largely available in Australia. It helps move away from incremental science to solving the grand challenges of immunology. The partnership is people-focused and will support some of Australia’s best scientists and their teams to pursue their visionary and high risk, high reward work that is expected to fundamentally change how immunological diseases are treated.

“We empower bold transformative research across Australia by backing the best and brightest researchers – and resourcing them with the tools they need to be world-class,” Snow Medical Chair Tom Snow said.

“We searched the country to find the best teams with the brightest ideas, and we chose to home this project at WEHI as we are confident it will help transform the lives of so many Australians with immunological disease.”

This $100 million commitment more than doubles Snow Medical’s investment in medical research from $100 million over the four years since 2019 to over $200 million. “This is about our family’s commitment to long-term sustainable positive impact for the community, and it builds on the legacy of the Snow Fellowship program, research funding and other community-based philanthropy. We could not be more proud.”

“Australia has some of the best researchers in the world. We want to get them out of short-term funding cycles and give them freedom to experiment and take risks – we’re here to back them,” said Terry Snow AM, Canberra businessman, philanthropist and Snow Medical founder.

“WEHI researchers have always been known for their outstanding commitment to excellence. They presented us with a bold and ambitious vision for Australian research – they’re going to change the lives of millions of Australians living with immune health issues,” he added.

Through one of the largest and longest running philanthropic partnerships in Australian history, the Snow family will establish a world-leading research centre at WEHI that will revolutionise how we understand and treat immune diseases.

The Snow Centre for Immune Health will be co-led by WEHI and the Royal Melbourne Hospital and will bring together a team of leading Australian and international researchers to transform how we research and treat the immune system.

Debilitating autoimmune disorders such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis collectively affect up to 10% of the population and are some of our most significant chronic health problems. Treatments for many immunological diseases are limited – many people are treated with blanket approaches, and in some cases treatments don’t exist. Most research globally to-date has focused on a disease by disease, project by project approach, and has frustratingly led to few new treatments.

For the first time globally at a large scale, the Centre will look at immune health and the immune system from a whole-of-system, whole-of-person perspective, to deliver transformational real and measurable impacts for patients living with these debilitating diseases. The Centre will translate discoveries made in the lab to benefits for patients at unprecedented scale and speed.

As well as funding the next generation of exceptional young talented researchers, the Snow Medical partnership will also fund Snow Research Clinics. Initially with founding partner the Royal Melbourne Hospital and then progressively across Victoria. The Snow Research Clinics will allow patients to join immune system trials, while also concurrently treating those most at need with the best and latest research treatments. It will leapfrog Victoria forward to be one of the best places globally to treat immune diseases with the best treatments.

WEHI acting director Professor Alan Cowman AC, said the Snow Centre for Immune Health will completely change the way we view the immune system, with the ambitious aim of revolutionising healthcare delivery to be about proactively predicting and preventing, instead of reacting to and treating, immune illness and disorders.

“While research into immune health has traditionally focused on specific diseases or cells, the Snow Centre for Immune Health will invert this and look at the immune system from a ‘whole-of-system’ perspective – like we do for the cardiovascular and respiratory systems,” he said.

“The Centre will rapidly accelerate this growing field of research and do it at a scale not seen anywhere else in the world.

“We are deeply grateful to the Snow Medical Research Foundation and the Snow family for their vision, boldness and generosity, in backing this talented team and their revolutionary approach to how we understand and treat immune disease.”

Former WEHI Director Dr Doug Hilton AO played an instrumental role in co-developing the vision for the Centre with the Snow family.   

“This Centre has the potential to entirely change the game when preventing, diagnosing and treating immune disease, which has a tremendous burden on the global community,” he said.  

“This extraordinary investment from the Snow Medical Research Foundation has the power to solve some of the greatest puzzles in the human body. The scale of the centre, as well as the long-term backing of some of the brightest scientists in the country by the Snow family, will help accelerate this research for the good of the community.”  

Professor Jo Douglass from the Royal Melbourne Hospital who will co-lead the Centre said that the long-term vision and funding from the Snow Medical Research Foundation would ensure her team could move beyond the short-term thinking that currently slows down major research discoveries from being translated.

“The Royal Melbourne Hospital is very proud and honoured to be working with Snow Medical and WEHI on the Snow Centre for Immune Health,” she said. 

“The integrated design of the Snow Centre for Immune Health will ensure the best treatments are immediately available to patients in the clinic.”

“This signals a new era of partnership and reflects our shared purpose of building highly impactful and

multidisciplinary research, together.  The Royal Melbourne Hospital looks forward to building on its commitment to research excellence for the best of health for all Victorians, the wider community, and beyond.”

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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12 March 2024

Anu researcher awarded $8m to develop next-generation life-saving medical therapies.

A chemist from The Australian National University (ANU) has been awarded a prestigious $8 million fellowship to help tackle some of the globe’s most pressing health challenges, including antimicrobial resistance and cancer, and advance new life-saving medical therapies. 

Professor Lara Malins from the ANU Research School of Chemistry is one of two new Snow Medical Research Fellows for 2024.  

Her goal is to fine-tune naturally occurring chemical compounds and re-deploy them as powerful new therapies for human illnesses.  

Alongside her ANU team, Professor Malins hopes to unleash the therapeutic capacity of peptides, or short chains of amino-acids, a “largely untapped reservoir” when it comes to medicinal chemistry. 

“As structural relatives of proteins, peptides are biological powerhouses, but while our understanding of them is growing, clinical progression has been limited due to the challenges in synthesising and optimising them in the lab,” Professor Malins said. 

“The specific compounds we’ll be looking at have considerable potential as next-generation medicines — including peptide-based cancer therapies. This investment from the Snow Medical Research Foundation will help fuel the drug discovery pipeline and ultimately, enhance our ability to treat human disease.”  

Professor Malins will also use her fellowship to continue her work on new antimalarials and antibiotics. 

“Nearly 100 years after the discovery of penicillin, we’re on the brink of a ‘post-antibiotic’ era, with rising levels of bacteria resistant to even our last resort antibiotics,” she said. 

“Studies suggest that global antimicrobial resistance will lead to approximately 10 million deaths and an economic cost of $US100 trillion per year by 2050. To avoid repeating the cycle of antibiotic development and resistance, we need to look at new avenues.”  

ANU Vice-Chancellor and President Genevieve Bell congratulated Professor Malins on her Snow Medical Research Fellowship.    “I am delighted that Lara has been recognised with the Snow Medical Research Fellowship. Her research is cutting edge, using biological and chemical tools to develop therapies that will help us treat malaria and cancer, as well as create next-generation antibiotics,” she said.  

“Her research is going to have real and meaningful impact for people across Australia and the world – and that’s an extraordinary achievement and medical legacy.  

“I also thank Snow Medical for supporting research to ensure our academics can address some of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century.” 

Chair of Snow Medical, Tom Snow, added: ”We are delighted to support Lara’s important work. She is a true example of Snow Medical’s aim to support researchers who will shape the next generation of health and medical innovation.”  

“In Lara’s case, she will focus on harnessing the power of peptides to develop new therapies, ultimately enhancing our ability to treat human disease. 

“We’re also delighted to see a chemist awarded a Snow Fellowship for the first time. The proposed work of Lara and her team will have cross-cutting impacts in chemistry, biology and medicine.” 

The second 2024 Snow Fellow is Associate Professor Loic Yengo from The University of Queensland. 

About Snow Medical Research Foundation  

The Snow Medical Research Foundation (Snow Medical) is at the forefront of philanthropic efforts to advance biomedical research in Australia.

With a commitment now totalling $224 million, Snow Medical supports the development of outstanding biomedical research leaders and their teams, driving innovation and excellence in healthcare solutions for the future.  

Top image: Professor Lara Malins. Photo: Jamie Kidston/ANU

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Snow family launches new medical foundation to foster world's best researchers

Terry and Tom Snow at the launch of Snow Medical, which they see as a game changer for medical research in Australia. Photo: Supplied.

Canberra’s first family of philanthropy, the Snows, have a launched an Australia-first charitable foundation dedicated to funding the brightest and best medical researchers from across the nation and from around the world.

The Snow Medical Research Foundation ( Snow Medical ) is looking to fuel a new wave of medical innovation by providing generous, long-term funding and leadership support to outstanding researchers and their teams, no matter where they come from or what area of medicine they are working in.

The foundation will fund two researchers a year for eight years, offering the kind of long-term support and certainty that is unavailable in many universities and institutions. They would receive 1 million a year.

Fellowship funding will be available to set up and operate a research laboratory and pay salaries for the Snow Fellow and post-doctoral researchers, provide PhD student scholarship top-ups, technical and laboratory management support, project funds and leadership development.

The goal is to develop the next generation of exceptional, visionary biomedical research leaders.

Snow Medical is the vision of family patriarch Terry Snow, who says the well-established Snow Foundation charity already offers some medical research funding but the family, which owns and operates Canberra Airport and are prominent property developers in the ACT, thought it was time to take a different approach.

“We will specifically target bright young people all over the world to come to Australia to work and study, build a team and stay for the long term,” he said.

“There are plenty of examples where money has gone into equipment and real estate facilities but not a lot of money has gone into the intellectual capital of research.

“We want to make sure we have the best people in the world available to work with us here in Australia.”

He says the high quality of Australia’s biomedical research is recognised globally but long-term sustainable funding is needed to keep the nation globally competitive.

“We cannot let great researchers go elsewhere or have their work fail because there’s just not enough investment,” he said.

The fellowships will be open to early and mid-career researchers who will be able to work with whichever university or research institution they choose, such as the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the ANU, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne or the Garvan Institute in Sydney.

The family has already consulted with Australian institutions with which fellows will partner, and a pilot round is under way, from which one or two researchers will be selected in April 2020, when the first official round will also be launched.

Snow Medical will award two fellowships a year, so at any one time there will eventually be 16 researchers working concurrently.

Tom Snow said a lack of certainty within the university system was hampering researchers.

“You can’t get security of tenure. You end up with people with only one or two years of funding but they can’t actually plan a proper bold visionary research program,” he said.

He said the foundation also wanted to encourage a more entrepreneurial approach so fellows can feel free to take risks.

Snow Fellows and their teams will also have access to training in leadership, management and policy, entrepreneurship and engagement support.

“Success in business comes from seeing opportunities, and working hard to achieve new ideas and innovation,” Terry Snow said.

“We are looking for researchers who have that spirit and the drive in their respective fields. We want to support people who are making significant discoveries and big contributions to health across society.”

Tom Snow said he expects that some will bring or build cross-disciplinary teams.

“The really big breakthroughs are where you have engineers, and chemists and data scientists all working together with a medical researcher.”

He said the foundation also wanted to encourage the best female researchers to apply, as they are under-represented in medical research.

The Snows hope others will follow their example so home-grown researchers need not leave their country to pursue their work but also to attract the world’s best to help drive the Australian economy.

Snow Medical is working through a very significant range of networks overseas to attract applicants.

“We’re sure the whole world will beat a path to our door,” Terry Snow said.

For more information go to https://snowmedical.org.au/

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This is a far better way to nurture the community than giving one private school a million dollars! Spreading the support across the entire community that supports the Snow family’s business and their success.

This is a terrific initiative.

Damian Freney love this

Wow, thank you Snow family! Medical researchers have such unstable lives compared to if they’d taken a career in other sectors. Bright, dedicated and poorly looked after.

Thank you for your generous gift

What generous gift.

Thank you for your generosity.

Could someone put up capital to fund commercialisation of the research to keep industry in Australia.

The Snows being generous yet again! Thank you for always contributing to the nurturing of a better society and future.

WOW WOW WOW!

Great stuff!! Good folk, always thinking ahead, and of others!

Great news.

Good to see some philanthropy!

👏👏I truly hope that the funding goes to the real intellectuals and not be blindsided by pharma companies and biotech companies who will try to infiltrate. Another thought…who will eventually own intellectual property?

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Our Founders

Snow Medical Research Foundation is the creation of Canberra’s Snow family and is a vision of businessman and philanthropist, Terry Snow. It was established to create a new, powerful stream of funding to develop the next generation of exceptional, visionary, biomedical research leaders.

Terry Snow AM

Terry Snow was Executive Chairman of Canberra Airport as well as owner of  Willinga  Park. In 2006, Terry was awarded an Order of Australia for his contribution to the city of Canberra, as well as for his charitable work through the Snow Foundation. In October 2009 Terry was announced as the inaugural recipient of the Canberra Business Council’s Chairman’s Award for his significant individual contribution to the economic development of Canberra and the capital region. 

On the 3rd of August 2024 Terry passed away leaving a legacy of kindness, philanthropy, and business excellence.

His spirit will continue to inspire us all, and his contributions will be felt for many years to come.

Ginette Snow

Ginette Snow is a driving force behind the establishment of Snow Medical, and is on the Scientific Review and Advisory Committee. A former pharmacist, Ginette worked at Canberra Hospital for 11 years during which time she completed a Bachelor of Science at the Australian National University. She is also director of The Snow Foundation and an accomplished photographer and author of three books which include many of her own photos: Where did we come from? A Family History: Condon, Snow and Byron; Canberra Airport: A Pictorial History; and Two Dads, written for her 14 grandchildren as a memento of how the babies of son Tom Snow and his husband Brooke ‘were made’. Ginette is a keen campaigner for gay and lesbian rights and marriage equality.

Ginette has had photographic exhibitions in Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane. As official photographer of Canberra Airport, Ginette has documented the transformation of the airport since 1998 when the Snow family acquired it from the Commonwealth. Ginette divides her time between Canberra, Sydney and their property at Willinga Park on the NSW South Coast. She and Terry have been married for more than 40 years.

Tom Snow is Chair of Canberra Airport as well as Chair of Snow Medical Research Foundation, which has invested over $200 million into the Australian medical research sector.

Tom Snow is also the Founder of Equality Australia, and was a Co-Chair and Founder of the Equality Campaign, which led the successful Yes vote in the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey and saw in the successful legislative change for marriage equality.

Before the marriage equality campaign, Tom created Whitehelm Capital with his business partner. They built Whitehelm into an infrastructure fund manager with nearly $5 billion in funds under management across 44 infrastructure assets and $16 billion in funds under advice.

Tom has served as a director at Perth Airport, the Port of Adelaide, Bankstown Airport, Peninsula Link, Etihad Stadium and the Australian Science Festival. He was also Chair of the Canberra Convention Bureau. He is a Rhodes Scholar, and is a proud father of three kids.

Scarlett Gaffey

Scarlett is an experienced Speech Pathologist and has been working with children with disabilities and complex communication needs for over ten years. She has her own practice in Canberra and focusses on providing early intervention for children and language support for adults with disabilities. 

She holds a Masters of Speech Language Pathology (Honours) from Sydney University and a Bachelor of Commerce from Macquarie University, and spent time in Ghana, Africa working as a Speech Pathologist in community settings. Prior to qualifying as a Speech Pathologist, Scarlett worked in consumer research running qualitative and quantitative research and coordinating communication campaigns.

Scarlett is passionate about providing evidence-based therapy that is practical and family focused and lives in Canberra with her husband and three children. In addition to her responsibilities with The Snow Foundation Board, she sits on the Foundation’s Small and Medium Grants Committee and oversees the assessment of all individual grant applications.

Georgina Byron AM

Georgina is CEO of The Snow Foundation, and since 2006 has significantly grown the Foundation’s reach and impact from its origins in Canberra. Through Georgina’s leadership, the Foundation has deepened its commitment to the local Canberra region, broadened into other key regions close to the family (Sydney and South Coast), and backed dynamic start-up social entrepreneurs with bold national agendas.

Over the past decade, Georgina has led further expansion into social justice issues and championed some major social change projects rallying with many others; marriage equality, Raise the Rate campaign, the Voice Referendum, and the elimination of rheumatic heart disease and crusted scabies in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Georgina is passionate about creating social change to improve the lives of Australians, especially women and girls and First Australians. Collaboration is central to the Foundation and Georgina has led several co-funding initiatives and brought innovative programs to the ACT.

She is Co-Chair of Deadly Hearts Ltd, Deputy Chair of Sydney Community Foundation, Chair of Sydney Women’s Community Fund Advisory Council, and previous Chair of Philanthropy Australia’s Family Foundation Network. Georgina is a previous director of Good360, Australian Women Donors Network, and Hands Across Canberra Community Foundation.

Before her roles in philanthropy, Georgina had 13 years in the corporate sector holding senior executive positions at David Jones and AMP. She is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, holds a Bachelor of Business Degree, major in Marketing and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance & Investment. In 2021, was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia. Georgina lives in Sydney with her husband and four daughters.

Stephen Byron AM

Stephen Byron is Chief Executive Officer of Canberra Airport and the Capital Airport Group.  Stephen has led the 21-year transformation of the Canberra Airport precinct with a focus on excellent customer experience and sustainable design. He oversaw the addition of $2 billion in airport infrastructure, a new terminal, a retail precinct and three business parks which now cater to more than 10,000 people working for government departments and private enterprise tenants.  Stephen also managed the Snow family’s expansion into real estate development at Denman Prospect, a new Canberra residential suburb and Constitution Place, an urban commercial precinct in the Canberra CBD. 

Stephen grew up in Canberra and is now Chair of the Canberra Grammar Board and a member of the Council of the National Museum of Australia.  

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The best Silk and Snow Mattresses of 2024: Which one is right for you?

By Natalie Grigson

Expert Contributor Shelby Harris PsyD, DBSM

Expert Verified by Anju Goel, MD, MPH

Reviewed by Rachel Pasche, CHC

Fact Checked by Krista Manning

Written by Natalie Grigson, Fortune Recommends Writer

How we test.

To create this brand review, our team of experts has tested over 60 mattresses to compare them in performance, comfort and support, value, customer experience, and health and safety.

.st0{clip-path:url(#SVGID_00000046340743257271907690000000964648354283835324_);} rusted experts

This article was reviewed by Anju Goel, M.D., MPH, and was reviewed for accuracy by Krista Manning, our medical copy editor and fact-checker.

Albert Chow and Kenneth Mo co-founded Silk and Snow in 2017 with the hopes of creating a mattress and furniture company that used eco-friendly materials. ( 1 ) Today, this Canada-based company sells everything from mattresses, furniture, bedding, and bath equipment, with free shipping throughout the United States.

The company offers three mattress options: the all-foam S&S Mattress, The S&S Hybrid Mattress, and The S&S Organic Mattress. For this brand review, our team of experts tested each model in performance, comfort and support, value, customer experience, and safety. After rigorous testing (i.e., lying on each bed in various positions and doing a ton of research), our overall pick is The S&S Mattress.

We’ll go into more detail on each mattress in this detailed review of Silk and Snow.

Our favorite Silk & Snow Mattress

We chose The S&S Mattress as our best overall pick. This all-foam mattress is simple and economical, containing just two layers of memory foam for a solid, no-frills bed. You can choose between Medium or Firm, making this a great option for stomach and back sleepers on a budget.

Our picks for the best Silk & Snow mattresses

Silk & snow the s&s mattress, silk & snow the s&s hybrid mattress, silk & snow the s&s organic mattress.

Key product features

What you should know

The S&S Mattress is a simple, all-foam bed ideal for those who don’t need many features or who are on a budget. It comes in two firmness options—Medium-Firm or Firm—with the Medium-Firm option costing an extra $75. We tried out the Firm.

• Out of 10, we rated this bed’s firmness a 7.5—which is pretty firm.
• At just $725 for a queen, the Firm option is very economical.
• The Medium-Firm option costs an extra $75, which is sort of unusual.
• We think the Firm model will be best for back and stomach sleepers.
• Heavy-weight sleepers may not feel supported enough on this all-foam mattress.
• Side sleepers will likely find this bed to be too firm against the shoulder and hip joints.

Silk & Snow The S&S Mattress overview

If you’re in the market for a simple, all-foam, budget-friendly mattress, The Silk and Snow S&S Mattress might be a good fit for you. Our mattress testers tried out the Firm model of The S&S and said it performed the best in the categories of edge support, responsiveness, overall value, and pressure relief. Let’s take a closer look at each.

Edge support

Edge support refers to the amount of support sleepers receive when sitting or lying near the edge of the bed. This is essential for people with mobility issues that may make getting out of bed more difficult. ( 2 ) It’s also important so you can comfortably use the entire surface of your bed.

Many foam beds have flimsy edges. We were pleasantly surprised that this bed has good edge support, with only slight sinkage when sitting right on the edge.

Responsiveness

The S&S Mattress is surprisingly responsive for an all-foam bed. Our testers noted that they didn’t really sink into this firm, buoyant bed, and it was easy to move around on. This is great for combination sleepers or those who don’t enjoy the typical “sinking” feeling of memory foam.

Overall value

The typical cost of an all-foam queen-sized mattress is about $1,050, according to Consumer Affairs. ( 3 ) The Silk and Snow S&S costs $725 for a queen, so it’s a great value overall.

Pressure Relief

When lying on their backs, our testers found that this bed did a great job relieving pressure.

Since this bed is rather firm—a 7.5 out of 10—it only felt comfortable when testers were lying on their backs or stomachs. They noted they didn’t feel their hips sinking down when lying on their stomachs, but a heavier sleeper likely would. On their backs, the bed felt firm and supportive.

The bed didn’t excel in the categories of cooling and motion isolation.

Research shows that keeping cool throughout the night can help you sleep better, and when you’re hot, you’re more likely to sleep poorly . ( 4 , 5 ) That’s why buying a bed that keeps you cool is so important.

The Silk and Snow S&S does include cooling features, like open-cell, gel-infused memory foam, but our testers didn’t notice it making much of a difference.

Motion isolation

Motion isolation is when a bed doesn’t allow much motion transfer from one part of the bed to the other. This feature is necessary for two people sharing the bed, especially if one is a sensitive sleeper.

Typically, memory foam beds are great at isolating motion. After all, this material was originally created to absorb even the most turbulent of motion during NASA flights. ( 6 ) However, our team noted that the foam in this bed “doesn’t seem to isolate too well,” and they could “definitely” feel some movement.

We’ve featured The Silk & Snow The S&S Mattress in:

• The best mattresses in Canada in 2024
• The best mattresses under $1,000

Who The Silk & Snow The S&S Mattress is recommended for:

• Back sleepers: The firm model that we tested works well at relieving pressure for back sleepers.
• Stomach sleepers: Most light to average-weight sleepers should feel well supported when lying on their stomachs on this bed. It elevates the hips just enough.
• Light-to-average-weight sleepers: Light-to-average-weight sleepers should feel supported on this all-foam bed. That said, it may feel too firm for some more petite bodies.

Who The Silk & Snow The S&S Mattress is not recommended for:

• Side sleepers: This bed felt too firm for side sleeping and caused some pressure buildup in the shoulder and hip. That said, we did test the firm model; the medium-firm may be better.
• Hot sleepers: Even though this bed includes perforated, gel-infused foam, it does not sleep very cool, and we wouldn’t recommend it for hot sleepers.
• Heavy-weight sleepers: Heavy-weight sleepers probably won’t feel very supported on this relatively thin, all-foam mattress.

Expert opinion

We spoke with Dr. Shelby Harris, a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in behavioral sleep medicine, to learn more about the importance of proper sleep position and finding the right mattress. Dr. Harris recommended the Silk & Snow mattress to stomach sleepers for it’s firm lift. “Stomach sleepers will most likely find a firm, or even ultra-firm, mattress the most comfortable. A firm mattress will help align the hips with the shoulders, while on their stomach. A soft mattress may cause the hips to sink out of alignment with the rest of the spine, which can be uncomfortable and lead to pain in the morning. So, they’ll want to look for a highly supportive mattress between a 7 and 9 on the firmness scale. Stomach sleepers will likely do best on an innerspring or hybrid mattress.”

How we rated The Silk & Snow The S&S Mattress

Overall, our expert reviewers gave The Silk and Snow S&S Mattress 4.4 out of 5 stars . This is how it ranked in all of our testing categories:

Fortune Recommends Score

To arrive at these ratings, our team of sleep science experts and mattress testers tested over 60 mattresses, comparing their performance, comfort and support, value, customer experience, and health and safety. This means they had the fun job of lying on the beds in various positions, bouncing on them, testing their pressure buildup, sitting on their edges, etc., until they scored each category from one to five. From there, we averaged these scores for an overall rating.

Read more about our Mattress Testing Methodology .

Silk & Snow The S&S Mattress pricing and sizing

Warranties and policies.

Warranty: All Silk and Snow mattresses come with a limited 15-year warranty. According to the company, the details of this warranty are as follows ( 7 ):

• It starts the day your mattress is delivered.
• The mattress must be opened within 30 days of receipt.
• It is only valid for a mattress that is set-up on an adequate foundation or bed frame.
• Depending on the model of Silk & Snow mattress, if, despite normal usage and proper handling, your S&S Mattress, S&S Hybrid, or S&S Organic Mattress forms permanent indentations of more than one or two inches (depending on which model you purchased), when no weight is on top of it, it will be replaced, at your option, according to the terms below.
• Silk & Snow will repair or replace any manufacturing defect of the mattress cover.
• Silk & Snow will require purchaser to show supporting documents (i.e. pictures) when processing a claim.

This warranty contains extensive additional fine print, so we encourage you to read the full text here .

Shipping and returns: Silk and Snow is based in Toronto, Canada, so they offer free shipping to all provinces of Canada, plus free shipping to 48 states and Washington, D.C. For Canadian Territories, plus Alaska and Hawaii, they’ll charge a non-refundable “nominal” shipping charge at check-out. This amount will depend on the distance to which it is being shipped.

As far as returns go, Silk and Snow asks that you try out your mattress for a minimum of thirty nights. After that, if you want to return it, you can do so for a full refund within your 365-night trial. The company will cover all costs associated with the return and typically donates returned mattresses. ( 8 )

Trial period: Silk and Snow offers a 365-night trial period for all mattresses. This means if you don’t love your bed within the first year, you can return it for a full refund. They require that you first try it out for at least 30 nights to break the mattress in and determine if it’s a good fit.

Additional models from Silk & Snow

Silk and Snow’s The S&S Hybrid Mattress contains a layer of pocketed coils, gel-infused memory foam, and a cooling antimicrobial cover. The coils allow for air to pass through the mattress, and the gel-infused memory foam tends to trap less heat than traditional memory foam, making this a better option for hot sleepers. Additionally, the coils in the middle of the bed are denser, providing extra lumbar support for those with back pain.

• Our mattress testers tried the Medium model and rated its firmness at 6.5 out of 10.
• At $850 for a queen, this is much lower than the average price for a hybrid bed. ( 3 )
• If you want the Plush model, you’ll have to pay an additional $300.
• It felt comfortable and supportive in all sleep positions, but heavy sleepers may not feel supported on their stomachs.
• Its edge support was lacking.

Who The S&S Hybrid Mattress is recommended for

We think The S&S Hybrid is a great option for light to heavy-weight side and back sleepers. It includes a sturdy layer of zoned coils in addition to its foam comfort layers, so it feels like a more supportive and substantial mattress overall.

For those who want a more environmentally friendly bed, The Silk and Snow S&S Organic Mattress is a great option. It uses materials like GOLS-certified organic latex, GOTS-certified organic cotton, GOTS-certified wool, and pocketed coils for a bed that feels particularly bouncy, cool, and supportive.

• This mattress is available in three firmness options.
• The Firm option costs $1,000 for a queen—an excellent deal for an organic mattress.
• The Medium-Firm costs an additional $200 and the Plush costs an additional $800.
• This bed feels especially bouncy and cooling due to the latex and spring combo.
• It’s relatively firm, so if you’re a side sleeper, you’ll want to opt for the Plush or Medium models.

Who The S&S Organic Mattress is recommended for

Of the three Silk and Snow mattress types, The S&S definitely feels the bounciest and coolest due to the combination of latex and coils. This makes it a great option for combination sleepers, hot sleepers, and sexually active couples. We also love this bed for those who want an organic or latex mattress but may not want to pay the $2,000+ they tend to cost.

The S&S Mattress vs. competitors

Silk and Snow’s S&S Mattress is an affordable, all-foam bed-in-a-box mattress, but it is certainly not the only one on the market. The Nectar Classic, T&N Original, Casper The One, and Plank Firm are all also all-foam beds that come in a box but with some key differences.

Of all the mattresses, The S&S is the least expensive. It also offers two firmness options, which is unusual for an all-foam bed, though you do have to pay $75 extra for the Medium option. Even though it includes gel-infused perforated foam, it doesn’t sleep especially cool.

The Nectar Classic is the most expensive all-foam bed on the list. It’s notably softer than The S&S and is a good option for both side and back sleepers. It also includes gel-infused foam but doesn’t sleep especially cool.

The Tuft & Needle Original is the softest mattress on this list, and it’s ideal for back and side sleepers. It’s also the coolest since it uses graphite-infused foam, which research shows can help absorb body heat. ( 9 ) We think it’s a great option for those who sleep a bit hotter but still want an affordable, all-foam mattress.

Casper’s The One is medium-firm and is a good option for all sleep positions. It also has superior motion isolation, which makes it ideal for couples. At $999, it’s still affordable, and sales are often available online.

Finally, the Plank Firm: a bed for people who just can’t seem to find a firm enough mattress. This mattress is flippable, where one side is firm, and the other is extra-firm. We only recommend it for back and stomach sleepers who love a firm mattress. If you sleep especially hot, it has an optional cooling cover upgrade ($100), which might also add a bit of cushion.

What sleeping position is The Silk & Snow mattress best for?

We tested the Firm model of The S&S, so the best sleeping position was either on the back or stomach. Back and stomach sleepers need a slightly firmer surface to keep the spine in alignment. ( 10 ) Side sleepers will need a bed that is softer and relieves pressure on the shoulder and hip joints. The S&S does come in a Medium-Firm option for an additional $75, which may be a better fit for side sleepers.

How to choose the right mattress for you

When choosing a mattress, consider your body type, go-to sleep position(s), and firmness preferences.

Lighter-weight individuals usually prefer a softer mattress because they don’t sink in very far. Of course, if you love a firm mattress and you are under 130 pounds, you can still get one; you just won’t sink into the mattress’s top comfort layers and reap the full benefits of its design.

Average-weight sleepers can opt for a soft, medium, or firm bed depending on preference and sleep position. Heavy-weight sleepers should opt for a bed that is firmer and more supportive. This might mean choosing a hybrid bed that includes sturdy innerspring coils and foam for a combination of support and comfort.

Strict side sleepers will do best on a softer mattress to relieve pressure on the shoulders and hips. Strict back sleepers can opt for a medium or firm bed, and strict stomach sleepers will likely prefer a firm bed to prevent the hips from dipping down. If you’re a stomach sleeper, you’ll also want to use a very flat pillow to keep the spine aligned. Of course, most people don’t stay in one position all night or fit so neatly into one category. In this case, a medium-firm bed is a good middle-of-the-road option. In fact, medium-firm mattresses have been shown to provide the best night’s sleep for the majority of people. ( 11 )

Silk & Snow is a good option for those looking for a well-made bed on a budget. In our testing, we found that the materials were average—not especially high quality or luxurious—but overall, a good deal for the low price.

The Silk & Snow is an all-foam mattress-in-a-box, so once you receive it, you’ll need to give it two days to fully expand and completely off-gas. We recommend leaving it in a well-ventilated room so that the initial off-gassing smell dissipates before putting on bedding or sleeping on it.

Silk & Snow offers three different types of mattresses, which are available in various firmness options. Unlike some other mattress companies, Silk & Snow charges extra if you want to choose anything other than Firm. For example, for the all-foam S&S, choosing Medium rather than Firm will cost an additional $75.

Our experts

Anju Goel, M.D., MPH

Anju Goel, M.D., MPH, is a public health consultant and physician in California with a focus on communicable diseases, health policy, health promotion, and disaster preparedness. She’s also a consultant for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the COVID-19 response. Dr. Goel received her medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine and her Master of Public Health from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She’s board-certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Krista Manning

Krista Manning is an accomplished medical copy editor and fact-checker who stands out in the pharmaceutical, health, and wellness domains. With a meticulous eye for detail and a command of medical language, Krista ensures the accuracy and clarity of content. Beyond her professional expertise, Krista is an advocate for mental health awareness. Recognizing the crucial intersection of psychological and physical well-being, she actively contributes to projects that promote mental health awareness within the healthcare narrative. Krista’s commitment extends beyond the pages she edits, emphasizing the holistic nature of health communication.

Natalie Grigson

Fortune Recommends Writer

About Author

Natalie is a writer for Fortune Recommends with a deep passion for all things health and a fascination with the mysterious activity that is sleep. Outside of writing about sleep, she is a bestselling author, improviser, and creative writing teacher based out of Austin.

• Silk & Snow. Our Story . Accessed October 10, 2024.
• University of Washington. Mobility Impairments . Accessed October 10, 2024.
• Sansano T. How much does a mattress cost? Consumer Affairs. August 30, 2023.
• Harding EC, Franks NP, Wisden W. The Temperature Dependence of Sleep. Front Neurosci. 2019;13:336. Published 2019 Apr 24. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2019.00336
• Baker B. Why is it so difficult to sleep when it’s hot? Penn Today. June 12, 2019.
• NASA. Memory Foam . Accessed October 11, 2024.
• Silk & Snow. Our Warranty . Accessed October 11, 2024.
• Silk & Snow. What is Your Return and Exchange Policy? Accessed October 11, 2024.
• Liu, X., Liu, X., Chen, Z. Experimental study on the temperature control characteristics of graphite foam-based composite phase change materials. Energy. 2024; 299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2024.131394
• Zhang Y, Xiao A, Zheng T, Xiao H, Huang R. The Relationship between Sleeping Position and Sleep Quality: A Flexible Sensor-Based Study. Sensors (Basel) . 2022;22(16):6220. Published 2022 Aug 19. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22166220
• Cleveland Clinic. A Good Night’s Sleep Starts With a Good Mattress . May 24, 2023.

CHAPTER ONE Biohazard The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World -- Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It By KEN ALIBEK with STEPHEN HANDELMAN Random House Read the Review Army Headquarters Moscow, 1988 Late in the winter of 1988, I was called to a meeting at Soviet army headquarters on Kirov Street in Moscow. The note of urgency in the message was hard to ignore. "We've set aside a special room for you, Colonel," said the clipped voice on the phone. A black Volga was waiting at the curb, its motor running. The two armed bodyguards who accompanied me on top-secret business were slouched alongside, their fur hats pulled low against the cold. One held the door open as I climbed into the backseat, and followed me inside. The second slid in beside my driver, Slava. I told Slava to drive quickly. It was usually a thirty-minute drive across town from my office to Red Army headquarters, but a fresh snowfall that morning had turned the streets into an Arctic snarl of spinning tires and raging drivers. Once or twice the flashing blue light on our official vehicle aroused the attention of a traffic policeman, who thrust his gloved hand in the air to clear the way. Close to an hour had passed by the time we finally pulled up in front of the austere granite building that housed the Ministry of Defense. I entered through a side entrance and stamped the snow from my boots. A junior officer took me to a small adjoining room, where I was issued a pass, and then on to a guard booth, where a young soldier examined my pass and picture, stared hard, and waved me on. The first officer led me up a flight of stairs to a heavy armored door with a coded lock. He punched in a series of numbers and we walked into the sprawling suite of offices occupied by the Fifteenth Directorate of the Soviet army, the military wing of our biological weapons program. I unzipped my parka and tried to relax. Although I was a colonel, I never wore my uniform. Like all military personnel at Biopreparat, I was provided with a cover identity as an ordinary scientist. I carried two different versions of my internal passport, the identity card required of every Soviet citizen. One identified me as a civilian employee of Biopreparat. The other showed my military rank. I had moved to Moscow with my wife Lena and my three children a year earlier, in 1987, to take a position at Biopreparat headquarters. The move to the capital was a refreshing change from the dreariness of army life in the provinces. Thirteen years at a succession of secret laboratories and institutes in some of the most remote corners of the Soviet Union had not prepared me for the bewildering pace of my new job. There were meetings every week at army headquarters, the Kremlin, the offices of the Communist Party Central Committee, or one of the myriad scientific institutes in our network. By the spring of 1988, when I was named first deputy chief, I was seeing a doctor for a stress-related illness. The commander of the Fifteenth Directorate, Lieutenant General Vladimir Lebedinsky, looked at me disapprovingly when I entered his office. He was absorbed in a discussion with three colonels, none of whom I had seen before. "It's about time," he said curtly. I started to complain about the snow, the traffic, but he waved me into silence. Of all the military commanders I dealt with, Lebedinsky was the one I most hated to keep waiting. He had taken a paternal interest in my career since we first met in a laboratory at Omutninsk, six hundred miles east of Moscow, where I'd been assigned for several years after graduating from military medical school. Then in his sixties and at the end of an illustrious military career, he was one of the few senior officers who didn't hold my youth against me. At thirty-eight, I had vaulted over older and more experienced scientists to become the youngest first deputy director in Biopreparat's history. Many of the scientists I used to work for were now taking orders from me, and they didn't bother to hide their resentment. Lebedinsky turned to the three colonels. "Are we ready?" he said. They nodded, and the general led us into an adjoining soundproof room. Notepads had been placed on the large wooden table, in front of each chair. An orderly arrived with four steaming glasses of tea. Lebedinsky waited for him to leave and firmly closed the door. "I'm not staying," he said, as I glanced at the glasses and did a quick count. The three colonels came from the Biological Group, a unit of the General Staff Operations Directorate whose role was to arm bombers and missiles with the weapons we produced. It was the first time I had met anyone from that unit. Biopreparat was then developing a new biological weapon every year. Most of our time was devoted to research; we paid little attention to the details of deployment. Lebedinsky quickly explained the reason for the special meeting. A decision had been made at the highest levels, he said, to arm SS-18 missiles with disease agents. "We need to calculate how much time it will take to prepare the missiles for launching. I'm counting on you to help us out." I nodded, as if this were a perfectly reasonable request. But I had been caught off guard. The giant SS-18 missiles, which could carry ten five-hundred-kiloton warheads apiece over a range of six thousand miles, had never been considered before as delivery vehicles for a biological attack. When the Soviet biological warfare program began in the 1920s, our scientists attached crop sprayers to low-flying planes and hoped that a contrary wind wouldn't blow the germs the wrong way. After World War II, bombers armed with explosives were added to the arsenal. The Cold War fueled the development of ever more destructive armaments, and by the 1970s we had managed to harness single-warhead intercontinental ballistic missiles for use in the delivery of biological agents. Multiple-warhead missiles represented more of a challenge. Few of the agents we had weaponized could be prepared in sufficient quantities to fill hundreds of warheads simultaneously. Work I had done with anthrax a few years earlier must have caught the attention of our strategic planners. Through a series of tests, I'd found a way to create a more potent anthrax weapon, so that fewer spores would be needed in an attack. The new technique allowed us to load more missiles with anthrax without straining our labs' resources. In the language of American nuclear strategists, we could produce "more bang for the buck." I was being asked to put my discovery to work. The colonels knew little about the fine points of microorganisms, but they understood missile technology. If I could develop the pathogens in sufficient quantities, they would target the warheads on major cities in the United States and Europe. I made a few quick calculations on my notepad. At least four hundred kilograms of anthrax, prepared in dry form for use as an aerosol, would be required for ten warheads. Our seed stock for anthrax production was kept inside refrigerated storerooms at three production facilities in Penza, Kurgan, and Stepnogorsk. The seed stock would have to be put through a delicate fermenting process to breed the billions of spores required. The process was complicated—and it took time. A single twenty-ton fermenter working at full capacity could produce enough spores to fill one missile in one or two days. With additives, we could probably boost the output to five hundred or six hundred kilograms a day. I finished my calculations and leaned back in my chair. "With the fermenters we have available, it would take ten to fourteen days," I said. The colonels looked pleased. Two weeks was not a problem. No one expected to go to war overnight. The colonels didn't tell me which cities had been targeted for biological attack, and I didn't ask. New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Chicago were some of the targets to come up in subsequent meetings, but they were abstract concepts to me at the time. All I cared about was ensuring that our weapons would do the job they were designed for. We stood up to stretch. The tension in the room lifted. Three of us went out to the hallway for a smoke. I had discovered that you could learn more in such casual moments than in a month's worth of memos passed around The System. The colonels were suddenly talkative. Pressure from the top military command was making their lives impossible, they complained. No sooner had one weapons system been organized than an order came down to refine another one. I told them we were having the same problem—but we all read the newspapers. Mikhail Gorbachev and his team of self-described reformers were publicly heralding a new era of rapprochement with the West. We joked that the mysteries of perestroika were beyond the scope of simple military men. I don't remember giving a moment's thought to the fact that we had just sketched out a plan to kill millions of people. Anthrax takes one to five days to incubate in the body. Victims often won't know that an anthrax attack has taken place until after they begin to feel the first symptoms. Even then, the nature of the illness will not at first be clear. The earliest signs of trouble—a slight nasal stuffiness, twinges of pain in the joints, fatigue, and a dry, persistent cough—resemble the onset of a cold or flu. To most people, the symptoms will seem too inconsequential to warrant a visit to the doctor. In this first stage, pulmonary anthrax can be treated with antibiotics. But it would take a highly alert public health system to recognize the evidence of an anthrax attack. Few physicians are trained to identify the disease, and the unremarkable nature of early symptoms makes an accurate diagnosis difficult. The first symptoms are followed several days later by the anthrax "eclipse," a period in which the initial discomfort seems to fade, concealing the approaching danger. Proliferating bacteria will have begun to engulf the lymph nodes, local headquarters of the body's disease protection system. Within a matter of hours the bacteria will have taken over the entire lymphatic system. From there, they enter the bloodstream, continuing to multiply at a furious pace. Soon they begin to release a toxin that attacks all organs but is particularly damaging to the lungs, filling them with liquid and gradually cutting off their supply of oxygen. Within twenty-four hours of this toxin's release, a victim's skin will begin to turn a faint bluish color. At this stage, every breath becomes more painful than the last. A choking fit and convulsions follow. The end usually comes suddenly: some victims of pulmonary anthrax have been known to die in the middle of a conversation. The disease is fatal in over 90 percent of untreated cases. A hundred kilograms of anthrax spores would, in optimal atmospheric conditions, kill up to three million people in any of the densely populated metropolitan areas of the United States. A single SS-18 could wipe out the population of a city as large as New York. Anthrax was not the only biological weapon earmarked for the SS-18s. When we sat down again after our break, we went over the available menu of toxic choices. Plague could be prepared on a similar schedule. The plague weapon we had created in our laboratories was more virulent than the bubonic plague, which killed one quarter of the population of Europe in the Middle Ages. Smallpox was stockpiled in underground bunkers at our military plants, and we were developing a weapon prototype based on a rare filovirus called Marburg, a cousin of Ebola. Nearly three hundred projects were outlined in the last Five-Year Plan we had been given by the Military-Industrial Commission, known by its Russian initials as the VPK. The VPK coordinated all of the Soviet Union's industrial production for military purposes. This gave it effective control over two thirds of the nation's industrial enterprises. A separate biological weapons directorate monitored our progress until our "products" were ready to be delivered to the Ministry of Defense, which we referred to as the Customer. Our meeting ended after an hour or so of additional calculations. We shook hands, packed our papers, and congratulated one another on a productive session. On my way out I looked into Lebedinsky's office, but he was already gone. I never saw the colonels again. Driving back to my office, I opened my briefcase to jot down a few more notes. Anyone who peered through the window would have seen a frowning, slightly overweight bureaucrat preoccupied with the country's business. A strange twist of fortune had brought me to the pinnacle of power in Russia, a country that was not my own. My great-grandfather had been a khan, a member of the nobility in what is now Kazakhstan, in Central Asia, but I grew up in a system that lavished few of its privileges on non-Russians. My wife and daughter and two young sons had risen with me to a lifestyle inconceivable to the majority of Soviet citizens. With the combined salary of a senior bureaucrat and a high-ranking military officer, I earned as much as a Soviet government minister. But in the Communist system, money was not the measure of worth. What counted was the special status that gave us access to perks and influence in our supposedly egalitarian society. Turning into the hidden driveway that led to the offices of Biopreparat on Samokatnaya Street, I began to focus on the rest of the day. I would only have time for a quick lunch before facing the mountain of messages and paperwork on my desk. The Volga glided past a concrete wall into a small courtyard. I packed up my notes and said a quick good-bye to Slava. Slava never gave any hint of suspecting what went on in the meetings he took me to, and I never confided in him. We had been warned to be careful of what we said to lower-ranking employees. But I imagined he drew conclusions of his own, given the odd bits of conversation he overheard. "Will you need me later?" he asked. "Probably not till I go home," I told him. "I might be late again tonight." The Moscow headquarters of Biopreparat, or the Main Directorate of the Council of Soviet Ministers as it was officially (and uninformatively) called, protected its secrets behind a yellow brick mansion with a green roof that had served as the home of the nineteenth-century vodka merchant Pyotr Smirnoff. The building's past and present associations provided an ironic symmetry: Smirnoff's product has done more than any foreign invader to undermine the health of Russian citizens. Samokatnaya Street is so small and narrow that a pedestrian could easily miss it while walking down the nearby Yauza Embankment, overlooking one of the waterways that joins the Moscow River as it flows toward the Kremlin. There were five other buildings on our street, all largely obscured in the spring and summer by the thick foliage of ancient trees mercifully ignored by Communist city planners. Despite its image as an impersonal city of cold buildings and wide boulevards, Moscow is dotted with hidden havens such as these. Even in winter, Samokatnaya Street was free from the surrounding bustle of the neighborhood, with its shabby residential apartment blocks, factories, and onion-dome churches. Three centuries ago the area around Samokatnaya Street was known as the German Quarter. It was the only place in old Muscovy where foreigners (then universally described as German, regardless of their nationality) were allowed to live and carry on their business—at a safe distance from ordinary Russians, whom they might otherwise have infected with alien ideas, but close enough for the czars to exploit their skills. A car bearing American diplomatic plates once turned up the street and parked opposite the building. KGB guards watched from inside as several people got out, peered at the fence for a few moments, and then returned and drove off. We talked about it for days afterward. Savva Yermoshin, the KGB commander in charge of the building, was one of my closest friends at the time. He declared confidently that there was nothing to worry about, but security was tighter than usual for weeks. I walked up a marble staircase, one of the few remaining architectural features of the old mansion, to my offices on the second floor. Nearly 150 people worked at headquarters, including technicians and administrative personnel, but the building exuded an air of restrained silence. My secretary, Marina, was a plump, efficient woman in her late twenties. A slight tilt of her head told me that Yury Kalinin, the director of Biopreparat and my immediate boss, was already at work. Marina sat with Kalinin's secretary, Tatyana, in the reception area connecting our offices. The two women disliked each other intensely because of some ancient quarrel and rarely spoke. When I wanted to speak to Kalinin, I had to address Tatyana directly. This time I bypassed her and knocked on his door. A brusque voice told me to enter. Major General Yury Tikhonovich Kalinin, chief of the Main Directorate and deputy minister in the Ministry of Medical and Microbiological Industry, was sitting behind an enormous antique desk. A pair of heavy curtains had been drawn over the window near his armchair, and his office was wrapped in gloomy darkness. A picture of Mikhail Gorbachev hung on one wall. There was a gray safe in the corner. I coughed and waited for him to notice me. "So?" he said at last, without looking up. "The meeting on Kirov Street lasted a little longer than I had expected," I said. "I thought I would check in." "Interesting?" The general never used two words when one would do. When I first visited his office as a young captain, Leonid Brezhnev's picture was hanging on the wall. Over the years, the portraits had changed to Yury Andropov, and then, briefly, to Konstantin Chernenko, reflecting the quick succession of ailing leaders who occupied the Kremlin during the early 1980s. Kalinin had no political opinions so far as I could tell. One leader was as good as another. What he respected was power. I began to tell him about the plan to use SS-18s, but he seemed to know everything already. I wondered if Lebedinsky had called him. "I knew you could handle it," he said and raised his hand in a gesture of dismissal. "Back to work, right?" As usual, I was left with the impression that there were areas of this strange secret universe that I would never have access to. Not until much later did I realize that this was only Kalinin's way of spinning the illusions he needed to strengthen and maintain his authority. Kalinin had risen swiftly in the army's chemical warfare corps—some claimed thanks to well-placed marriages—but he was an engineer, not a scientist. He was also impetuous, a man who enjoyed making quick decisions that took people by surprise—not the least his decision to bring me to Moscow. Against my natural inclinations, I admired him. In our gray bureaucracy, he stood out as an aristocrat. He was tall, slim, an elegant dresser. His imported suits must have cost him more than he could afford, even on a general's salary. He lived with his second wife, a shy woman said to be the daughter of a four-star general, in a neighborhood Muscovites nicknamed "Tsarskoye Selo" ("Czar's Village")—a kind of inside joke because of the high-level officials it housed. Kalinin never smoked and rarely drank, which set him apart from his peers, and was in excellent shape for a Soviet man in his early fifties. His black hair was always impeccably combed. With his high cheekbones and eagle nose, he looked like a member of the old Russian nobility. Women adored him, and rumors of his amorous inclinations spiced up office gossip. Late one night I knocked on his door and walked in just as the general and Tatyana were hastily rearranging their clothes. He never mentioned it, and neither did I. The charm Kalinin reserved for women was rarely experienced by his male subordinates. As I came to feel less awed in his presence, I would sometimes bring to him the case of a scientist or technician who needed a leave of absence for personal reasons. He invariably refused to listen. "So," he would bark. "Now you're a psychiatrist!" And he would order me back to work. After even the briefest session with Kalinin I would retreat to my office with a sense of relief. I worked in a large room with a high ceiling and a window that looked out over a park by the riverbank. An oak desk I'd inherited from my predecessor occupied nearly half the space. The desk held the real symbols of my authority: five telephones. In Soviet government offices, an executive's status could be measured by the number of his phones—an indication of multiple sources of authority. I even had a kremlyovka, the small white phone that connects everyone in the upper reaches of the Soviet government, from the general secretary of the Communist Party to ordinary ministers of state. Personal mementos of family or friends were taboo in the offices of senior government officials, but I had hung portraits of a few Russian scientists: D. I. Mendeleyev, who invented the periodic table of elements; Nikolai Pirogov, a nineteenth-century pioneer in military surgery; Professor Ilya Mechnikov, a Russian microbiologist who discovered cellular immunity. I was eager to identify with Russia's glorious scientific past. Some day, I promised myself, I would return to pure research, or medicine. The only other items in my office to suggest my training were books on microbiology, biochemistry, and medicine. Sitting in a corner was a Western computer. I never used it, but it was another sign of "special" status in a regime that prohibited its citizens from owning a copier. I would have preferred a television or radio, but the KGB had banned them from the offices of senior personnel. Our security chiefs claimed that Western electronic surveillance was so good that foreign agents could decipher our deepest secrets by analyzing the vibrations of our conversations on glass. It made little sense to me: why not then ban the computer as well? The KGB was thorough, and it lived by its own impenetrable logic. Once a month, security officers shooed all the lab chiefs and division heads out of their offices to check for bugs. Some believed that they were really checking on equipment they had themselves installed to record our conversations. We all knew that we were being watched, but no one questioned the security precautions. We were engaged in secret combat against enemies who, we were told, would stop at nothing. The Americans had hidden behind a similar veil of secrecy when they launched the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bomb. Biopreparat, we believed, was our Manhattan Project. Marina came in with a stack of messages. "Someone from Yermoshin's office is here to see you," she said. A young KGB officer stepped in after her and waited for her to leave. "Yes?" I said. But I knew what would happen next. Since we operated under the fiction that none of the secretaries knew what we did, they could not be allowed in our presence when our "secrets" were discussed. The officer handed me a folder with a note from Yermoshin. "Stuff from the third floor," I read in his hurried scrawl. The third floor was home to our "First Department," the unit responsible for maintaining our secret files and all communications with Biopreparat facilities around the country. The only people allowed in, besides security personnel, were Kalinin and myself. It was administered by the KGB. Sometimes I went upstairs myself. For one thing, it was the only place in the building where you could copy documents. The First Department was the sole custodian of our copier machine. It also offered a good opportunity to gossip with Yermoshin. Our families had spent time together a few weekends earlier. I riffled through the papers in front of me while the officer stayed in the room, as he was obliged to do. There were requests for supplies from one of our lab chiefs in Siberia; a notice of an "urgent" meeting at the Kremlin later that afternoon; a minor accident at one of our labs in western Russia which had sparked a debate between physicians at the Ministry of Health, who wanted to isolate the infected workers, and a general at the lab, who didn't. The general, typically, argued that isolation was unnecessary and would only stir up the staff. And there were the latest reports of a field test in the Aral Sea. (C) 1999 Ken Alibek All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-375-50231-9