The Tobias Foundation: Sixteen Years of Building Hope

Established in 1992, the purpose of The Tobias Foundation is “to support the establishment of a Swedish bone marrow/stem cell registry and to support research in illnesses that can be treated with bone marrow/stem cell transplantation”

The Tobias Registry, which also was established in 1992, today has over 40,000 registered potential donors, a figure which is estimated to be enough to cover a majority of all Swedes needing a donor. The Tobias Foundation has supported The Tobias Registry start up with 7.9 MSEK. To date, 486 bone marrow/stem cell transplantations have been performed with a donor from The Tobias Registry. More than one-half of the recipients reside outside of Sweden, thus making The Tobias Registry an important partner in the world of bone marrow/stem cell transplantation.

The Tobias Foundation has actively supported research in two important ways.

It actively involves itself in the creation of research positions, which requires more substantial financial support for longer periods. We are convinced that the contribution by The Tobias Foundation will be optimal by committing the majority of our resources to a few, long-term research positions. Examples of this support are a 15-year professorship in stem cell research and a 4-year post doctorate research position. Furthermore, in collaboration with The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, three 5-year special research positions are financed by The Tobias Foundation, and one more is planed for 2008. The amount paid for these positions to date is 21.7 MSEK and the amount committed is 4.8 MSEK.

The second way has been to provide selected projects with “seed money” in the order of 0.1-0.2 MSEK per project. We have provided grants to over 100 projects, totalling 17.7 MSEK. No more projects of this kind will be granted as of 2008.

All activities are financed through donations and by the yield on The Tobias Foundation’s capital.