Hilton Foundation Opens Submissions for Innovation Award in MS

The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation is accepting submissions for the first edition of the Marilyn Hilton Award for Innovation in Multiple Sclerosis Research, which will support novel and potentially paradigm-shifting research on Progressive Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

The award will grant up to $6 million in funding to several projects over a four-year period. The total amount of the support grants will be no more than $900,000 per organization over the cycle. The award is intended to fund non-profit institutions, who are invited to apply on the Hilton Foundation website. Recipients will be notified in November of this year.

The winning projects will be selected by a Scientific Advisory Committee composed of experts in the field of MS, which include Dr. Stephen Hauser, chair of Neurology at the University of California, in San Francisco, Dr. Daniel Reich, Chief of Translational Neuroradiology Unit at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and Dr. Henry McFarland, retired Chief of the Neuroimmunology Branch of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

The Marilyn Hilton Award for Innovation in Multiple Sclerosis Research was named in honor of the mother of Steven M. Hilton, the current Hilton Foundation Chairman, President and CEO. Marilyn June Hawley, who earned the name Hilton after marrying to Barron Hilton, the son of the magnate Conrad N. Hilton in 1947, suffered from MS and was able to have eight children until her death from the disease, in 2004.

“Our family is intimately aware of the challenges facing a person living with severe MS,” Steven Hilton said. “When someone you love is afflicted with MS, it opens your heart to the suffering that others go through, so you feel it’s important to reach out and help others that are going through a similar struggle. Those with MS and those who love them will benefit from this innovative research.”

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The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation is dedicated not only to multiple sclerosis, but also to several charity initiatives, since its creation in 1944 by Conrad N. Hilton, who left his fortune to “help the world’s disadvantaged and vulnerable people,” according to the foundation. Providing safe, clean water, ending chronic homelessness, preventing substance abuse, helping children affected by HIV and AIDS, supporting transition-age youth in foster care, and extending Conrad Hilton’s support for the work of Catholic Sisters are the main areas in which the foundation is currently working.