For over 30 years, the Will Rogers Institute has been a leader in health-related public service announcements that appear on movie screens and television and are heard on radio stations across the United States and provide free health booklets and materials.
After viewing the theatrical public service announcement, moviegoers support the Institute by making a donation or purchasing a special combo pack at the movie theatere's concession stand.
The Institute awards an Annual Prize for Research to scientists who have made seminal contributions to the understanding or treatment of pulmonary diseases.
Francis Collins, present director of the NIH, was the first to receive the prize, which honored his discovery of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator encoding gene CFTR, mutated in cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease commonly found in Caucasian populations and often accompanied by severe pulmonary manifestations.
Peter Agre, recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was recognized with the Will Rogers Institute Annual Prize for Research in 2008 for his discovery of aquaporins: proteins that allow water molecules to cross biological membranes, and thereby play a vitally important role in epithelial physiology (including the physiology of pulmonary epithelium).