Best of CASE District VII Award
 

Institution: University of California, Office of the President

Title of entry: Life-saving "miracle" medicine

About this entry: In the final days of July 2025, the University of California received notice that the federal government was suspending hundreds of federal research grants to UCLA, affecting $584 million in critical research and threatening decades of progress toward life-saving cures and innovative solutions to the world’s greatest challenges. The evidence of how transformative UC research breakthroughs have been for the world is all around us — from the chips in smartphones to the internet to cancer drugs. But it is challenging to fathom what cutting off half a billion in foundational federal funding could mean.

For the University of California, a core question was how to help our readers — from advocates to the general public — reckon with a future without the kinds of discoveries that federally funded science ensures. To do that, we turned in part to powerful storytelling. Specifically, we told the story of retired U.S. Army Major Mel Mann, who survived a rare and aggressive cancer thanks to a drug developed through federally-funded science. The piece followed Mann’s story in words and through photographs, while also serving as an explanatory piece about how the basic science of today turns into tomorrow’s life-saving drugs.