The first and only kid to receive an NIH "grant" shared his story at the NIH Take Your Child to Work Day on April 24, 2008. When Terence Boylan was 9-years old in 1957, he sent a request to NIH for $10 to build a rocket ship. Members of an NIH review committee were moved, and they passed the hat for Terence, hoping it would pay off one day.
The little grant indeed paid off. Terence describes the trials and triumphs of being a young researcher and the great impact the experienced had on his life.
View the Video: This April 24, 2008, talk is archived on the NIH Videcast Web site.
Read the Story: A special childrens' booklet was created for this event and is also available online: "The Rocket Boys of NIH: How the National Institutes of Health Give Hope and Health to Kids and the World."
The NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR) sponsored this presentation as a tribute to the passion and imagination of researchers—young and old—who seek to do something no one has done before and a tribute to the amazing things that can happen when we invest in the best of them.
For Further Information
The full NIH rocket boy story is posted on our History Web site, which includes links to NIH history resources and popular links for NIH information: www.csr.nih.gov/history.