A look at how vital charitable funding is to medical research and advances: Last year, TX Medical Center received half a billion from benefactors.

"Powering the medical juggernaut is philanthropy, much of it coming from generous Houston benefactors. In 2013 alone, medical schools and hospitals with a presence in the Medical Center received more than half a billion dollars in gifts. That money was a godsend, doctors said, as the approval rate for National Institutes of Health grants - the traditional bread and butter for medical research - dropped to 17 percent, an all-time low." -- Allan Turner, the Houston Chronicle