We're seeing more grantmaking to explore the foggy intersections where health meets nutrition, exercise, and even meditation. But David Murdock's latest gift to research food is the biggest we've seen yet.

Breast cancer research will stagnate if fewer young scientists set their sights on conquering the problem and turn to other challenges. The Susan G. Komen Foundation wants to make sure that doesn't happen.

It's becoming clear that genomic medicine is among the big frontiers of medical research in the 21st century. Funders large and small aim to boost momentum in this area, with diverse goals.

The cold, hard truth of healthcare philanthropy is that some causes are just plain better than others in terms of stretching dollars to save lives. Yet few areas of giving are more dominated by gut-level emotion.

It's not every day that a foundation sets out to train an army to carry out its vision. But that's what Robert Wood Johnson is doing as it reinvents its human capital programs to advance a "culture of health."

With the rise of genetic medicine, foundations are putting up more research funds for learning how to treat genetic disorders and diseases. Case in point: a recent grant by the Duke Endowment to a center in South Carolina.

Now that the United States has joined the rest of the civilized world in enacting universal coverage, improving the actual health of Americans is moving front and center. And grantmaking is getting more interesting.

This ain’t your father’s cancer philanthropy. This ain’t some namby-pamby Race for the Cure-style charity outfit. This is cancer philanthropy, Wall Street-style. The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance is less than eight months old, and already making bold grants.

We can't say this enough here at IP: The most effective giving looks upstream to change systems and policy, as opposed to forever cleaning up messes. So we're stoked about the Colorado Health Foundation's big bet on hard-hitting advocacy.

A few foundations stand out as heroes in the saga of health reform. But it's hard to think of a bigger superstar in the ACA fight than the California Endowment, which has now spent over $200 million to help Californians get coverage under the new law.

In 2005, Thomas Siebel parlayed his long-running interest in helping homeless people into the Meth Project Montana, believing that a hard-hitting PR campaign could significantly slash the meth use rates. And it did. Then he sold out. To the United States government.

For an outfit that's been around for over a century, the VNA Foundation is surprisingly hip to ideas such as measuring outcomes. But what we like is this funder's laser-like focus on the most basic of human needs, with a warm spot for the grittiest front-line work. Oh, and they're as transparent as glass.

Time was, heart attacks were near-unstoppable killers. Too often, they still are, but two determined funders are working to change that, pioneering new and better cardiac care solutions throughout the Midwest..

Medicaid expansion is a highly politicized issue, and you don't see a lot of a big foundation grants that go explicitly to push for expansion in the opt-out states. But make no mistake: plenty of foundation-backed groups are working this front every day, including many state-based organizations.

Brain tumors are deadly, but because they are random and don't hit a targeted demographic that can mobilize resources, funding is hard-to-come-by. That helps explain why brain tumor research is one of the few fields where funders are very to collaborate. The lastest example: the Jumpstarting Brain Tumor Drug Development Coalition