Pivotal Henry Ford Health researcher supports future work with blended gift

Research is an endless pursuit of continuous learning and striving to advance knowledge. It is a creative process – spurred on by new ideas and new ways of examining what is already known. For Margot LaPointe, Ph.D., recently retired Vice President of Research for Henry Ford Health, it is a labor of love. Challenging, but rewarding.

“A research career is extremely exciting and challenging. Reading the scientific literature in your field prompts you to think up new experiments and have fresh ideas about mechanisms underlying various diseases,” says Dr. LaPointe. “Despite the excitement, it’s also one of the most frustrating careers you can engage in because you fail a lot of the time.”

For over 30 years, Dr. LaPointe leaned into this frustration – building an enterprise-defining career at Henry Ford Health that began as a bioscientific research team member in the Hypertension and Vascular Research Division in 1990.

“And by failure, I mean you write grants and papers and reviewers will come back with critiques that point to how your experimental design can be better or how your data can be interpreted differently. In general, the comments are made so that your science will be stronger. So you go back to the drawing board, and generate better ideas, and design better experiments. You test your hypothesis in new and better ways; you get better data; and you move forward to get your papers published and grants funded.”

On her path from researcher to Vice President of Research, Dr. LaPointe oversaw the dramatic growth of the full spectrum of Henry Ford’s research – from basic discovery in the wet bench labs, to large epidemiological, clinical and translational studies.

During her tenure, Henry Ford’s research was concentrated along organizational strengths, including Cancer, Neuroscience, Public Health, and Cardiovascular studies – all of which remain strengths today.

Dr. LaPointe’s leadership played an integral role in supporting pathways for early scientists. After being appointed Director of Research in 2003, she assembled a team to organize an annual research symposium. The symposiums presented an opportunity to showcase scientists within the Henry Ford Medical Group – our integrated physician network, one of the nation's largest physician group practices with 1,900 physicians and researchers – and promote cross-collaboration while enabling early career investigators to present their work.

In 2023, 20 years after the first symposium and on the cusp of Dr. LaPointe’s retirement, the Dr. Margot C. LaPointe Early Career Investigator Award was born – enshrining her legacy in an incredible honor for budding scientists. The award is given annually at the Research Symposium to early career researchers with the highest scored abstract by the Symposium’s committee.

Over the course of her career, Dr. LaPointe learned firsthand how scarce research funding and programmatic support can be – and therefore how important philanthropic support is to bolster research programs. Both awed and honored by the award, she decided to make a blended charitable gift – part cash, part estate – to support the Early Career Investigator Award and Henry Ford Health’s research enterprise.

"I’ve had the privilege of working with Margot LaPointe for many years, and I can say without hesitation that she represents the heart and soul of Henry Ford Health,” said Bob Riney, President and CEO of Henry Ford Health. “She has not only advanced our research capabilities, but also embodied the spirit of curiosity and compassion that drives us all. With her planned gift, Margot is ensuring that our vital research will continue to improve people’s lives for generations to come. It’s an honor to celebrate her contributions and lasting impact on our community.”

Her generous gift will be used to support wet-bench, basic science cardiovascular research; dry-bench studies for stroke, neurological injury or prostate cancer; and to endow the annual Early Career Investigator Award through the Margot C. LaPointe Early Career Investigator Award fund. She hopes the support provided by her gift will incentivize more people to work toward research careers.

Reflecting on her impactful career and the future breakthroughs that will be enabled by her gift, Dr. LaPointe says, “In the long run, you hope that one small thing you did might translate into a deeper understanding of a disease process and thus better treatments and patient health.”