[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 208 (Wednesday, December 10, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Page S8583]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        TRIBUTE TO UNIVERSITY OF IOWA CARVER COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, a few times every year I come to the 
floor to compliment the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. 
I am here again to do it. It has, once again, shown that it is a leader 
in medicine and advancing new treatments.
  As the cofounder and cochair of the Senate's Cystic Fibrosis Caucus, 
I take a keen interest in cystic fibrosis treatment advances.
  Dr. Michael Welsh at the University of Iowa has recently received 
several awards for his research on cystic fibrosis that has paved the 
way for new therapies, which is transforming the lives of people with 
cystic fibrosis. Most recently, Dr. Welsh received the 2025 Lasker-
DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.
  Dr. Lasker's awards are sometimes called ``America's Nobels'' and are 
among the world's most prestigious biomedical and clinical research 
awards.
  Cystic fibrosis is a lethal genetic disease that affects a person's 
lungs, pancreas, and other organs and typically results in morbidity 
and even mortality.
  Until recently, living with cystic fibrosis was challenging and often 
led to infections in lungs that were very difficult to treat. Thanks to 
Dr. Welsh's research, we can now target cystic fibrosis at the 
molecular level that has resulted in 90 percent of cystic fibrosis 
patients benefiting from the new and improved treatments.
  Doctors no longer treat only a person's symptoms, they actually 
correct a person's defective gene through treatment discovered by Dr. 
Welsh. I would like to thank Dr. Welsh as his Senator and as chair of 
the Cystic Fibrosis Caucus for his decades of pioneering work on the 
fundamental biology of cystic fibrosis and also to congratulate him on 
winning this prestigious Lasker award. His landmark discoveries have 
led to new lifesaving therapies that correct the effects of genetic 
disorders.

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