There's a lot of research to suggest that achievement is tied to one's own socioeconomic status. On average a low-income child is not going to do as well on average as a middle-class child. If I am a middle-class child doing well and I'm attending a high-poverty school, I'm going to do less well on average.

Vertex achieved all of its clinical, research and financial objectives in 2005. In particular, we increased our financial strength as we advanced potentially transformational compounds targeting hepatitis C virus (HCV), rheumatoid arthritis and cystic fibrosis. Our performance last year has positioned us to build momentum in 2006.

Vertex's cystic fibrosis research program has yielded two innovative approaches for the treatment of this disease.

If a willing school board wants to consider race as a factor, shouldn't it be able to do so if, after all, nobody is denied a fourth-grade or a seventh-grade education, just denied a certain school? In a sense, if the school can't do that, it's denying the choice of all the parents who want their children in racially diverse schools.

The evidence that I've seen suggests that there comes a point ... where the concentration of poor children in a school has a serious likelihood of impacting how well students will do in a school.

The achievement reported in PNAS is the culmination of a research effort lasting a quarter of a century and involving hundreds of students and millions of dollars.