Conducting, and was awarded the

Jacques Gershkovitch (1884–1953) was a Russian conductor and musician who became the first music director of the Portland Junior Symphony, the first youth orchestra in the United States, based in Portland, Oregon. Born to a musical family in Irkutsk, Gershkovitch was sent to Saint Petersburg in his late teens to study at the Imperial Conservatory. In 1913, he graduated with honors in flute and conducting, and was awarded the Schubert Scholarship for a year of study under German conductor Arthur Nikisch in Berlin. Gershkovitch returned to Irkutsk to enlist during World War I, and by 1916 he had become head of the Imperial Russian Army's military symphony orchestra. He held this position through the Russian Revolution and thereafter, as concerts were often presented as benefits for orphans and the Red Cross.

The Orphan Drug Act of 1983 is a law passed in the United States to facilitate development of orphan drugs—drugs for rare diseases such as Huntington's disease, myoclonus, ALS, Tourette syndrome or muscular dystrophy which affect small numbers of individuals residing in the United States.