Led by HMS Dean George Q. Daley, the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School is home to world-class faculty who aim to solve the greatest problems of human health through fundamental and translational biomedical research. The institute reflects the unique identity of the scientific enterprise housed on the HMS Quadrangle, encompassing the School’s 11 basic and social science departments, including the departments of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Biomedical Informatics, Cell Biology, Genetics, Global Health and Social Medicine, Health Care Policy, Immunology, Microbiology, Neurobiology, Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, and Systems Biology. The institute was named in November 2018 in recognition of a momentous commitment from the Blavatnik Family Foundation to benefit Harvard Medical School.
The Blavatnik Family Foundation is an active supporter of many leading educational, scientific, cultural and charitable institutions in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Israel and throughout the world. A 501(c)(3) private foundation that is exclusively self-funded, over the past decade it has contributed more than $700 million to more than 250 charitable institutions worldwide. Donations are highly concentrated to drive meaningful impact and to promote innovation in science, engineering and technology that will benefit the whole of society. The Foundation focuses on select institutions leading the way in early-stage discovery vital to scientific and health-related breakthroughs.
The Foundation’s commitment to Harvard benefiting Harvard Medical School is the most recent in a long history of generous gifts to academic institutions in support of the life sciences. The Foundation’s history of support at Harvard originated with the 2007 establishment of the Biomedical Accelerator Fund. In 2013, a $50-million gift launched the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator at Harvard University and the Blavatnik Fellowship in Life Science Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School. The Foundation is best known for its Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, which supports noteworthy young scientists and engineers.
The Foundation is headed by Len Blavatnik, a global industrialist and philanthropist who received his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1989. Blavatnik is founder and chairman of Access Industries, a privately held U.S industrial group with global strategic interests in natural resources and chemicals, media and telecommunications, venture capital and real estate.
Harvard Medical School is deeply grateful that the Blavatnik Family Foundation has chosen to make this landmark gift to Harvard. We believe passionately that it will bring us closer to solving the most intractable health challenges of our time.
