PROVIDENCE – A $50 million gift made to Brown University by Chancellor Samuel M. Mencoff and Ann S. Mencoff to fund the translation of scientific research into medical cures for disease was announced Thursday by the Ivy League school.
“The potential of medical research is almost limitless,” said Chancellor Mencoff in a statement. “What can be more exciting or important than finding cures and treatments for diseases that burden the lives of patients in Rhode Island and globally?”
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Destined for Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School, half of the gift will help establish four professorships in biomedicine and fund existing researchers from laboratory scientists to physician-scholars.
The remaining $25 million will support medical education and research including that done by the Brown Institute of Translational Science. BITS works to transform scientific advances into medical treatments available to patients, the Mencoff donation will fund the organization’s directorship.
Complimenting the Mencoff gift, announced in the release is an anonymous $6 million gift to establish endowed medical school chairs “to retain and attract the very best scholars” in Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. Jack A. Elias, dean of medicine and biological sciences, a professor of medicine and senior vice president for health affairs, is enthused by the possibilities this level of philanthropy allows the university.
He categorized the current era in medical research as a “critical time for philanthropic investment.
“These investments keep Brown on an ambitious trajectory for moving research out of the labs and into clinics in areas like respiratory diseases, aging, Alzheimer’s disease and treatments for malaria,” he said.
The Mencoff’s gift comes one year after two years of consecutive medical research funding for Brown. In November 2016 the Warren Alpert Foundation made a $27 million gift which supported M.D.-Ph.D. training and the improvement of collaboration between researchers, clinicians and other scholars regarding diagnosis, treatment and prevention. Fourteen months prior, in September 2015, the family of Alan Hassenfeld gave $12.5 million, with the opportunity for a fundraising match, to establish the Hassenfeld Child Health Innovation Institute – a collaboration with Hasbro Children’s Hospital and Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island among additional local partners.
Fundraising for BITS, according to the gift announcement, is “a priority” for the school’s $3 billion, three-year-old strategic plan, BrownTogether.
Today, with the Mencoff’s gift, a total $141 million has been raised by the school toward medical education as part of BrownTogether.
“The partnership between academic medicine and local health care providers is one of the essential ingredients for sustaining quality health care and propelling economic progress in Rhode Island,” said Brown University President Christina H. Paxson in a statement.
A 1978 Brown alumnus, Mencoff has served as chancellor of the Corporation of Brown University since July 2016. He is the co-CEO and co-founder of Chicago-based private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, gowdey-backus@pbn.com.
