Posted for Heidi Ledford
A local entrepreneur has donated $100 million over the course of 10 years towards the establishment of a new immunology research institute. The new ‘Ragon Institute’ plans to focus initially on development of an HIV vaccine, but eventually aims to tackle broader issues in immunology and infectious diseases.
In a time of shrinking endowments and overstretched budgets, it is refreshing to hear that some philanthropists still have their wallets open. At the announcement of the institute yesterday morning, Harvard University President Drew Faust called the donation “particularly extraordinary at this time.”
The heroes of this story are Phillip “Terry” Ragon – an MIT grad who made his fortune by founding a software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts – and his wife, Susan Ragon. For more about their motivation to invest, check out the Boston Globe story.
The Ragon Institute is a virtual institute for now, but plans to have a building of its own eventually. The institute will unite researchers at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) – a plan that is reminiscent of the nearby Broad Institute. From what I hear, this multi-institutional model is quite fashionable these days.
One difference, though, is that Broad researchers still support their research by winning outside grants. At the meeting yesterday, administrators stressed that the institute would encourage “risky research” by liberating its researchers from the onerous task of applying for external funding. “As science funding becomes more limited, the funding sources tend to become more conservative,” said Bruce Walker, the MGH researcher who will direct the Ragon Institute. Under those conditions, funders tend to stick with safe ideas and established researchers, he added.
Walker is a busy guy – an established leader in HIV research. Every time I’ve talked to him, he’s been rushing out the door to head down to South Africa to visit the research clinic he has established there. The last time we spoke, he was very excited about new collaborations with engineers at MIT, and yesterday he again talked about the need to bring in new researchers from outside fields to tackle HIV.
A few years ago, Walker threw his hat in the ring to head the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology – a multi-institutional project funded by NIH and the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise. The post went Duke University’s Barton Haynes instead, but now it looks like Walker’s got another chance to take the reigns on a large-scale HIV project.