University of Pittsburgh gets $25M gift for life sciences research from Henry L. Hillman Foundation

The University of Pittsburgh received a $25 million grant from the Henry L. Hillman Foundation to enhance its research in the life sciences.

“This gift is an investment in the University of Pittsburgh but also in the people and potential of our region,” University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Patrick Gallagher said. “It will drive innovations in vision care and—even more—fuel Pittsburgh’s rise as a world leader in life sciences research.”

Overall, about $20 million of the gift will fund vision care research and development through The Eye & Ear Foundation, which supports the University of Pittsburgh’s Departments of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology. Specifically, the gift will help to improve access to vision care for underserved communities through outreach and direct care; help build and staff a vision “street lab” to test new treatments and therapies in safe, controlled, virtual, and real-life environments. It will also support research into breakthrough programs such as biomedical solutions to corneal blindness. It also includes funding to train local residents to fill jobs in the vision-related workforce.

“We are driven by helping patients. It starts with identifying conditions among patients, which flows into using research to find solutions, creating new therapies and devices, commercializing those advancements, and ultimately bringing them back to the patient by enabling access to everyone,” Dr. José–Alain Sahel, director of the Department of Ophthalmology, said. “No one person can do this. It takes teams of clinicians, scientists, educators, rehabilitation experts, and patients themselves, all looking at questions that have not been solved. Only then can you develop answers.”

About $1 million will support further life sciences planning under the direction of Dr. Anantha Shekhar, senior vice chancellor for the health sciences and John and Gertrude Petersen Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. Further, $3 million is allocated to supporting the LifeX startup accelerator, and $1 million will go to vaccine research.

“Dating back to the 1960s, the Henry L. Hillman Foundation has directed much of its attention to advancing quality of life in the region,” Foundation President David Roger said. “Pittsburgh stands in a unique position to lead the world in life sciences, and this grant will help shape a corridor that will drive the post-pandemic economy and create breakthrough discoveries—to the benefit of the region’s residents—for decades to come.”