The WAF enthusiastically provided $500,000 in funding to the PMC. This was part of a matching grant in collaborating with Team Cranks efforts to cycle for a duration of two days and 192 miles across Massachusetts to raise awareness and funds to support research and development for new and enhanced cancer treatments. The funds will help support research programs such as the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research, AML Research Fund, The Pediatric Low-Grade Astrocytoma Program, and The Program for Head, Neck, and Salivary Gland Cancers.
In collaboration with UCLA, The Warren Alpert Foundation funded $4,611,666 towards their project titled,” Warren Alpert UCLA Computational Biology/ AI (CBAI) Scholar Training and Retention Program.” With a shortage of qualified individuals in the field of Computational Biology/ Artificial Intelligence, UCLA created a program to provide individuals with more training and education to further their skills with the goal of paving a career to enter the field of CBAI via healthcare industry and/or academics. UCLA will develop a training program that will transition from part time to full time in order to offer support to full time students and full-time working professionals that can be completed within 1-2 years. The project also has a Scholars Continuing Education program that is a shorter timeframe for experts in all stages of their career and networking opportunities to advance their career.
Through innovative research to improve the health and wellbeing of the community, Mass General Brigham Incorporated has developed a project titled,” The Warren Alpert Foundation Clinician-Scientist Fellowship in Behavioral Neurology & Neuropsychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital.” The Warren Alpert Foundation donated $1,235,169.00 in collaboration with Mass General Brigham Incorporated to positively impact the field and advancement of Neurology and Neuropsychiatry differentiating between the disease of the brain and disease of the mind. The project provides mentored research in real time and in person case supervision where trainees can pursue a path in Radiology, Psychiatry, and Neurology resulting in a faculty position.
With a mission to transform pancreatic cancer into a disease that is curable, the Marc Lustgarten Pancreatic Cancer Foundation developed a project called,” LABS (Lustgarten Advancing Breakthrough Science) Program.” Studies show pancreatic cancer being the third leading cause of cancer deaths and by 2030, is expected to be the second. The Warren Alpert Foundation funded $500,000 for this project which promotes the development and advancement in treating pancreatic cancer via early detection, development of new medications, and customization of medication. The fund will support the LABS initiative at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, two sites of John Hopkins, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Salk Institute.
To create a pulse oximeter to equally treat all skin tones, Brown University established a project called, “Prospective Clinical Pilot Study Comparing Novel Approaches to Equitable pulse Oximetry.” The Warren Alpert Foundation committed $200,000 towards this two-year study which will take place in Rhode Island in coordination with a team of engineers, a biostatistician, and physicians via a clinical pilot study. Medical professionals use this tool to provide a basis for medical care, but with inadequate equipment, the care provided may not be at its best due to the variety of pulse oximeters which some are not FDA approved but are still being utilized at medical facilities and at home. There has been proven studies showing melanin in the skin affects pulse oximetry readings. This project will help to determine a calibrated skin tone algorithm to create a more accurate medical grade commercial pulse oximeter.
The Warren Alpert Foundation committed to Harvard Medical School $1,479,838.00 for their project in “Assessing the Lasting Impact of the Pandemic on US Nursing Homes.” The funds will be used to examine the impact and complications of the Covid-19 pandemic on nursing homes. Findings from this project will assist policy makers, nursing home facilities, and medical staff to better tackle the complications the pandemic caused on facilities throughout the nation. HMS plans to examine admissions to nursing homes, effects on staffing and quality of care given to those admitted to the facility, then examining staff, residents, and families about how they believed their experience with nursing homes has been affected by the pandemic.
Ranked the number one pediatric hospital in the U.S., and the largest international pediatric research facility, The Warren Alpert Foundation proudly awarded $1,725,000.000 to Boston Children’s Hospital for their research titled, “Cell Discovery Network: Pediatric Cell Atlas”. With the goal of highlighting the origins of pediatric diseases, the Cell Discovery Network will share internal and external data via the Boston Children’s Hospital Pediatric Cell Atlas, a centralized database for single cell data. The funds will contribute towards the treating of children with rare and complex diseases.
The aim of this project is to identify and quantify the chemical modifications in the bases and sugar of RNA in human cells. The RNA samples (mRNA, rRNA, tRNA) from different human cells will be prepared. Read more
The WAF-Career Ladder Education Program for Genetic Counseling (CLEP-GC) will be designed to meet the post-graduate training and education needs of genetic counselors by providing focused online continuing education courses for GCs, creating Advanced Training Certificate Program in Genetic Counseling (ATCP-GC) in three tracks: bioethics/ELSI, research training, and genomic technology; and exploring the pathways for GCs to become faculty, including laying the groundwork for the creation of a Ph.D. program targeted toward practicing genetic counselors. Read more
Funding will support The Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness (MassCPR) which will be led by Harvard Medical School in conjunction with 17 biomedical partners. Read more
Funding will support The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network in its efforts to dramatically improve outcomes for pancreatic cancer patients through its early Detection and Treatment Fund. Read more
The funding will be used to conduct a consensus study to develop a roadmap for scientific and technology development to enable direct sequencing of RNA modifications, specifically chemical modifications of the four RNA bases. Read more
The New York Genome Center (NYGC) goal is to advance its efforts to build a platform that optimizes mental healthcare quality while improving equity and outcomes for individuals with serious mental illness. Read more
The foundation’s support will enable MSKCC to build upon the accomplishments of the Warren Alpert Center for Digital and Computational Pathology. MSK will move forward by integrating whole-slide images, multiomics data for quantitative data-driven pathology. Read more
The Warren Alpert Foundation is proud to provide $1,000,000 to Crossroads Rhode Island in support of their $15 Million, Capital Campaign Housing Vision. As the leading provider of housing and supportive services to individuals and families experiencing homelessness in Rhode Island, they know that housing is health and is the cure for homelessness. Read more
A 2-year, $200,000 grant for an innovative approach to the care of cancer patients in their most desperate times titled " Development of a Humanistic, Patient-Centered, Early Phase Cancer Research Center at an Academic Community Hospital: Center for Innovative Cancer Research Therapies at the Miriam Hospital" to, using the impending completion of the Center for Innovative Cancer Research facilities, develop a new model for a research nurse that will combine clinical cancer research skills with humanistic, patient-centered care.
A multi-year $900,000 grant titled "A Personalized Treatment Strategy for Parkinson's Disease". This grant will help to explore the role and impact of mitochondrial protein Mirol both as a molecular signature and as a drug target for Parkinson's disease. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common movement disorder, afflicting the aging population. Currently, there is no disease-modifying therapy for PD due to the lack of the understanding of disease mechanisms. In addition, there are no reliable biomarkers for aiding in diagnosis and monitoring drug efficacy. These challenges limit moving experimental therapies from bench to bedside. In this proposal, the Stanford team will couple drug discovery and developing companion diagnostic tool to address these challenges with the hope to find a better treatment for PD.
Penn Medicine, a $9.5 million grant to increase the number of genetic counselors and diversity in a field that, despite impressive leaps forward in genetic knowledge, lacks a diverse workforce. The Alliance to Increase Diversity in Genetic Counseling grant will support 40 underrepresented students in five genetic counseling programs in the Northeastern U.S. over five years to expand all dimensions of diversity. The Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania's Master of Science in Genetic Counseling Program will lead this effort, joined by participating Genetic Counseling master's programs at Boston University School of Medicine, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Sarah Lawrence College, and the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Ten students will be selected yearly to receive full tuition support and cost-of-living stipend. Read more
A 5-year $4.6 million grant titled "mRNA Vaccines for Pediatric Falciparum Malaria". Using two recent lab discoveries evaluate three vaccine candidate antigens to block the entry and exit of the parasite from red blood cells and to also evaluate the feasibility of liquid encapsulated mRNA to serve as a delivery platform. P. falciparum malaria is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries, infecting hundreds of millions of individuals and killing over half a million children in sub-Saharan Africa each year. Despite this horrendous death toll, highly effective malaria vaccines do not exist.
This 5-year $2.4 million grant titled "SMART Plus Pipeline: School Health Model for Academics Reaching All Transforming lives Plus a Health Progressions Pipeline Program for Rhode Island" (SMART) is an equitable school health solution that proactively engages, consents, and screens all students to identify risks and barriers to academic success. The program provides comprehensive physical and behavioral healthcare to students in underserved communities while building a pipeline for those students to pursue careers as healthcare professionals.
A multi-year $1.5 million grant titled "Building upon the Undiagnosed Diseases Network to Increase Population Representation and Acquire Therapeutic Insists" will continue to expand the efforts of the Undiagnosed Disease Program, particularly focused on increasing influence into under-represented and growing immigrant populations, coordinating novel disease causing mutations with effective therapies and creating an orphan diseases pipeline to streamline understanding of molecular functions for the genes mutated in monogenic diseases identified by the Undiagnosed Disease Network.
The foundation is proud to support Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a $1.5 million multi-year grant to assess the impacts of CD-induced programming changes in macrophage and microglial populations and their impact on neuronal populations, and further, provide fundamental insight needed for therapeutic interventions. Read more
The Warren Alpert Foundation is proud to announce a $3.4 million grant to Brown University, for a multi-year, multi-institutional translational grant titled "ONC212 as novel therapy for pancreatic cancer". The grant will support the El-Deiry Lab in the investigation and development of ONC212 for the treatment of pancreatic cancer and other advanced treatment-refractory solid tumors.
The foundation is pleased to provide a $3,000,000 joint grant to co-applicants, Harvard Medical School's Department of Health Care Policy and Brown University's Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior for a research grant title "Targeted Intensive Case Management of Veterans at Risk for Suicide Post Impatient Hospitalization". In order to examine the impact of Coping Long-Term With Active Suicide Program (CLASP) which has been developed at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University to prevent suicides after psychiatric hospital discharge. With assistance from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Center of Excellence for Suicide Prevention in Canandaigua, NY the grant is to implement the protocol across 6 strategicalled selected VHA locations across the United States.
The foundation committed $755,000 to a grant titled "Alzheimer's Disease Biomarkers and Risk Disclosure" to identify biomarkers and undertake cognitive assessments for early detection to evaluate informed treatment decisions and early detection through biomarker development, PET and retinal imaging biomarkers, and the development of a machine-learning based individual AD Risk Algorithm.
In 2019 the Warren Alpert Foundation provided a $1,700,000 grant to partially fund the construction of the Warren Alpert Foundation cGMP Oligonucleotide Manufacturing Facility at MassBiologics, UMass Medical School in Boston MA. Read more
A $3.9 million multi-year grant to support a team of physician-scientist cutting-edge work to fight glioblastoma, a highly aggressive and intractable cancer of the brain. Read more
The foundation is proud to provide $2.4 million in support of a multi-year Harvard Medical School Department of Healthcare policy and Brown University Department of Health Services Policy & Practice collaborative effort entitled “Evaluating Medicare’s New Skilled Nursing Facility Driven Payment Model.” Read more
With support of a $10,000,00 gift from The Warren Alpert Foundation, The Warren Alpert Center for Digital and Computational Pathology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center was established in 2017 as an innovation center to facilitate novel research and development in digital pathology and algorithmic computational pathology for clinical cancer care and research. Read more
In recognition of a $100,000,000 gift from The Warren Alpert Foundation in 2007, Brown University Corporation approved naming Brown’s medical school in honor of businessman, entrepreneur, philanthropist and foundation founder, Warren Alpert. Read more
Respecting Mr. Alpert’s desire to find cures or treatments of major disease, particularly Alzheimer’s, the foundation has provided a $1.6 million in funding for a multi-year research grant to RPI entitled “Structure-Based Drug Discovery Targeting Substrate of y-secretase in Alzheimer’s disease.” Read more
One third of the world is infested with the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis and only 10% of these individuals develop TB. Read more
In 1999 The Warren Alpert Foundation agreed to make a major charitable gift of $15,000,000 to Mount Sinai Hospital. In recognition of the gift, Mount Sinai established the warren Alpert Pavilion. Read more
In 1993, at the direction of Mr. Alpert, The Warren Alpert Foundation donated $20,000,000 to the Harvard Medical School for a new 5-story research Building. Read more
Continuing its commitment to medical education the foundation enthusiastically approved a $2.5 million challenge grant in support of Bryant University’s School of Health Services. Read more