On April 13th, Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster and founding president of Facebook announced that he would be donating a $250 million to establish a cancer research center at UCLA.
The cancer research facility will focus on immunotherapy, a type of treatment in which the body’s own immune system is used to fight cancer.
Along with UCLA, Stanford, UCSF, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania, and MD Anderson Cancer Center will also be funded by the Parker Foundation.
All findings under this program, including intellectual property licensing, collection of data, and clinical trials will be shared across all teams involved. “This type of collaborative approach to research is leading the way for further, and faster advancement in the fields of medicine, pharmacology, immunology, and gene therapy. Expect to see an increasing number of these cooperative research programs in the not too distant future.” said Michael Williams, CEO, Global Healthcare IT, Inc.
Stemming from the belief that very little has evolved regarding cancer drugs and treatments over several decades, Sean Parker has no doubt that greater progress will be delivered more promptly under this specialized collective research program.
Approximately 40 labs and a combination of 300 researchers and immunologists will be involved in the project, all led by Dr. Antoni Ribas, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Tumor Immunology Program at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.
