Earlier this year, a team of philanthropists with deep backgrounds in medical research solidified plans with the University of California, Los Angeles, and the state of California to establish an institute to study the human immune system and develop new immunotherapies. The new California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, to be constructed by 2027 at the site of a sprawling former shopping mall two miles from the university’s Westwood campus, promises to be one of the world’s largest centers in a fast-evolving field of study that offers the potential to address a staggering array of diseases, from cancer to COVID.
A key element of that philanthropic support was announced just a few weeks ago: a $120 million commitment from physician-turned-philanthropist Gary Michelson and his wife Alya Michelson.
The couple’s commitment, to be disbursed through his Michelson Medical Research Foundation, will establish two research entities within the institute, each funded by $50 million. One will focus on rapid vaccine development, the other on study of the human microbiome. The remainder of the gift is funding a $20 million endowment to support early-career scientists pursuing novel processes in immunology, vaccine or immunotherapy research.
Michelson and his colleagues spent the better part of a decade putting the pieces together to launch the institute. “Our own immune systems are the common denominator to every single chronic disease that afflicts man and what kills us — as well as obesity and aging,” said Michelson, who is also cofounder and chair of the board of the new institute.
The immune system is a complex network of organs, antibodies and other elements that play a role across virtually all human health. Though it is far from fully understood, we have already begun to see the emergence of immunotherapies that have transformed medicine — such as the drug that essentially cured former President Jimmy Carter of metastatic melanoma, previously a hopeless diagnosis. Medical researchers believe that cracking the code of the immune system could enable the development of many more therapies for many of humankind’s most stubborn and deadly ailments.
Michelson is a spine surgeon by profession—a job he says is closer to carpentry than medicine — who made a fortune as an inventor of hundreds of medical devices used in surgery. In a recent conversation, I asked how he became one of philanthropy’s leading champions of immunology, a decidedly different medical specialty. The inspiration for that interest, he told me, was a worm.
Trigger warning: gross medical stuff ahead
It was about 15 years ago that Michelson read an article by noted tropical disease researcher Peter Hotez about a parasitic hookworm, largely inconsequential in cooler and wealthier countries, that nevertheless wreaked havoc on the health of well over a billion people, mostly in Africa and Asia. Among its many serious impacts, the parasite was the leading cause of death of women during childbirth and led to severe cognitive and brain deficits in children. Michelson was shocked to realize he knew next to nothing about this devastating threat to the health of so many people.
“I said to myself, ‘How can I be a doctor and know so little about this?'” Michelson said.
He contacted the article’s author to learn more. While existing antiparasitic medicine could kill the parasites and cure the patients, Hotez told him, the hookworms remained endemic in those regions and easily continued to spread and reinfect people. So if the pills couldn’t solve the problem, Michelson asked, why not develop a vaccine to protect people from the parasites in the first place, and for the rest of their lives? Hotez told him that it was not believed possible to develop a vaccine for parasites, which are quite different than bacteria and viruses (and for which many vaccines exist).
Perhaps it was Michelson’s unfamiliarity with the field of vaccines and parasites that enabled him to imagine an enzyme-based antibody that could render the parasites harmless. He ran the idea by Hotez and asked what it would take to develop and test it. Long story short, Michelson and vaccine proponent and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates each invested $5 million; just last year, a new vaccine showed 95% effectiveness against the hookworm in testing, a staggering breakthrough.
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That experience reshaped Michelson’s philanthropic interests and sparked the notion of a new institute to advance knowledge of immunology. “[I decided] this is where we could have the maximum amount of impact, the greatest philanthropic return on investment: with the human immune system and immunotherapies.”
Michelson worked with several fellow California-based philanthropists and researchers, coordinating with UCLA and the state of California, to envision the new California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy. Cofounders include businessman and UCLA alum Meyer Luskin, UCLA physician Eric Esrailian, oncologist and Kite Pharma founder Arie Belldegrun, and well-known medical research philanthropists Michael Milken and Sean Parker.
The 360,000-square-foot institute will be the primary occupant of UCLA’s new Research Park, a facility to be constructed at the site of a former shopping mall in Los Angeles that UCLA purchased earlier this year. The project was enabled by an unprecedented $500 million pledge by the state of California, of which $200 million has been allocated. The property, located about two miles from the university’s main campus, will also house the UCLA Center for Quantum Science and Engineering.
A couple of things to know about the new immunology institute: For one, it will be perhaps the largest in the field of immunology and immunotherapy, said Michelson, eventually involving about 500 scientists—making it many times larger than existing facilities around the country. The institute will recruit established and early-career scientists from around the world. Central to the concept of the institute, said Michelson, will be a focus on interdisciplinary collaboration between academic research specialties.
And while it will enjoy close connections to UCLA and its deep resources in medical research, the new institute will not be part of UCLA. It will operate as a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) medical research organization, governed by an independent board that includes UCLA representatives, as well as others. (Similar medical research organizations such as the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Broad Institute, which is affiliated with Harvard and MIT, also operate independently.)
An ecosystem of biotechs
But perhaps the most significant feature of the new immunology institute will be its focus on translating scientific advances discovered in laboratories into real-world therapeutics — something that Michelson and his partners were adamant about.
It’s a well-known phenomenon in the academic research world that discoveries remain undeveloped, essentially placed on a lab shelf and never transformed into actual treatments. Sometimes, this is due to a lack of funding or to an academic bureaucracy that’s not built to drive the long and difficult road of drug and therapeutics development. Immunology institute cofounder Belldegrun, for example, brings direct experience in the difficulties of translating academic research into approved commercial therapeutics. With a background as an oncologist, surgeon and immunology researcher, in 2009, he founded biotech Kite Pharma, which developed cell-based cancer immunotherapies that have made a huge difference for countless patients. Kite was acquired by pharma giant Gilead Sciences in 2017.
Michelson and his partners insisted that biotech companies will also be based at the institute. “The vision is to have one leg in academic research,” said Michelson. “But the other leg is to build an entire ecosystem of biotechs.”
The Michelsons are both Giving Pledge signatories, and their philanthropy extends beyond medical research. Other foundations under the Michelson Philanthropies banner include Michelson Found Animals Foundation, which focuses on animal and pet welfare; the Michelson 20MM Foundation, which supports education for postsecondary students and innovation in education; the Michelson Institute for Intellectual Property, to improve understanding of intellectual property and encourage invention and entrepreneurship; and the Michelson Center for Public Policy, to advance policy solutions and funding for medical research, higher education and other areas.
Fortunately, new technologies and deepening understanding of genomics are accelerating research into the immune system, and this sort of study will be among the chief topics in health research for the coming decades. “There is nothing more complex than the human immune system,” said Michelson. If scientists can get control of the immune system and its workhorse, inflammation, he said, there is every reason to believe physicians will be able to treat or — through new vaccines — prevent many of the most common diseases, including heart disease, Alzheimer’s, cancer, diabetes, autoimmune conditions and more.
Clarification (10/25/24): This article has been updated to clarify the fact that of the state of California’s intended $500 million pledge, $200 million has been allocated so far.
