Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen set aside $125 million to fund a new division at a scientific institute he founded to focus on understanding the immune system. This morning, it was reported that the Allen Institute is expanding.
Before Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen died, he set aside millions of dollars for medical research. He laid the foundation for the Allen Institute for Brain Science, which focused on work to map the brain and central nervous system. He also established the Allen Institute for Cell Science, which maps cellular behavior.
This morning, it was reported that the Allen Institute is expanding. Prior to his death, Allen set aside $125 million to establish a new division at the institute – one dedicated to exploring and gaining a better understanding of the immune system. The new Allen Institute for Immunology will launch with 70 employees and will be helmed by former Eli Lilly executive Tom Bumol.
The new immunology division will analyze blood samples and medical data that has been gathered from both healthy patients, as well as patients who have diseases of the immune system, Stat News reported this morning. According to the report, the new division will have an initial focus on two cancers and its causes, multiple myeloma and melanoma, as well as three autoimmune disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. The researchers at the Allen Institute have a goal of understanding what the immune system is like when an individual is healthy and how that changes when an individual is sick.
Bumol told Stat that the new Allen Institute of Immunology wants to truly understand what it means to have a strong and healthy immune system. With a baseline established, Bumol said that will be a “secret to understanding what goes wrong in disease.” The Allen Institute of Immunology is not currently in the business of attempting to develop any kind of therapeutics. However, Bumol said the institute could, in the future, collaborate with partners “who could be interested in taking our observations and maturing them,” according to Stat.
As part of its operations, the Allen Institute of Immunology will partners with several clinical research groups across the country. The clinical partners will provide samples for the institute’s scientists to study and also collaborate on the research, according to the report.
Prior to joining the Allen Institute, Bumol, who led an immunology research group at Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly, served as a consultant to establish the new division. Bumol told Stat that during his time at Lilly, he saw success in the development of Taltz (Ixekizumab), a treatment for plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, as well as failures of attempting to develop a therapy for lupus. Those experiences gave Bumol a new drive to take the understanding of the immune system up to a “different level.”
Allen, the benefactor of the Institute, died in October from complications with leukemia.
