The Beirne B. Carter Center for Immunology Research (CIC) is thrilled to announce that it has received a $1,200,000 gift from the Beirne Carter Foundation (BCF). The Foundation’s latest commitment will help translate new discoveries of how the immune system is involved in various diseases to humans with the establishment of a Human Immunophenotyping Initiative (HIPI) within the CIC.
As Beirne Carter predicted in 1989 when he established the CIC, immunology has emerged as a pivotal discipline in the discovery of new treatments for a host of conditions such as autoimmunity, cancer, infection, neurologic, allergic, cardiometabolic, renal and lung disease. “Today, immunologists in the CIC are discovering novel immune mechanisms and pathways with the potential to lead to new and improved therapies for patients with these immune-mediated diseases,” explains Coleen McNamara, MD (Co-Director of the CIC). Yet, translating research discoveries in immunology from the lab to the clinic can be challenging and burdensome.
To alleviate these challenges and to make translational research more accessible for UVA researchers, HIPI will provide staff and seed funding to catalyze translating discovery to the patient. The initiative will facilitate UVA researchers’ efforts to provide customized, optimized treatments based on a patient’s unique immune “fingerprint,” ensuring the right medicines get to the right patients at the right time. Melanie Rutkowski, PhD, Associate Professor Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology and Jeff Sturek, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, will serve as the inaugural co-directors of HIPI. Together, they represent the clinical and fundamental research expertise that HIPI will wield to improve patient outcomes.
The CIC is grateful for the almost $13M invested by BCF in the Center since its inception. Beirne Carter and former UVA Dean Robert Carey shared the belief that immunology had the ability to transform patient care. The BCF reaffirmed this vision in 2009 with a pledge to help build the Carter-Harrison Research Building, where the CIC now resides. More recently, the BCF, now led by Carter’s daughter, Rossie Hutcheson, has supported research funding, travel and event sponsorship to enhance the CIC’s work.
With the support of the BCF, HIPI will facilitate advances in effective, targeted, and minimally invasive treatments for chronic diseases. The new Initiative will uplift the CIC and the immunology community across UVA, building on the foundations Carter and Hutcheson have provided. The CIC extends its deepest gratitude to Hutcheson and the BCF for their continued belief in the transformational power of immunological research.