Marcus, who died in November 2024 at the age of 95, had long focused his foundation's philanthropy on medical research. The latest grant will support Dr Chuck Murry, director of the USC Stem Cell Center, in advancing clinical trials involving gene-edited cellular therapies.
The Marcus Foundation said the research is focused on using stem-cell-based treatments to regenerate tissue damaged by heart attacks.
“Murry and his team have advanced gene-edited cellular therapy to the point that the time is right to support cells as living medicine in this new form of treatment,” Jonathan Simons, chief science officer of the Marcus Foundation, said in a statement.
The $28.7 million grant is the largest donation the Marcus Foundation has made to USC and is among its larger contributions to academic medicine.
The foundation donated $25.9 million in 2024 for stroke research at Emory University School of Medicine and Grady Health System's Marcus Stroke and Neuroscience Center. In 2019, it gave $20 million to establish the Department of Integrative Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at Jefferson's Sidney Kimmel Medical College.
The USC donation is part of the foundation's broader focus on medical research and healthcare. Since Bernie and Billi Marcus established the organisation in 1989, it has awarded more than $2.7 billion through more than 3,500 grants across areas including medical research, Jewish causes, free enterprise, veterans and children's welfare.
The foundation's medical giving covers five areas: stem-cell research and regenerative medicine, earlier cancer detection and treatment, autism diagnosis and treatment, integrative medicine, and cardiovascular disease, including stroke.
Its first grant, worth about $110,000, went to Emory's Egleston Children's Research. Marcus also provided initial funding that helped launch Autism Speaks in 2005.
Other initiatives backed by the foundation include the Marcus Stroke and Neuroscience Center at Grady, the Marcus Autism Center at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and the Marcus Institute for Brain Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, which provides care for veterans and retired athletes with traumatic brain injuries.
Marcus's approach to philanthropy focused the foundation's resources on areas he was personally interested in rather than distributing funds across a wider range of causes.
“People may not understand how hard it is to do this,” said Mike Leven, a Marcus Foundation trustee. “People are coming at you all the time, good people with good causes. Unless you discipline yourself, you're going to over-give and underachieve. Bernie's better at it than anybody I know.”
The latest USC grant places the foundation's continued focus on medical research behind clinical trials seeking to advance gene-edited, stem-cell-based therapies for tissue damaged by heart attacks.
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