Securing the future

The academic year had just ended in June 2015 and UMass Medical School was at an inflection point. The state’s only public medical school, already home to 2006 Nobel Laureate Craig Mello, PhD, had seen one of its most accomplished research faculty win a Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences; a new executive vice chancellor had been appointed to focus on business development and the licensing of research discoveries; the School of Medicine’s class of 2015 had been featured prominently on Boston’s WCVB-TV news magazine “Chronicle”; and the institution had been aggressively building its research capacity in a number of areas, including gene therapy, RNA therapeutics and neurodegenerative diseases, along with investments in the research facilities to support them. It was poised to do more.

Chancellor Michael F. Collins had read a profile in the Boston Globe’s Sunday magazine of “Boston’s invisible billionaire,” Gerald Chan, a Hong Kong-born investment magnate and scientist with a passion for novel cancer treatments, who had recently made the largest-ever donation to Harvard School of Public Health.

“Every institution has a ‘moment’ that, if properly leveraged, can fundamentally alter its trajectory,” wrote Chancellor Collins in a letter to Chan that would prove providential. “UMass Medical School, a relatively young institution that graduated its first class of medical students in 1974, is in such a moment, and I am bullish about our prospects for changing the course of the history of disease.”

The two-page letter, highlighting the Medical School’s collaborative orientation that encourages “innovative, dynamic, interdisciplinary research,” piqued Chan’s interest sufficiently to encourage him to pay a visit to Worcester from his Morningside investment group office in Newton.

On Sept. 7, 2021, Chan’s deepening relationship with the Medical School came to fruition with the announcement of a “transformational” $175 million gift from his family business’ charitable arm, The Morningside Foundation, the largest in the history of UMass. The unrestricted donation will ultimately increase the Medical School’s endowment to nearly $500 million.

In recognition of the monumental gift and of the deep commitment to education, research and health care by the Chan family, UMass Medical School was renamed the UMass Chan Medical School. Its three graduate schools were renamed: the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, in honor of the father of Gerald Chan and his brother, Ronnie; the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing, in honor of their mother; and the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

The relationship between the Medical School and Gerald Chan and his family developed gradually yet deliberately over the years since the initial letter was sent, nurtured by Medical School leaders as well as by Collins and his wife, Maryellen.

Collins remembers getting a call from Chan one late summer day in 2015.

“He’s an investor and he invests in science,” Collins said. “And so, he was very impressed with the level of the science here and the kind of work that was being done.”

A few months later a one-hour meeting was set up in Worcester, and a month after that, in December 2015, Chan brought his team and spent the day with Medical School leaders and faculty on campus.

“I was extremely impressed with him and the quality of questions he asked,” said Collins. “He was always probing: What are your dreams for the school? Tell me about some of the students.”

Visits and correspondence grew more frequent, including dinners in Cambridge with science thought leaders, and Chan and his wife, Beryl, hosting Collins and Maryellen just before the COVID-19 global pandemic struck in March 2020. Discussions quieted as the pandemic raged, but by summer 2021, with vaccinations taking place, talk about hopes and dreams turned to more concrete plans.

Making a gift to the institution’s endowment, to grow with its investments and provide income for all three graduate schools, was important to Chan. “The most important point he made was he wanted all of the schools to benefit. He said he didn’t want to pick winners,” said Collins.

Collins’ overture to Chan, which highlighted the depth of promising research and education taking place across the Medical School’s graduate schools, aligned with Chan’s philanthropic record of commitment to eradicating disease and spoke to Morningside’s strategic investment interest.

Chan praised the wisdom of UMass Medical School’s founders that it should consist of a school of science, a medical school and a school of nursing.

“The three schools exist separately, but also cross-fertilize each other,” said Chan, in his remarks to the Medical School community in Worcester following the announcement of the gift at a UMass Board of Trustees special meeting in Boston. “This is a comprehensive training ground that develops talents for the health care of today and the health care of tomorrow.”

He added, “The world needs to look beyond Route 128 to see what a great educational and research institution has been built on the shores of Lake Quinsigamond.”

The interconnection between the Medical School’s graduate programs and MassBiologics, its enterprise that is the only nonprofit FDA-approved developer and manufacture of biologics in the nation, was also hailed by Chan in his remarks.

But it wasn’t just state-of-the-art technology and groundbreaking research that were impressive, Chan said. What made UMass Medical School stand out was “the kind of people it takes in,” following an admission practice that “attends to both quality and inclusion.”

He noted that public education is particularly important to new immigrants, which recently published Census data show are the fastest growing demographic in Massachusetts.

Chan, who became a U.S. citizen in the 1970s, said, “The immigrant story is a story of people taking risks in order to create a better life for their families. . . . Quality public education is the best way to harness the energy brought to our country by new immigrants.”

The Morningside Foundation’s contribution was lauded by Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and UMass leadership.

“They invest in institutions that are literally going to transform people’s lives, and that is what you do day in and day out as a medical school,” said UMass President Marty Meehan.

UMass trustee and alumna Noreen “Chioma” Okwara, MD’17, highlighted what she called the “transformational power of public education.”

“The extraordinary gift that The Morningside Foundation and the Chan family are making today will go a long way toward changing lives, creating opportunities for countless people, and, most importantly, allowing people from all walks of life to entertain dreams that will remain impactful for generations to come,” Dr. Okwara said.

The conversation that began in 2015 with a letter and an invitation to learn more resulted in resources that will support UMass Chan’s ability “to attract, educate and mentor outstanding students; recruit and retain committed faculty; develop innovative and cutting-edge programs; and to encourage all students, faculty and staff to redouble our commitment, in the legacy of the Chan family, to serve others,” said Collins in his Convocation address in September.

“The Medical School had been launching in an ambitious direction in 2015,” Collins said. “This endowment gift will propel it to greatness.” ■

By Susan E.W. Spencer