Anyone who is awarded the American Association of Immunologists’ Lifetime Achievement Award can rightfully look back on a career of vision, impact, and dedication.
As American Cancer Society Professor and J. Michael Bishop MD Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of California San Francisco (UCSF), Founding Director of the Parker Institute for Immunotherapy at UCSF, and a member of both the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Lewis L. Lanier, PhD, has certainly lived a lifetime of achievement.
And he aspires for even more achievement, right here at UNC, through the Dr. Lewis L. Lanier and Linda B. Lloyd Unrestricted Endowment Fund. Dr. Lanier and his wife Linda Lloyd have generously made a legacy gift, one which will be a significant source of future financial support for UNC’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology.
In 1978, Dr. Lanier earned his PhD in Bacteriology (now Microbiology) and Immunology from UNC, one of the institutions he credits with helping him become a scientist and succeed in his profession. After leadership roles at Becton Dickinson Monoclonal Center and the DNAX Research Institute, Lanier joined the faculty of UCSF, where the chaired the Department of Microbiology and Immunology for 14 of his 24 years there. As chair, he saw firsthand the benefits of discretionary funding to help with student and faculty needs.
“If a faculty member needs to start a new initiative, it takes a year and a half to get any grant money. And sometimes you just need a little bit of money to get things started,” explained Lanier. “By giving to UNC, I can fund people who will actually make a direct impact.”
Lanier described how important it is to have discretionary funds to help faculty, students, and postdoctoral fellows, and how philanthropy can provide support for promising ideas in the earliest stages. As chair, he saw the ways that even a modest amount of money can jumpstart research. Spending $50,000 to get a project started, he said, can lead to major grant funding and allow research to advance more quickly to reach patients.
Lanier also saw the contrast between the clinical chairs, who have a steady stream of funding through grateful patients, and basic sciences departments, who lack that direct connection. Research in basic sciences tends to move forward without big checks from benefactors.
“People in the basic science departments working on more fundamental things, like immunity against infection in Drosophila, have a much harder time than somebody working on cancer or immunology,” said Lanier. Fruit flies, he said, are a hard sell to a donor.
Lanier noted how a game-changing technology developed because of basic sciences research on bacteria. CRISPR, which ushered in the ability to edit genes, came about through research into how viruses infect bacteria. “Now, that has exploded to be able to genetically modify things. And it shows where somebody in a basic science department had this amazing impact,” said Lanier.
No one knows where and when the next seismic science breakthrough will happen. But there’s no doubt that through philanthropy, donors like the Laniers are building and expanding the foundation for future scientific discovery at UNC.
To learn more about supporting basic sciences at UNC School of Medicine, contact Jeanine Simmons, Assistant Vice President, Philanthropy, at jeanine.simmons@med.unc.edu. To learn more about legacy planning, visit unchealthfoundation.org/ways-to-give/legacy-planning/.