Commitment to Longevity

The family of the late David and Mary Harrison, two of the University of Virginia’s most generous benefactors, made a pair of commitments totaling $55 million. This extraordinary gift includes $30 million to create a leading-edge translational research program dedicated to the next generation of therapies for Alzheimer’s and related diseases, and $25 million to the Olympic Sports Center in the Department of Athletics. 

The new Harrison Family Translational Research Center in Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases will be housed in the new Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology. The gift for the research center is provided by the Harrison Foundation and the Mary Anderson Harrison Foundation. The naming of the centers is pending approval by the Board of Visitors. 

The other portion of the funds is designated to create the Harrison Family Olympic Sports Center, scheduled to open in the summer of 2025. This facility will be centrally located in the athletics precinct. It will feature a performance training center, strength and conditioning facilities, tutoring and academic support spaces, and a hall of champions. 

UVA President Jim Ryan announced the gift during the February 29 meeting of the Board of Visitors. 

“The Harrison family’s incredibly generous commitments will provide robust support for UVA students and faculty and will help foster and coordinate important work on neurodegenerative disease,” Ryan said. “I’m deeply grateful to the Harrisons for their decades of giving to UVA and for their investments in key areas of the strategic plan. The impact of their giving will be felt on Grounds for generations to come.” 

Speaking on behalf of the family, Marjorie Harrison Webb, president of the Harrison Foundation, said: “We are pleased to lend our support to two areas of the University that will increase opportunities for students and faculty to thrive. Student-athletes embody the full promise of a UVA education, while a research center devoted to the understanding and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases will allow UVA researchers to lead the way in the fight against these devastating illnesses.” 

The gift creating the research center will allow UVA to develop a national research program in Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. Within the University’s research ecosystem, the center will create a nexus between the UVA Brain Institute, which encompasses all neurological research at the University, and the Manning Institute of Biotechnology, which will translate fundamental discoveries in health science into therapies for a broad range of illnesses. 

The center’s aim is to enable physicians and scientists in the fields of Alzheimer’s, other dementias, and neurodegenerative disorders to make their translational discoveries at UVA for the benefit of patients and families. The Harrison family’s gift will create the building blocks for this new research program by supplying support for faculty and other researchers and building out a collaborative research environment.

The threefold plan includes $5 million to create the Harrison Family University Professorship in Neuroscience, which will enable the president, provost, and CEO of UVA Health to recruit a preeminent scholar to lead the center. This portion of the funding is eligible for a dollar-for-dollar match from the University’s Bicentennial Professorships Fund for a total potential impact of $10 million. 

An additional $5 million will support an endowed chair—the Harrison Family Professorship in Neurodegenerative Diseases—and postdoctoral fellows, staff, and research support. The naming of the endowed chairs is pending approval by the Board. 

Finally, $20 million of the gift will create a dedicated space for the research center within the Manning Institute building. Construction for this 350,000-square-foot research facility began in December 2023. By concentrating expertise across several disciplines, connecting UVA’s current investigators with new recruits to broaden research capacity and channeling discoveries into new translational therapies, the new space within the Manning Institute will enable UVA to expand the size and breadth of its program in the field of neurodegenerative diseases and raise its national profile. 

“The Harrison family’s generous contribution underscores the importance of the neurosciences as an area of focus within the Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology,” said Dr. K. Craig Kent, CEO of UVA Health and executive vice president for health affairs at UVA. “This funding enables UVA to continue to assemble a world-class team of researchers primed to deliver transformative breakthroughs in the neuroscience fields with advancements that will offer hope to millions of families impacted by Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.”

INAUGURAL DIRECTOR ANNOUNCED

On May 21, 2024, UVA Health announced that UVA Alzheimer’s researcher John Lukens, PhD, will serve as the inaugural director of the Harrison Family Translational Research Center in Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases. He will oversee the launch of a cutting-edge translational research program to develop the next generation of treatments for Alzheimer’s and related neurodegenerative disorders. Lukens has been part of the UVA School of Medicine’s Department of Neuroscience since 2014. He is renowned for having conducted groundbreaking research charting the crucial role of the immune system in brain injury and neurodegenerative disorders.