Advancing Innovation and Scientific Discovery
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Our Mission
The Foundation creates a meaningful and lasting impact in the world by supporting leaders who see today’s challenges as an opportunity to create a better tomorrow.
Learn MoreRecent News
June 18th, 2020
The Blavatnik Family Foundation is supporting the fight against COVID-19 locally, nationally and around the world. [...]
July 20th, 2021
The Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences announced today a neuroscientist, inorganic chemist and an electrical engineer as the laureates of the 2021 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists. Each will receive $250,000, the largest unrestricted scientific prize for America’s most innovative young faculty-rank scientists and engineers. “These remarkable scientists and engineers are expanding our world through their groundbreaking research,” said Len Blavatnik, founder and chairman of Access Industries, head of the Blavatnik Family Foundation and member of the President’s Council of the New York Academy of Sciences. “Their discoveries are improving the human experience and the future will be made better by their work and innovations.” [...]
July 15th, 2021
Studying animals in the lab is, by definition, an exercise in scientific frustration. Flap all you want, but you won’t be able to track and observe foraging fruit bats in the wild. Now, a breakthrough device invented to solve that very problem – to study fruit bats (and those of other gastronomic predilections) in the wild – has earned Prof. Yossi Yovel of Tel Aviv University a prestigious prize. The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in Israel recognize the most promising academic staff in the country, the organization explains. Yovel was selected as the 2021 recipient in the category of Life Sciences. Yovel’s achievement enables scientists to study even quite small animals, like bats, in their natural environment, known as “freely behaving animals.” It is a marvel of miniaturization: a sensor attached to the bat’s furry little back, weighing no more than 1.5 to 2 grams, but capable of incorporating a vast range of tools. [...]
July 14th, 2021
Dr. Edward Chang, a 2015 National Blavatnik Awards winner in the Life Sciences category, continues to advance his neuroscientific research by helping a paralyzed man, known as Pancho, "speak" through a neuroprosthetic implant. Dr. Chang, the chairman of neurological surgery at the University of California San Francisco, led the team responsible for this scientific milestone. 128 electrodes were implanted into Pancho's brain where speech-related sensory and motor processes take place. When Pancho attempts to speak, the implanted electrodes transmit signals to a computer by a cable attached to a port in his head and displays his intended words on a screen. [...]