Spotlight
The Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2025 Accelerator Awards, mid-cycle awards that support generating data for early-stage Yale life science research not typically funded by traditional research grants. This year’s awardees—eight research teams from across Yale—are addressing urgent challenges in cancer, ALS, inflammatory bowel disease, cardiovascular conditions, and rare genetic disorders and include innovative AI driven approaches to deliver faster drug development and better clinical trial outcomes.
When a successful organization has been in existence for almost 250 years, helping those in need, one is understandably reluctant to change its name. After all, why spoil a good thing? Such is the case with Colel Chabad, the oldest continually operating charity in Israel, founded in 1788 by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. Colel Chabad has become one of Israel’s most essential organizations, offering a broad range of programs, which include soup kitchens, daycare centers, medical rehabilitation centers, mental health clinics, and much more. Its largest program is its Food Security Initiative, part of the Blavatnik Food Bank of Israel. It has developed a partnership with the Israeli government that reaches 40,000 families each month, helping to ensure their food security. Food security is defined as the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.
The family foundation of longtime showbiz investor and film producer Len Blavatnik has donated $25 million to USC‘s School of Cinematic Arts to establish the Blavatnik Center for Virtual Production. The 15,000-square foot center will help expand the university’s virtual production curriculum that aims to give students a foundation in all aspects of using virtual production and the generative AI tools that it requires. Blavatnik, founder of investment firm Access Industries, with interests ranging from Warner Music Group to A24.
Len Blavatnik’s family foundation has made a $25 million donation to the USC School of Cinematic Arts to create a virtual production center, the university said this week. The 15,000-square-foot center will house two stages with wraparound LED walls that students and industry professionals will use to gain experience with virtual production technology, USC said. The facility will also house camera tracking, performance capture and lighting systems, as well as classrooms and labs with computers equipped with real-time 3D design software and digital asset libraries. In an emailed statement, Blavatnik cited the importance of new technologies to the filmmaking process. “USC’s pioneering approach — building a virtual production studio for the future — makes this the right time and place to invest in our industry,” he said.
Providing many of the world's best researchers, scientists, and universities with support, and funding to discover breakthroughs that solve humankind's greatest challenges.
The Foundation contributes to renowned institutions that showcase the breadth of arts and culture, including performance, exhibition and education.
The Blavatnik Archive is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to preserving and disseminating materials that contribute to the study of 20th-century Jewish and world history, with a special emphasis on World War I, World War II, and Soviet Russia.
