Spotlight
Technology Networks highlights the research of Dr. Erin S. Calipari, a Vanderbilt University professor and 2026 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists Finalist. Her team’s experiments suggest that dopamine signals how attention-grabbing an experience is, rather than reward alone. Observations that dopamine also increases in response to unpleasant and unfamiliar stimuli prompted the researchers to explore its broader role in learning. Their findings suggest that dopamine helps the brain determine which experiences deserve attention, influencing how quickly it learns and helping it filter out irrelevant information. This perspective could inform future research into addiction and psychiatric disorders, although its implications for treatment require further investigation. Calipari also reflects on how recognition through the Blavatnik Awards provides opportunities to learn from researchers across disciplines and consider new directions for her work.
Edmund Richardson has won the 2026 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction for Alexander: God, King, Man. The Blavatnik Family Foundation supported the prize ceremony, held at BMA House in London on November 4. This is the first book on ancient history to receive the award since the prize was established in 1999. Drawing on more than a decade of research across four continents and new translations from twelve ancient languages, Richardson explores the life of Alexander the Great. The judges praised his combination of historical scholarship, recent archaeological discoveries, and engaging storytelling. Selected from more than 350 eligible books, the work earned Richardson his first major prize.
Lifestyles Magazine profiles Len Blavatnik’s philanthropy through the Foundation’s latest gift, a $10 million grant to Yale School of Medicine to launch a new initiative in inflammation science. The profile traces his path from his first job in the United States, writing code in the biostatistics department of what was then Mount Sinai School of Medicine, to decades of sustained support for medical research. Directed by Ruslan Medzhitov, an inaugural laureate of the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, the Yale initiative will study how infection, environment, and the microbiome drive inflammation, and will establish the Blavatnik Graduate and Postdoctoral Fellows program. The grant is the Foundation’s third $10 million commitment to Yale, following support for inflammation research in 2013 and the creation of the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation in 2016. The profile places the gift within the Foundation’s giving of more than $1.5 billion to over 300 institutions in the past decade, including the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School, the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford, and longstanding support for Tel Aviv University. It also highlights the Blavatnik Awards, which have recognized more than 500 early-career scientists, and the Blavatnik Archive’s new project documenting the refuseniks and the movement to free Soviet Jewry.
The Jerusalem Post highlights how researchers at Tel Aviv University are combining expertise across disciplines to better understand cancer and develop potential treatments. Among them is Professor Uri Ben-David, the 2026 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in Israel Laureate in Life Sciences. He was recognized for his research on how cancer cells adapt to abnormal numbers of chromosomes, a condition known as aneuploidy. His work forms part of the university’s collaborative efforts to deepen understanding of cancer and translate fundamental discoveries into potential treatments.
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.
