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You can join the growing number of alumni and friends who invest now in the University’s future by including UVA as a beneficiary of their wills, charitable trusts, and retirement plans. Gifts like these can offer you and your family significant tax benefits as well as greater financial flexibility in meeting your personal and philanthropic goals.
The Honor the Future campaign, the largest in University history, concluded in 2025, thanks to thousands of loyal supporters. Its impact on students, faculty, facilities, and research reaches across Charlottesville, Wise County, and Northern Virginia as it continues to advance the school in its third century of service to the commonwealth, nation, and world.
Researchers are tackling the biggest questions in neuroscience—from Alzheimer’s to epilepsy to early childhood development. Thanks to generous gifts and a $75M Grand Challenges investment, UVA is accelerating bold, collaborative work to better understand the brain and improve lives.
UVA’s largest-ever investment in neuroscience is unlocking new paths to understanding and healing.
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The University of Virginia’s Brain Institute supports UVA’s commitment to collaborative research in the neurosciences, a priority research area outlined in the 2030 Strategic Plan. The Brain Institute is the hub of UVA’s interdisciplinary network, fostering connections across Grounds and uniting the neuroscience-related work of faculty members, students, and staff.
The University made a Grand Challenges research investment of more than $75 million in the Brain Institute to generate exciting opportunities to support leading-edge neuroscience research that will benefit patients down the road and advance our understanding of neurological disease.
Philanthropic support is critical for scientific research, allowing investigators to explore high-risk, high-reward ideas before they are ready for large-scale funding.
Major support has been received from the Harrison family, whose gift created the Harrison Family Translational Research Center in Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases as well as from The Owens Family Foundation and the Rick Sharp Alzheimer’s Foundation. Dr. Ken Botsford (Col ’75, Med ’79) and Nina Botsford provided generous support for the future of neuroscience research through a provision in their bequest. They also recently created the Nina and Ken Botsford Bicentennial Professorship in Neurology at the School of Medicine.
Leading with Vision
Advancing interdisciplinary neuroscience research that could impact countless lives in the future.
Dr. Jaideep Kapur Eugene Meyer III Professor of Neuroscience, Director of the Brain Institute
Under the visionary leadership of Dr. Jaideep Kapur, the Brain Institute is at the forefront of pioneering brain and neuroscience research. Its comprehensive programming supports over 250 faculty members in their exploration of brain development and decline, marking a significant leap forward in our understanding of the brain.
The Grand Challenges investment has been a game-changer, propelling our neuroscience community forward. “This is an investment in the UVA neuroscience community writ large,” Kapur said when the Grand Challenge support was announced. He founded the Brain Institute in 2016 and was involved with former co-director Sarah Kucenas and others on the Grand Challenges proposal process. “All the ideas people gave us, we captured,” Kucenas said. “We had something like a 40- to 50-page document at the end, and we sought to find the common threads throughout.”
Though there are specific areas of emphasis, the Grand Challenges are all about “encouraging wide interdisciplinary connections,” Kucenas said. “In addition to fostering collaborative research and clinical care, one of our other core missions is training and empowering the next generation of scientists and clinicians who will make new discoveries about the brain and advance research approaches and techniques for the benefit of patients.”
The Benefits Could Be Tremendous
Certain HIV drugs could prevent approximately 1 million new cases of Alzheimer’s disease every year.
Dr. Jayakrishna Ambati DuPont Guerry III Professor of Ophthalmology and Founding Director of Center for Advanced Vision Science
Nearly 7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease, a number expected to climb to 13 million in 25 years. Dr. Jayakrishna Ambati and the research team he leads analyzed two of the nation’s largest health insurance databases to evaluate Alzheimer’s risk among patients prescribed HIV medications called NRTIs. What they found was those taking NRTIs had a “significant and substantial” reduction in Alzheimer’s risk.
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Supporting the Smallest Patients
Dr. Karen Fairchild leads UVA’s Baby Brain Initiative, tracking the development of premature infants to better understand early brain growth and autism risk. Her research aims to identify warning signs early—and improve outcomes over a lifetime.
Dr. Karen Fairchild Chief of the Division of Neonatology and principal investigator for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
Dr. Karen Fairchild, chief of the Division of Neonatology, is leading a groundbreaking effort to follow premature infants well beyond the NICU. Through the Baby Brain Initiative, her team is studying how early birth affects long-term brain development, tracking signs that may be linked to autism or developmental delays. Premature infants face a higher risk of neurodevelopmental challenges, but many early warning signs go undetected until later in childhood—when interventions may be less effective.
By identifying patterns earlier, Fairchild’s research has the potential to change the standard of care for at-risk infants. Her work reflects the Brain Institute’s commitment to research that moves from bedside to breakthrough—and builds a better future for every child.
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Reimagining Brain Treatment with Sound
Richard Price is pioneering the use of focused soundwaves to treat cerebral cavernous malformations, a condition with few safe options. This noninvasive approach could change how this brain lesion is treated—and improve patient outcomes.
Richard J. Price (Engr ’92, ’95) Co-director of UVA Health’s Focused Ultrasound Cancer Immunotherapy Center
Cerebral cavernous malformations are clusters of abnormal blood vessels in the brain that can cause headaches, seizures, and even stroke. For many patients, surgical removal is the only option—but surgery carries major risks. At UVA, Richard Price is working on a safer alternative: using focused ultrasound to target and treat the malformations without opening the skull.
This innovative research combines engineering, neurosurgery, and soundwave science to explore how precise bursts of ultrasound can modify the blood-brain barrier and deliver treatment directly to affected tissue. This noninvasive approach could spare patients from high-risk procedures and represents a major leap forward in how we treat brain lesions.
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Gifts to create endowed professorships help retain distinguished faculty who are making a meaningful impact in their areas of...
The new Virginia Alzheimer’s Disease Center Data Commons is helping researchers like Dr. Carol Manning better understand and treat...
Daria Skwarzynka (Med ’24) believes in working together to discover something big. Learn about her research and how she...
Joanne Walsh’s positive experience at UVA Cancer Center inspired her to fund future research on brain cancer.
