The Vilcek Foundation

???Today, The Vilcek Foundation remains committed to our mission to recognize and celebrate immigrant contributions to the sciences, arts, and culture, and to raise awareness of the value of immigration for a robust society. ???? As our President Rick Kinsel notes, "When the Vilcek Foundation was established in 2000, immigrant rights and issues were not at the forefront of public debate. Now, two decades later, the conversation has shifted dramatically." ???We’re especially heeding the words of Romanian-born scientist Dan Littman, recipient of the 2016 Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science: "More than ever, it is important to recognize that so much of what makes America a great country, is because of what others have brought from different cultures all over the world.” ???We invite you learn more about the Vilcek Foundation’s mission and history, and hear from past prizewinners themselves about the need to remain steadfast and unflinching in our support of immigrants and those at the vanguard of the arts and sciences, who help make the United States truly great: https://vilcek.org/about/ #Art #Science #ArtsandSciences #ImmigrantRights #ImmigrantStories #ImmigrantsMakeAmericaGreat #ImmigrantArtist #ImmigrantScientist #VilcekFoundation #Grantmaking #Philanthropy #Nonprofit #NonprofitLeaders #JanVilcek #MaricaVilcek #Immigration

Ever wonder how our immune system keeps us healthy during cold and flu season? According to Dr. Michaela Gack, recipient of a 2017 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science and Scientific Director of the Cleveland Clinic Florida Research and Innovation Center, once we fight off a virus, our immune system does its best to protect us from a second infection. Born in Germany, Michaela received the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise for uncovering molecular mechanisms by which the human immune system triggers antiviral defenses, and for identifying potential vaccine and drug targets for emerging infectious diseases. This week for the Cleveland Clinic, she explains why it’s important to get a flu and COVID-19 vaccine every year. If the vaccine is similar to the virus that’s circulating, your immune system recognizes it and offers some protection, resulting in milder illness. ?? Read on to learn more from Michaela about the immune system’s defenses and the role vaccines can play: https://lnkd.in/esachGms ?? Check out our video and profile on Michaela's work at The Vilcek Foundation: https://lnkd.in/eaf7rRzr #Science #STEM #BiomedicalScience #ImmuneSystem #Immunology #Vaccines #COVID19 #WomeninScience #WomeninSTEM #ClevelandClinic #FluSeason #FluShot

?? Vilcek Creative Promise Prizewinner Tomasz Jan Nowakowski is the senior author of a new study on the potential application of optogenetics to treat epilepsy. Born in Poland, Nowakowski first moved to the United States to pursue postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) following the completion of his PhD at The University of Edinburgh. He is now an Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery and Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco - School of Medicine. Optogenetics involves delivering light-sensitive genes to particular neurons in the brain, and then activating these genes with pulses of light. Under Nowakowski's direction, researchers at the UCSF, University of California, Santa Cruz and University of California, Berkeley used the technique to control seizeure-like activity in brain tissue taken from epilepsy patients. Join us in congratulating Dr. Nowakowski on this outstanding research! We look forward to what comes next. ?? Read a summary of the research at UCSF: https://lnkd.in/e2Fm4upu ?? Access the full paper at Nature Neuroscience: https://lnkd.in/eXUFE_3i ?? Read more about Tomasz Nowakowski at The Vilcek Foundation: https://lnkd.in/e83NHQJu ?? Nature Neuroscience is a publication of Nature Portfolio. #Science #BiomedicalScience #Epilepsy #DiversityinSTEM #Optogenetics #Neuroscience #Neurology #EpilepsyResearch #UCSF #ImmigrantsinSTEM

A new study co-led by Michael Halassa, a professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and recipient of the 2017 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science, identifies neurological activity biomarkers that can be a diagnostic tool for symoptoms of schizophrenia. Scientists have long known that certain symptoms of the disorder—like jumping to conclusions or difficulty adjusting to new information—can be attributed to poor communication between the cerebral cortex and the thalamus, known as the brain’s central switchboard. Published in Cell Reports Medicine, Halassa's research offers one of the first biological tests to assess whether someone is prone to inflexible thinking. Monitoring changes in these patterns could offer clinicians a new way to measure whether interventions are working. ???? Born in Jordan, Halassa received the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise for identifying circuits in the thalamus that act as tunable filters. He completed his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, and his postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://vilcek.co/4fvaIt6 #Tufts #Vanderbilt #TuftsMedicine #Neuroscience #STEM #Science #ImmigrantScientist #SchizophreniaResearch #Research #BiomedicalScience #MIT #PennAlumni #VilcekPrizes

A new exhibition at Guggenheim New York examines the vibrant abstract art of Orphism in Paris from 1910-1930. The Vilcek Foundation is proud to support the exhibition with loans from the Vilcek Collection. Works on loan for the exhibition include paintings by American modernists Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell, the founders of Synchromism. Synchromism, which means “with color,” was a movement at the center of Orphism, in which color became an independent expressive and formal element in painting. Paintings, including "Synchromist Still Life" were previously highlighted in the Foundation’s 2020 exhibition, “The Synchromists.” “Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910-1930” is on view now at the Guggenheim Museum through March 9, 2025. https://lnkd.in/eFSZGVTh #Art #Museum #Synchromism #GuggenheimMuseum #Guggenheim #AmericanArt #AbstractArt #ImmigrantArtist #Orphism #ArtCollection #AmericanModernism #VilcekCollection #Philanthropy #nonprofitart

If you or someone you know is an asylum seeker, the future might feel more uncertain than ever. In the wake of the recent presidential election, the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP) has published a list of recommendations that they believe asylum seekers should consider following before January 2025, when the new administration takes office. Recommendations include: * Applying for your first work permit if you are eligible; * Applying to renew your work permit if it will expire before 2028; * Applying for Temporary Protected Status; * Applying for another immigration status in addition to asylum; * And signing up for free ASAP membership to get urgent immigration updates. You can read more about ASAP’s recommendations at https://lnkd.in/e29cvtyA #Immigration #Advocacy #Asylum #ImmigrantRights #Nonprofit #AsylumSeekers #Philanthropy #ImmigrationPolicy #Immigration #LegalAid

New research investigates one of cancer's most audacious tricks in proliferating in a host's body: stashing cancer-driving genes in circular pieces of DNA outside chromosomes. A trio of new studies involving two separate recipients of Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science reveals the unfair advantage this extrachromosomal DNA, or ecDNA, grants tumors. Physician-scientist Howard Chang of Stanford University, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator, co-led two of the studies. Another, more preliminary project is also underway in team member and HHMI Investigator Harmit Malik’s lab at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, where postdoc Grant King is studying a unique variety of ecDNA found not in cancer, but in fungi. For their research discoveries, Chang and Malik were awarded Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science in 2009 and 2010, respectively. ?? Follow the link below to learn more about the essential research being carried out as part of what researchers have named Team eDyNAmiC: https://lnkd.in/g4u2-iQa #Science #Scientists #CancerScience #BiomedicalScience #ImmigrantScientists #STEM #HHMI #NewResearch #CancerResearch #ecDNA #VilcekPrizes

On Thursday, November 14th from 7-8pm, Asia Art Archive in America will host author Anne Anlin Cheng and curator Iris Moon for a reading and conversation around themes shared in Cheng’s new book, "Ordinary Disasters: How I Stopped Being a Model Minority." For the conversation, Cheng and Moon will discuss themes within and external to the book, including larger questions of what it means to be an Asian American woman living and working in the U.S. today. The Asia Art Archive in America's mission to collect, preserve, and make accessible information on contemporary art from and of Asia deeply aligns with The Vilcek Foundation's goals, and in 2023 we awarded them a grant in support of their programming. Our relationship with AAAinA was championed and fostered by the late Jung Lee Sanders, a former Board Member and vital steward of the arts who passed away this fall. Follow the link below to learn more and RSVP: https://lnkd.in/gH6GStjA #AsiaArtArchive #AsiaArtArchiveinAmerica #AAAinA #BookTalk #AsianAmerican #Grantmaking #Philanthropy #Author #AuthorConversation #Literature #Writer

?? ?? "I begin to break my mother's heart the day I leave Zimbabwe on an unseasonably cold August morning, brown leaves raining down from the msasa trees. At twenty-nine, I am a late leaver..." So begins Chido Muchemwa's "This Will Break My Mother's Heart," one of a dozen short stories in her debut collection, "Who Will Bury You? And other stories" from House of Anansi Press. On Monday, November 18 at 7:00 pm, Muchemwa will be joined by fellow author Simon Van Booy at the Strand Book Store for a talk on the work. The program is presented as part of a series celebrating first-time authors. Tickets are still available for next Monday's program! Learn more about Muchemwa and reserve your ticket at Eventbrite. ??? https://lnkd.in/e-tDDCUF #Author #Strand #NYCBooks #Literary #Literature #Publishing #Writing #Authors #ImmigrantAuthors #Zimbabwe #Zimbabwean

New research published in conjunction with Aviv Regev, a recipient of the 2009 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science, forms a valuable basis for future studies into the biology of metastatic breast cancer.? ? A single biopsy from a metastatic breast cancer tumor contains hundreds of thousands of cells—some cancerous and others part of the complex web of immune cells, blood vessels, and supportive tissue that surround a tumor. Researchers have typically analyzed these cells as a mixed-together group, but this approach can miss rare cell types, and makes it difficult to draw conclusions about how cells interact to drive the disease.? ? In a comprehensive study, an international team of researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Stanford University, and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t München has shown that state-of-the-art methods that analyze cells individually or within intact tissue can reveal new insight into the diversity of cells that make up metastatic breast cancers.? ? Aviv Regev, a computational biologist, is Head and Executive Vice President of Genentech Research and Early Development and leads the Regev Lab at the Broad Institute.? ? Read on to learn more about the study published in Nature Medicine: https://lnkd.in/eQZCGhHj ? #STEM #Science #WomeninScience #WomeninSTEM #ComputationalBiology #BreastCancer #BreastCancerAwareness #MetastaticBreastCancer #NewResearch #Biology #Cancer