American billionaire Len Blavatnik gives Yale $10 million for inflammation research

British-American billionaire Len Blavatnik's family foundation has given Yale School of Medicine $10 million to start a research initiative on inflammation, the body's immune response that scientists have linked to a wide range of chronic illnesses.

The grant from the Blavatnik Family Foundation, announced by the school on Wednesday, will fund research into inflammation as a subject in its own right, rather than only as a byproduct of disease. It also creates the Blavatnik Graduate and Postdoctoral Fellows program to train young scientists in the field. Yale did not say how many fellowships the money will pay for or over what period it will be spent.

"Yale School of Medicine's exceptional scientists are uniquely positioned to break new ground in inflammation science," Blavatnik said in a statement. "We are proud to support their efforts and promote new and integrated research for improved health."

The initiative will be led by Ruslan Medzhitov, a Sterling Professor of Immunobiology at Yale, whose work on the innate immune system, the body's first line of defense against infection, helped shape how scientists understand inflammation. Researchers from cell biology, physiology, neuroscience and genetics will work alongside immunologists.

From the womb to the brain

The scientists plan to study how infection, the environment and the microbes living in the gut shape immune responses and inflammation, from fetal development to brain health. One strand of the work will map the links between the gut and the brain, including how small molecules made by gut microbes affect tissues elsewhere in the body.

Other researchers involved include Akiko Iwasaki, also a Sterling Professor of Immunobiology, who studies how viruses such as the one that causes Covid-19 can permanently change the immune system. Noah Palm, a professor of immunobiology, researches how the microbiome affects immune health, and Liza Konnikova, an associate professor of pediatrics and immunobiology, works on immunity in early life.

"Inflammation underlies nearly every disease we face today, and unraveling mechanisms of inflammation in health and disease can transform medicine for generations to come," said Nancy J. Brown, dean of the medical school.

Medzhitov, who won the first Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists in 2007, called the grant "transformative." He said private money allows "creative, high-risk research that is often constrained by the rigid structure of federal funding." Federal support for university science in the U.S. has come under pressure since President Donald Trump's administration cut or froze billions of dollars in research grants in 2025.

A long relationship with Yale

It is at least the third $10 million gift from the Blavatnik Family Foundation to Yale. In 2013 it gave $10 million to Medzhitov and fellow immunobiologist Richard Flavell to test the idea that inflammation can upset the body's internal balance and lead to chronic disease. In 2016 it gave another $10 million to set up the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale, which helps turn laboratory discoveries into companies.

Blavatnik, 69, was born in the Soviet Union and moved to the United States in 1978. He later took British citizenship and was knighted in 2017 for services to philanthropy. He built his fortune through Access Industries, the New York-based holding company he founded in 1986, which controls Warner Music Group and sports streaming service DAZN.

His foundation has made large gifts to universities on both sides of the Atlantic. It pledged $200 million to Harvard Medical School in 2018 and funded the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. It also runs the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the U.S., the U.K. and Israel. Blavatnik's fortune is estimated at about $37.7 billion.