Our Priorities
Discover opportunities to empower researchers.
Philanthropy can be a powerful driver for cutting edge science, enabling creative and accomplished biomedical researchers to pursue path-breaking discovery. By providing financial support to Whitehead Institute, donors make clear their deep commitment to knowledge and scientific discovery, to nurturing excellence, to advancing innovative science, and to translating new knowledge to improve human health. Please consider these opportunities to empower Whitehead Institute scientists to shape the future of medicine and health care. Your support today will yield benefits for decades to come.
At the heart of Whitehead Institute is its Faculty and a deeply collaborative culture that encourages startling new ideas to propel science forward. Whitehead Institute Members are widely honored for scientific discoveries, intellectual risk-taking, and the development of innovative research methods that advance the conduct of science in significant ways.
The David Baltimore Chair in Biomedical Research at Whitehead Institute
Named after Nobel prize-winning scientist David Baltimore, the David Baltimore Chair honors his tremendous legacy as the first Director of Whitehead Institute. Under Baltimore’s leadership, Whitehead Institute became one of the world’s preeminent institutions for foundational biomedical research. The Baltimore Chair will be held by a senior Member of the Institute.
Unrestricted annual gifts are extraordinarily important to Whitehead Institute. They help the Institute to respond nimbly to emerging opportunities and unexpected challenges; and they provide seed funding for innovation and intellectual risk-taking. In other words, unrestricted gifts better enable Whitehead Institute to have impact.
Advancing biomedical science to improve human health is Whitehead Institute’s core mission. And our Faculty, Fellows, staff scientists, and trainees are recognized for their insight and creativity in identifying opportunities and developing new methods for answering the most important research questions in biomedicine.
The Whitehead Fellows Program enables extraordinarily talented young scientists to begin pursuing their scientific visions and launch independent labs right out of graduate school—instead of joining a senior researcher’s lab.
The Angelika Amon Whitehead Fellowship
To honor visionary scientist Angelika Amon, who passed away in October 2020, Whitehead Institute has established the Angelika Amon Whitehead Fellowship.
Newly minted PhD recipients from across the globe come to Whitehead Institute for appointments as postdoctoral researchers. The caliber of these smart and talented young scientists is unsurpassed. They drive our laboratories forward, day-to-day, helping advance Institute Members’ research initiatives while developing their own technical skills and scientific visions.
Teaching and mentoring MIT graduate students is central to Whitehead Institute’s research and education mission.
Pioneering basic science research depends on cutting-edge technologies. Our world-class technical facilities are key to our scientists’ ability to ask insightful questions and pursue detailed answers that advance knowledge on health and disease.
Whitehead Institute’s commitment to training the next generation of scientists extends beyond the graduate students we train and the postdoctoral researchers we mentor.