Napster Cofounder Launches Cancer Initiative

Billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sean Parker donates $250 million to unite the cancer research community around the common goal of developing new immunotherapies.

Written byBob Grant
| 1 min read

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WIKIMEDIA, AMAGERThe Parker Foundation, a philanthropic organization created by Napster cofounder Sean Parker, is giving a big boost to cancer research, with a $250 million donation meant to increase collaboration among scientists and institutions focused on immunotherapy research. The foundation announced its plan to launch the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy today (April 13).

Parker’s cancer immunotherapy initiative will bring together more than 300 scientists in 40 labs at major research institutions, including Stanford University, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), the University of Pennsylvania, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, among others. “Cancer immunotherapy is such an incredibly complex field, and for every answer it seems to pose 10 more questions,” Parker told The Washington Post. “I’m an entrepreneur so I wish some of these questions had been answered yesterday.”

The researchers and institutions will share data and intellectual property on innovations that arise from the Parker Foundation-funded work. “The Parker Institute’s goal is to accelerate the development of breakthrough immune therapies capable of turning cancer into a curable disease by ensuring the coordination and collaboration of ...

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  • From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.

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